Writers and Mountains  12

Quotes Full List

Western North Carolina is rich in mountains. They are, in fact, our defining aesthetic. Many who have traveled to western North Carolina have written about, drawn, painted or have photographed the geography of their mind's eye. In the art of those who live and have lived here, mountains are in their brain. These many writers and artists have left us their recorded impressions of the mountains and the people, and it is out of this rich cultural repository that this exhibit pulls its statement.

Long mountain vistas are described with rhapsodic language and enumerations of the many hues of blue find their way into almost all accounts. Some accounts relate factual information and quantitative assessments such as the relative mountain heights, the varieties and numbers of trees found in the forest, the industries and economics of the vast resources found in the mountain geology.  Some reports are more fabulous tales that are pulled straight from the imagination. Other narratives look closely at the people who inhabit the mountains and their cultural life-style is dissected against the sub-text of mountain life. Artists and photographers, like the writers,  have captured long rolling views of the mountain ranges, mysterious forest interiors, magnificent trees, tender rhododendron, and the gentle mists and fogs that lend a timeless sense to the region. Writers and artists have captured in their own voice, and through their own lens, the people as they lived, worked, traveled, and explored the region and some of these reflections are excerpted in this exhibit to help the reader to start the journey of exploration of our western North Carolina mountains.

Some of the writers, artists and photographers have walked many of the familiar trails found in this region. These trails will become familiar to the reader, for they appear again and again in the descriptive travel literature and in the fiction of the region. Many of the trails and paths have been on the travel and tourist circuit since the late 1700's. Some are remnants of old Cherokee trails, but some pathways are new and are now part of the many back-raods and hiking trails used by visitors to the region.  Some of the more interesting mountain trails are documented in the UNCA archive of the Carolina Mountain Club, a local hiking club still active today. Some of these mountain trails are well known, while others are remote and arduous. As the writers/hikers recounted their journeys to the deep forest and up the steep mountains and to unknown waterfalls and along "brawling" creeks and "sparkling rivlets," they have captured the terror of deep forests and wild animals and they have stood on the tops of our mountains and looked out across "wave after wave of blue." In their writing and in their images, they ask us to share with them the beauty and the awe of this mountainous region.

Some of these accounts of the mountains were never drawn from the actual journey, but were constructed from what the writer believed to be the essence of the mountain experience. While the writers may never have left the hotel or never have ventured deeply into the mountains, mountains abound in their accounts of the area. It would be difficult to miss the ruggedly beautiful geography, as no travel to the area is possible unless a mountain is crossed. It is our pervasive geography that finds its way into their accounts, and in fact,  that is credited with physically shaping what came to be known as the Southern Appalachian region. Yet, whether there exists a place called "Appalachia" has been called into question by recent postmodern debates.  Just what defines this region, may be the picture that some say exists only in the mind. Henry Shapiro's Appalachia On Our Mind (1978) makes a strong case for this perceptual reality.

The accounts of mountains, however real or imaginary, abound in this literature.  Too, there is no doubt that text and image have helped to construct the reality of  western North Carolina in the minds of those who live here, as well as those readers who have never set foot on our mountains. While some say the mountains have been shaped by the literature  ---- this is of course foolish. We, who live here know that we have been shaped by the mountains. All the "shaping" that has occurred over the years has yielded a literature that is spatially redundant, unique, peculiar, colorful, uplifting, florid, depressing and complex. In all their manifestations, geography, history, literature, and the mountains themselves,  appear in these collected works and they speak to us about what we have come to know to be the Appalachian experience.  Urban and rural, rich and poor, depressing and uplifting, our mountain geography and our human geography are one.

