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WRITERS &
MOUNTAINS |
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LOCAL COLOR MOVEMENT (1870's - 1880's) The "local color movement" was not so much a movement as it was a defining congruence of the romantic literature of the 1830's and 1840's with the realism of the 1890's, so goes the description in Henry Shapiro's Appalachia On My Mind, (1978). Magazines such as Lippincott's Magazine of Literature and Science, Scribner's, The Century, The Living Age, Appleton's and especially Harper's New Monthly Magazine, promoted a literature that was designed to entertain and to please the popular taste for illustrated literature. Not unlike the marketing of today, these new magazines aimed to address "all readers of average intelligence," for "their entertainment and illumination, meeting in a general way the varied claims of their human intellect and sensibility, and in this accommodation following the lines of their aspiration." (See J. Henry Harper, The House of Harper, p. 87.) |
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Reid 1877 |
CHRISTIAN REID This work, more than any other of the so-called "local color" writing, gave rise to the description of western North Carolina as the "Land of the Sky," a phrase that continues to be used in the literature about the region. Like many of her travel pieces, "Adventures in the 'Land of the Sky,'" was a serialized story for Appleton's Journal. In this piece Reid uses a jaunty little romantic intrigue among travelers who go to a particular locale where she explores the region's tourist attractions. As a narrative vehicle to describe the local amenities, this little novelette manages to touch on most all the favored scenic locations and routes in the western region of the state. Far too many believe that "Land of the Sky" is a phrase used only for Asheville or for Buncombe County, but in this work it is clear that the author fully intended that the phrase be descriptive of all of western North Carolina. In "Adventures in the 'Land of the Sky,'" we learn about the process of being a tourist, about contemporary thoughts on tourism, and we get a considerable banter about class and life-style. When the story picks up in this excerpt the travelers are already well into their journey. "When we set forth again, the afternoon has little heat in its soft glory. After leaving Alexander's, we turn abruptly from the stage road straight toward the dark mountains that stand like giants before us. As we advance, these great heights, which make others seem like pigmy hills, enclose us on all sides, wearing every tint of dark purple and blue. Their majestic loneliness, their wild grandeur, strike one with a sense of absolute awe. We look at them, in the everlasting fixity of their repose, and realize-as perhaps it has never chanced to us to realize before-the brevity and insignificance of our existence. "I don't wonder that mountaineers, as a rule, are melancholy," says Sylvia, who is riding behind the phaeton. " If I lived always in the shadow of these mountains, I should feel their solemnity in every act of my life; I should never be able to throw it off." "You think so because you never have lived in their shadow," says Eric. "If you did, you would soon discover that their solemnity, which strikes you so much now, would affect you very little." "' They emblem that eternal rest we cannot compass in our speech,"' she says, in a low voice, looking at the splendid masses as they tower against the sky, wrapped in eternal silence and motionless calm. The sun has dropped behind the hills that hem us in, and a few broken masses of gorgeous clouds are floating above the dark-blue peaks of Craggy, when we reach the house where we are to spend the night -- Patton's, at the foot of the mountain. It is a rough place, poorly kept-hotels for tourists have not yet risen in these fastnesses - but the people, here as elsewhere, are civil, obliging, and ready to give us their best. "The Land of the Sky;" or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, Chapter X Christian Reid, pp. 737-741 Western North Carolina offers a most attractive field, and is, after all (even from a nineteenth-century point of view), very easy of access. Geographically considered, no one can fail to perceive the incomparable advantages of the region. ........ there is an equability of temperature so remarkable that it does not require the gift of prophecy to foresee that the country must in time become the greatest health-resort on the eastern slope of the continent. That it has not already become so can only be attributed to the fact that it is still very much a terra incognita to invalids and tourists. Asheville and the Warm Springs enjoy a certain measure of fame-the first having of late come prominently into notice as a place of residences for consumptives; the last having for fifty or more years possessed in the Southern States a wide popularity as a watering-place. Situated within three miles of the Tennessee border, on the banks of the rushing French Broad, where that river cuts its way through the Smoky Mountains, these healing springs are peculiarly accessible from the Gulf States. Mobile and New Orleans, as well as Nashville and Memphis, send representatives here every summer, who form a very agreeable society; but they are, as a rule, people who like the gay routine of watering place life, and who rarely penetrate into the mountains, though the scenes of wild loveliness around might allure them to farther quest of the treasures which Nature hides in the folds of the great hills. On the high plateau of Henderson County another place of noted resort is found at Flat Rock, where, long before the war, a number of wealthy planters from the sea-coast of South Carolina erected summer residences, and where their beautiful homes still form a delightful neighborhood. Within these limits Western Carolina may be said to be known-partially, at least - but beyond them lies county after county, rich in the most wonderful gifts of Nature, of which even Carolinians-" I speak this to their shame "-know less than they know of the Alps or the Yosemite. Let us take a glance at the map, to assist us in forming some idea of the extent of the region. We perceive that it is encircled by two great mountain-chains-the Blue Ridge forming its eastern boundary, the Great Smoky the western-within which lies an elevated land, two hundred and fifty miles in length, with an average breadth of fifty miles. It is also traversed by cross-chains, that run directly across the country, and from which spurs of greater or lesser height lead off in all directions. Of these transverse ranges there are four-the Black, the Balsam, the Cullowhee, and Nantahala. Between each lies a region of valleys, formed by the noble rivers and their minor tributaries, where a healthful atmosphere and picturesque surroundings are combined with a soil of singular fertility. The Blue Ridge is the natural barrier dividing the waters falling into the Atlantic Ocean from those of the Mississippi Valley, and its bold and beautiful heights are better known than the grander steeps of the western chain. It abounds in scenery of the most romantic description. The streams that burst from the brows of the mountains leap down their sides in unnumbered flashing cascades, while cliffs and palisades of rock diversify the splendid sweep of towering peaks and lofty pinnacles, where "A'wildering forest feathers o'er The ruined sides and summits hoar." Especially when approached from the eastern side, the grandeur of this range is most perceptible, and along its entire course, from Virginia to Georgia, it is broken by gaps which in picturesque beauty cannot be rivaled. The most magnificent of these gateways is Hickory-Nut Gap, where for nine miles the traveler winds upward to the realm of the clouds along a narrow pass of inexpressible loveliness, hemmed before, around, and behind, by stately heights, the road no more than a shelf along the mountain - side, and far below the Broad River, whirling and foaming over its countless rocks amid a wilderness of almost tropical foliage. Then, when the top of the gap is reached-where for forty years has stood an excellent house of entertainment known as "Sherrill's "-what a view of the land which one has entered is spread unto "the fine, faint limit of the bounding day!" Mountains, mountains, and yet again mountains, fading into the enchanting softness of azure distance, with a paradise of happy valleys lying between! From crested hill to level meadow, a greenness which is like a benediction clothes all the nearer prospect, while afar the swelling heights wear tints so heavenly that no artist's pigments could reproduce them. A subtle sense of repose seems borne in every aspect of the scene. One feels that if any spot of earth holds a charm for a weary body, or disquieted spirit, that charm is here. On the western side of this "land of the sky" runs the chain of the Great Smoky —comprising the groups of the Iron, the Unaka, and the Roan Mountains-which, from its massiveness of form and general elevation, is the master-chain of the whole Alleghany range. Though its highest summits are a few feet lower than the peaks of the Black Mountain, it presents a continuous series of high peaks which nearly approach that altitude - its culminating point, Clingman's Dome, rising to the height of six thousand six hundred and sixty