The arrangement of the exhibit is chronological and spans the period from the earliest exploration to contemporary times. The most extensive literature about western North Carolina is from the turn of the century and contains picturesque and sublime accounts of forests and mountains in this region of the state. The accounts are reminiscent of a stroll in a park --- in this our largest park. Many of these first-hand accounts have been included in this exhibit and allow us to enjoy our environment through the eyes of those who came here in an earlier time and/or who lived here in earlier times. The exploration and exploitation literature provides solid observation of the area from the sixteenth to the eighteenth-century. One, little-known work, In the Heart of the Alleghenies (1883) by Wilbur Zeigler and Ben Grosscup, is an engrossing first-hand account of the area that is filled with facts and figures as well as personal reflections on the natural beauty of the scenery and natural life-style of the people. Charles Dudley Warner, said to be a mentor of Mark Twain's traveled here later in the 1880's. His account,  On Horseback (1888) is a well-written and lively travel tale, that only reinforces the journey taken by Zeigler and Grosscup. Margaret Morley, a visitor to the area who came and stayed, wrote The Carolina Mountains (1913). The description of her home-town called "Traumfest" [Tryon, NC] and other areas of the western part of the state, provides one of the most joyful and closely observed records we have of the mountains and the people of western North Carolina. An Ilustrated Guide Book is an effusive account of the region by a word-smith, drunk on the marvels of nature and unwilling to leave the sanctuary of Classical learning. Maria Louisa Pool's In Buncombe County, is a little-known tale of a specific county in western North Carolina that closely observes the juxtaposition of urban and rural life. Eloise Buckner Ebbs',  Carolina Mountain Breezes is an "insiders" perspective on life in the western part of the state that captures the region as it undergoes rapid change at the beginning of the twentieth-century and can be compared to the extensive body of work written by "outsiders.". Another "insider", Thomas Wolfe was exiled by his own geography and people and had Thomas Wolfe lived, we do not doubt that he would have "come home again." And, in many ways he did. The enormous legacy of Wolfe can be found in the many regional writers, and in those outside the region who return again and again to Wolf as a mountain of wisdom and craft.  The homage paid him by writers as diverse as Ray Bradbury and others continue to remind us of this native mountain son whose "story of the buried life," touched so many lives in so many various ways. Wilma Dykeman, Robert Morgan, John Ehle, Lee Smith, Ron Rash, and other contemporary writers are of this land and the mountains run as sub-texts throughout their work, or dominate them as is the case particularly with Ehle.  John Fox, Jr., James Still, Harry Caudill, Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver, Denise Giardina, and others who live in the Southern Appalachians, regularly pull from the North Carolina experiences captured by earlier writers from this region. All these writer's observations are anchored to the mountains like trees to the slope.  Like those trees, their genres are some of the richest and most varied anywhere in the country. Their literature abounds with the historical "once" of those who came before, while carefully crafting the "here" that is their lived experience. The accounts of contemporary authors writing about the mountains, while perhaps less florid, can be just as effusive, or can use the mountains as a literary stage setting where the drama of human emotions are played out, with just as much power as the human dramas in the earlier novels. The themes are often universal, as are mountains, but the sense of place comes through and the geography is unmistakable and pervasive. The new literature, while it struggles to grow beyond the modern, borrows from the many postmodernisms of this current age of crisis and change. While the structure of the new writing may reflect the homogeneous "here" of our new space --- the new human geography, and the new realities of a global consciousness,  --- the content still places mountain in the text in a manner that continues the deeply felt response to place. While much of the contemporary literature reflects the tensions of the here and now, many of those tensions, centered on contentious borders, immigration, class, poverty, industrialization, etc., we recognize our mountains.  The writer's reflections on mountains found in this literary exhibit may not be our language, or our view, but there is in these many views the very essence of what we all know about the region and have come to be quite proud of. These are our mountains and forests, this is our park, and it is in our mind's eye and under our care. 
H.W.,  UNCA Special Collections 

Desoto

HERNANDO de SOTO

Hernando de Soto and the "Discovery of the Mississippi,"
by William Powell. from Wikimedia Commons

"Saturday, the fifth of June, was the day that they entered in Chiaha; and since from Xuala [Tryon, North Carolina] all their travel had been through a mountain range and the horses were tired and thin, and the Christians likewise fatigued, it was advisable to halt and rest there; and they [the Cherokee] gave them an abundance of good corn, of which there is much... and considerable oil of walnuts and acorns which they knew how to extract very well, and it was very good and helped them very much for their sustenance, although some are wont to say that the oil of walnuts causes flatulence; notwithstanding, it is very delicious..." DeSoto, Hernando. Rodrigo Ranjel, and The King's Agent with De Soto, Luys Hernández de Biedma. Bourne, Edward Gaylord (editor) and Buckingham Smith (translator). Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto in the Conquest of Florida as Told by a Knight of Elvas and in a Relation by Luys Hernandez de Beidma, Factor of the Expedition. Together with an Account of de Soto's Expedition Based on the Diary of Rodrigo Ranjel, His Private Secretary Translated from Oviedo's Historia General y Natural de las Indias. (New York: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1904). Volume 2, pages 41-157.Online facsimile edition at http://www.americanjourneys.org/aj-023/summary/index.asp . Accessed December 16, 2007.