feet. Though its magnitude is much greater than that of the Blue Ridge, this range is cut at various points by the mountain-rivers, which with resistless impetuosity tear their way through the heart of its superb heights in gorges of terrific grandeur. Scenery grand as any which tourists cross a continent to admire is buried in these remote fastnesses, utterly unknown save to the immediate inhabitants of the country, and a few adventurous spirits who have penetrated thither." "There is a greater attraction in the unknown than in the known, however; and the traveler who has followed the French Broad to where it surges around Mountain Island and sweeps beneath Paint Rock; who has stood on the hills of Asheville, and admired the gentle loveliness of the valleys which encompass it; who has tracked the Swannanoa to its birthplace in the ice-cold springs of the Black Mountain, and climbed to the summit of that Appalachian patriarch-it is natural that such a traveler, turning his back on these places made familiar by exploration, should look with longing at the dark chain of the Balsam, forming so lofty a barrier between himself and the still wilder, still more beautiful region that lies farther westward. If he possesses courage and resolution, if he does not shrink from trifling hardships, and if he can endure cheerfully a few inconveniences, let him resolve to scale those heights, and gaze at least upon all that lies beyond. There is very little difficulty in executing such a resolution, and nobody who can appreciate the sublime in natural scenery, or who likes the zest of adventure, will ever regret having executed it." Reid, Christian. "The Mountain-Region of North Carolina," Appleton's Journal: a magazine of general literature, vol 2, issue 3, March 1877, pp. 194-195, 198
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Davis 1875 1880 |
REBECCA HARDING DAVIS -
"A NIGHT IN THE MOUNTAINS" "They left the low bottoms of the Saluda River, where the Sevier plantations lay, and, crossing the Nantahela Mountains, reached the high table-lands of North Carolina. For two or three weeks they passed slowly through the mightiest peaks of the Appalachian chain; now going down into some fertile valley, with its solitary, dilapidated farm-house; now into some vast canion or succession of gorges, fastnesses inhabited only by the bear or wolf; or up* into the heights, while the clouds wrapped the base of the mountain at their feet. At night they stopped at a farm-house, where host and hostess with their dozen children, gaunt, gigantic, and dirty, but invariably kindly and low-voiced, made room for them; or perhaps in a hunter's log-hut, with plenty of dogs, tame bears, and fleas, for company. Tom Sevier had hunted through these ranges when he was a young man, and found many old friends. The solitary mountaineers meet so few strangers that they keep close hold on them in their memories. They had much talk with him, too, of Stoneman's raid and the "s'render," which seemed to them a matter of yesterday, although it was ten years ago. They dated even the ages of their children by it. Fred, who had fought on the other side, always joined in the talk, and there was hearty good-humor all round, unless Mrs. Sevier was present. Her pale, darklined face was quite calm, but everybody felt latent thunder in the air. "Betty says little, but the whole spirit of the rebellion is smouldering within her," Tom said to Dr. Keyes, with an apologetic laugh. Day by day Fred was led to wonder more what other secret fire was smouldering within her. Tom himself, as Keyes soon found, was an incomparable comrade with whom to go vagabondizing. He was alive, zealous, full of practical good sense and information. Whether it was politics, mica-mining, bear-baiting, or a weed or bird by the wayside that attracted Fred, Sevier's knowledge of it was full and accurate. Fred spoke of this to his cousin Betty one day. She nodded indifferently. "Mr. Sevier has been a closer student than is usually supposed," she said, in her thin, pleasant voice, the accent always on the drawled first syllable. "The sweetest-tempered man, too, that I ever knew," pursued Fred, watching her jealously. She nodded again, smiled civilly, and turned her eyes again on the lofty peaks above her, the inexplicable questioning look rising in her face slowly. "You take very little interest in facts?" Fred persisted. "I observe you seldom listen to Sevier's explanations." She did not answer for a moment. "When I traveled over these mountains before, other meanings were given to them than' profitable timber-lands' or' investments for capital in mining."' That afternoon Fred and Sevier walked on ahead. "You brought Cousin Betty here on your wedding journey?" Keyes asked. "No. She never was in the mountains before. It is all new to her." Dr. Keyes made a note of this point. Here was a chapter, and, he suspected, a chapter full of meaning, in Mrs. Sevier's life, of which her husband had been kept in total ignorance. Like most young men fresh from their books, Fred believed himself to be a most impartial student of human nature. His cousin Betty was a specimen of a genus unknown to him." Davis, Rebecca Harding. "A Night in the Mountains ," Appletons' Journal: A Magazie of General Literature, vol.3, issue 6, Dec. 1877, pp. 505-506 Davis, Rebecca Harding. "The Yares of Black Mountain," Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Science and Literature 16: July 1875, pp.35-47
Davis, Rebecca Harding. "Qualla," Lippincott's Magazine 16: 576-86 (November 1875). BY-PATHS IN THE MOUNTAINS PART I : "The history of all summering places is alike. An adventurous artist usually ventures into a new field, and whispers his discovery to his friends. Scenery is well-nigh as popular a hobby just now as household decoration. After him come pell-mell the would-be aesthetics, and later the mere fashionables, as the flock follows the tinkle of the bell-weather, and up go the mammoth hotels as fast as mushrooms spring on a May morning on betramped sheep-walks." PART II: "The road to Asheville is rough but safe. Our party sent on their baggage, and stopped at a way-side farm-house, “Alexander’s,” about twelve miles from Asheville. Mr. Alexander, a hale, sprightly young man of eighty, who, like all other farmers in the mountains, “took in” travellers, gave them an excellent supper and comfortable beds, and sent them on the next day, on mules and a shackly old cart, up the steep trail to the house of the guide, William Glass, the last human habitation in the wilderness out of which rises Mouut Mitchell, his head covered with a perpetual heavy shadow, like some black-cowled old monk keeping watch over the Atlantic coast. The road followed stolidly the windings of a pearly little river, the Swannanoa, through dank snaky fens, through stately park-like forests, into deep creeks of chocolate-colored water rushing down from the pine regions above. It passed, during the first few miles, a few log-huts built in two rows, with an open passageway between wide enough to drive a wagon through. There the family life of the mountaineers goes on the year round, open to wind and weather; there hang the guns, harness, hams, and apples and onions; there is the spinning-wheel, and the loom, built out of huge timbers, on which the butternut clothes which the men wear are woven; there the men and women, with their finely moulded [sic]Huguenot faces, sit smoking corn-cob pipes in dirt, poverty, and good-humored content inconceivable to Northerners. The road to Glass’s crosses several spurs of the Great Black range. This range takes its funereal color from the balsam with which its summits are covered—a tree which will only grow above a height of four thousand feet. The range strikes across the mountain region of the Carolinas and Tennessee like an angry tremendous shadow. Upon the summit of the highest peak Professor Mitchell was killed by falling from a precipice, and was buried by the United States government, in an unusual freak of poetic justice, on the very summit. His name was given to the mountain. Such monument no man ever had." Davis, Rebecca Harding. "By-paths in the Mountains I," Harper's New Monthly Magazine. 61: 167-185 (July 1880). [p.369] "There are always one or two families of educated, well-bred
people. They have little money. but they feel the need of it less here
than anywhere else in the States. They live in roomy wooden houses, the
walls, ceilings, and floors frequently made of a purlplish stained poplar,
which no Persian carpet or tapestry could rival in beauty; they buy no new
books, but they have read the old ones until they are live friends; they
never saw a Gerome or a Fortuny, but their windows open on dusky valleys,
delicate in beauty as a
To see a complete bibliography for Rebecca Harding Davis, go to http://www.lehigh.edu/~dek7/SSAWW/writDavisBiblio.htm |
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| Woolson 1875 |
CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON
THE FRENCH BROAD. Like Christian Reid's "Adventures in the 'Land of the Sky,'" this story by Woolson brings a group of travelers together for an adventure in the western North Carolina mountains. In this travel account, the personalities of the travelers are more welldeveloped and the psychological dynamic of the group is foregrounded in the story. The mountains serve as a scenic stage setting for the little dramas that take place between the traveling party.