1739-1823

WILLIAM BARTRAM
"The mountainous wilderness which I had lately traversed appeared regularly undulated as the great ocean after a tempest; the undulations gradually depressing, yet perfectly regular, as the squama of fish, or imbrications of tile on a roof: the nearest ground to me of a perfect full green; next more glaucous; and lastly almost blue as the ether with which the most distant curve of the horizon seemed to be blended. My imagination thus wholly engaged in the contemplation of this magnificent landscape, infinitely varied, and without bound, I was almost insensible or regardless of the charming objects more within my reach."  [Quoted by Charles Frazier in Cold Mountain, p. 276.]

"AFTER leaving Broad River, the land rises very sensibly, and the country being mountainous, our progress became daily more difficult and slow; yet the varied scenes of pyramidal hills, high forests, rich vales, serpentine rivers, and cataracts, fully compensated for our difficulties and delays. I observed the great Aconitum napellus, Delphinium perigrinum, the carminative Angelica lucida,* [ White Root.] and cerulean Malva."  ..... KEOWE is a most charming situation, and the adjacent heights are naturally so formed and disposed, as with little expensive of military architecture to be rendered almost impregnable; in a fertile vale, at this season, enameled with the incarnate fragrant strawberries and blooming plants, through which the beautiful river meanders, sometimes gently flowing, but more frequently agitated, gliding swiftly between the fruitful strawberry banks, environed at various distances, by high hills and mountains, some rising boldly almost upright upon the verge of the expansive lawn, so as to overlook and shadow it, whilst others more lofty, superb, misty and blue, majestically mount far above. ....

THE evening still and calm, all silent and peaceable, a vivifying gentle breeze continually wafted from the fragrant strawberry fields, and aromatic Calycanthean groves on the surrounding heights, the wary moor fowl thundering in the distant echoing hills, how the groves and hills ring with the shrill perpetual voice of the whip-poor-will!

ABANDONED as my situation now was, yet thank heaven many objects met together at this time, and conspired to conciliate, and in some degree compose my mind, heretofore somewhat dejected and unharmonized: all alone in a wild Indian country, a thousand miles from my native land, and a vast distance from any settlements of white people. It is true, here were some of my own colour, yet they were strangers, and though friendly and hospitable, their manners and customs of living so different from what I had been accustomed to, administered but little to my consolation: some hundred miles yet to travel, the savage vindictive inhabitants lately ill-treated by the frontier Virginians, blood being spilt between them and the injury not yet wiped away by formal treaty; the Cherokees extremely jealous of white people travelling [sic] about their mountains, especially if they should be seen peeping in amongst the rocks or digging up their earth."

'Having gained the summit, we enjoyed a most enchanting view; a vast expanse of green meadows and strawberry fields; a a meandering river gliding through, saluting in its various turning the swelling, green, turfy knolls, embellished with parterres of flowers and fruitful strawberry beds; flocks of turkies strolling about them; herds of deer prancing in the meads or bounding over the hills; companies of young, innocent Cherokee virgins, some busy gathering the rich fragrant fruit, others having already filled their baskets, lay reclined under the shade of floriferous and fragrant native bowers of Magnolia, Azalea, Philadelphus, perfumed Calycanthus, sweet Yellow Jessamine and cerulean Glycine frutescens, disclosing their beauties to the fluttering breeze, and bathing their limbs in the cool fleeting streams; whilst other parties, more gay and libertine, were yet collecting strawberries, or wantonly chasing their companions, tantalizing them, staining their lips and cheeks with the rich fruit." [Quoted by Charles Frazier in Cold Mountain, p. 330.]

Bartram, William. Travels Through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws; Containing An Account of the Soil and Natural Productions of Those Regions, Together with Observations on the Manners of the Indians. Embellished with Copper-Plates. 1739-1823 [online facsimile edition edition at http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/bartram/bartram.html. Accessed December 16, 2007.

1793

Includes brief section on North Carolina and Indian tribes.

1800-1812

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.)

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.)

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, 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,⁵⁶ 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 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

Lanman

Charles Lanmam was also an artist. He studied uder Asher B. Durand in New York City and through Durand developed a deep sense of landscape. He was later made an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1846, shortly before traveling to North Carolina. 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.

CHARLES LANMAN

LETTERS FROM THE ALLEGHENY MOUNTAINS

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.

Appleton

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).

Guernsey

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)

[unsigned] "The North Carolina Mountains," Appleton's Weekly 4: 465 (15 October 1870)

1870-71

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

Clingman

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 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.
 

1873

WILL WALLACE HARNEY

A STRANGE LAND AND A PECULIAR PEOPLE.