Woolson, Constance Fenimore. "The French Broad," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 50 (1875):617-636 In this little story, elements of "Esmeralda," and of "A Half-Life and Half-a-Life," may be seen. It is a story of divided love that centers on the lives of the people, but people defined by where they live and what they know of "mountain living.". UP IN THE BLUE RIDGE "....... Honor was his niece; she shared in his love and his poverty like his own children. Mrs. Eliot, a dimpled, soft-cheeked, faded woman, did not quite like Honor's office of librarian even if it did add two hundred dollars to their slender income-none of Honor's family, none of her family, had ever been librarians. "But we are so poor now," said Honor. "None the less ladies, I hope, my dear," said the elder woman, tapping her niece's shoulder with her pink-tipped, taper fingers. Honor's hands, however, showed traces of work. She had hated to see them grow coarse, and had cried over them; and then she had gone to church, flung herself down upon her knees, offered up her vanity and her roughened palms as a sacrifice, and, coming home, had insisted upon washing out all the iron pots and saucepans, although old Chloe stood ready to do that work with tears in her eyes over her young mistress's obstinacy. It was when this zeal of Honor's was burning brightest, and her self- mortifications were at their height-which means that she was eighteen, imaginative, and shut up in a box-that an outlet was suddenly presented to her. The old library at Ellerby Mill was resuscitated, reopened, endowed with new life, new books, and a new floor, and the position of librarian offered to her. In former days the South had a literary taste of its own unlike anything at the North. It was a careful and correct taste, founded principally upon old English authors; and it would have delighted the soul of Charles Lamb, who, being constantly told that he should be more modern, should write for posterity, gathered his unappreciated manuscripts to his breast, and declared that henceforth he would write only for antiquity. Nothing more un-modern than the old-time literary culture of the South could well be imagined; it delighted in old editions of old authors; it fondly turned their pages, and quoted their choice passages; it built little libraries here and there, like the one at Ellerby Mill Woolson, Constance Fenimore."Up In the Blue Ridge." Appleton's Journal 5 (1878): 104-25. |
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| Burnett 1877 |
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT ESMERALDA France Hodgson Burnett was born in Great Britain but grew up in the Knoxville, Tennessee area. One of her most famous works was a short play she wrote with the American playwright William H. Gillette, who lived for a time in Tryon, NC. The play called, "Esmeralda," was begun while she was vacationing in the Chimney Rock area in 1877. She stayed at "Logan's" mentioned in most of the early accounts of the area. "Logan's" named for its owner Judge George Washington Logan, a Confederate congressman, was, like the near-by Sherrill's Inn, a way-station for the stage-coach traffic that made its way back and forth through Hickory Nut Gap into the Asheville basin. Logan's was later re-named Harris Inn, and remained an inn until recently. Today the original house that was the inn remains, but it is in private ownership with only cottages available to the public. Substantially remodeled, it is known as Pine Gables. Judge Logan was most likely in residence when Burnett came there to stay. We get our information from the account in Margaret Morley's The Carolina Mountains, written some years later in 1913. She is best known for a short story that was later turned into a play in four acts. Set in Paris, the story of "Esmeralda" does not describe the mountains of western North Carolina, but the author has evoked the mystery and the yearning for those mountains to such a degree in her story that the mountains run like a sub-plot throughout the simple tale. Essentially the plot is of two lovers pulled apart by a grasping mother who want to raise her daughter's cultural level and standing in society. Using money that came from an iron [?] mine on their North Carolina property, the parents take the daughter to Paris where she pines away. Her lover soon follows her to Paris where his health fails and the mother refuses to allow the two to see one another. The father finally relents to his daughters pleas and then the lover finds that he is the owner of an even greater fortune in a gold mine and the tables are turned on the grasping mother. The essence of the story is a moral tale of cultural tension. High culture looses to low culture and boy gets girl, but poverty is overcome, raising the whole to the values of "High" culture. The short story was turned into a play with the help of well-known playwright William Gillette who was a resident for a time in Tryon. The play reviewed as a "comedy" was well received in the Madison Square Garden theater in New York and played several more times in theaters in Plainfield, New Jersey and again in New York twelve years later. When the story appeared in a leading journal the reputation of Burnett soared and she was broadly imitated other authors who wrote in and about Appalachia. Burnett, Frances. "Esmeralda," Scribners Monthly: an illustrated magazine for the people, Vol. 14, Issue 1, May 1877, pp.80-91. See also: Burnett, Frances Hodgson, 1849-1924 Jarl's daughter, and other novelettes. Freeport, N.Y., Books for Libraries Press [1969] |
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