"A nodule of amygdaloid, a coarse pebble enveloped in a whitish semi-crystalline paste, lies on the table before me. I know that a blow of the hammer will reveal the beauties of its crystal interior, but I do not crush it. It is more to me as it is—more than a letter plucked from the stone pages of time. Coarse and plain, it is an index to a chapter of life. In the occupations of a busy existence we forget how much we owe to the sweet emotional nature which, by mere chance association, retains the dearer part of the past fixed in memory, just as the graceful volutes of a fossil shell are preserved in the coarse matrix of a stony paste. In this way the nodule connects itself with my emotional life, and recalls the incidents of this sketch.

We were journeying over the mountains in the autumn of 1869. Our camp was pitched in a valley of the ascending ridges of the Cumberland range, on the south-east border of Kentucky. At this point the interior valley forms the letter J, the road following the bend, and ascending at the foot of the perpendicular.

It is nearly an hour since sunset, but the twilight still lingers in softened radiance, mellowing the mountain-scenery. The camp-wagons are drawn up on a low pebbly shelf at the foot of the hills, and the kindled fire has set a great carbuncle in the standing pool. A spring branch oozes out of the rocky turf, and flows down to meet a shallow river fretting over shoals. The road we have followed hangs like a rope-ladder from the top of the hills, sagging down in the irregularities till it reaches the river-bed, where it flies apart in strands of sand. The twilight leans upon the opposite ridge, painting its undulations in inconceivably delicate shades of subdued color. Although the night is coming on, the clear-obscure of that dusk, like a limpid pool, reveals all beneath. A road ascending the southern hill cuts through a loamy crust a yellow line, which creeps upward, winding in and out, till nothing is seen of it but a break in the trees set clear against the sky. No art of engineer wrought these graceful bends: it is a wild mountain-pass, followed by the unwieldy buffalo in search of pasturage. Beyond, the mountain rises again precipitously, a ragged tree clinging here and there to the craggy shelves. Around and through the foliage, like a ribbon, the road winds to the top. A blue vapor covers it and the hills melting softly in the distance. At the base of the hills a little river winds and bends to the west through a low fertile bottom, the stem of the J, which is perhaps a mile in width. It turns again, its course marked by a growth of low water-oaks and beeches, following the irregular fold in the hills which has been described."

"......... The natives of this region are characterized by marked peculiarities of the anatomical frame. The elongation of the bones, the contour of the facial angle, the relative proportion or disproportion of the extremities, the loose muscular attachment of the ligatures, and the harsh features were exemplified in the notable instance of the late President Lincoln. A like individuality appears in their idiom. It lacks the Doric breadth of the Virginian of the other slope, and is equally removed from the soft vowels and liquid intonation of the southern plain. It has verbal and phraseological peculiarities of its own. Bantering a Tennessee wife on her choice, she replied with a toss and a sparkle, "I-uns couldn't get shet of un less'n I-uns married un." "Have you'uns seed any stray shoats?" asked a passer: "I-uns's uses about here." "Critter" means an animal—"cretur," a fellow-creature. "Long sweet-'nin'" and "short sweet'nin'" are respectively syrup and sugar. The use of the indefinite substantive pronoun un (the French on), modified by the personals, used demonstratively, and of "done" and "gwine" as auxiliaries, is peculiar to the mountains, as well on the Wabash and Alleghany, I am told, as in Tennessee. The practice of dipping—by which is meant not baptism, but chewing snuff—prevails to a like extent.

In farming they believe in the influence of the moon on all vegetation, and in pork-butchering and curing the same luminary is consulted. Leguminous plants must be set out in the light of the moon—tuberous, including potatoes, in the dark of that satellite. It is supposed to govern the weather by its dip, not indicate it by its appearance. The cup or crescent atilt is a wet moon—i.e., the month will be rainy. A change of the moon forebodes a change of the weather, and no meteorological statistics can shake their confidence in the superstition. They, of course, believe in the water-wizard and his forked wand; and their faith is extended to the discovery of mineral veins. While writing this I see the statement in a public journal that Richard Flannery of Cumberland county (Kentucky) uses an oval ball, of some material known only to himself, which he suspends between the forks of a short switch. As he walks, holding this extended, the indicator announces the metal by arbitrary vibrations. As his investigations are said to be attended with success, possibly the oval ball is highly magnetized, or contains a lode-stone whose delicate suspension is affected by the current magnetism, metallic veins being usually a magnetic centre. Any mass of soft iron in the position of the dipping-needle is sensibly magnetic, and a solution of continuity is thus indicated by the vibrations of the delicately poised instrument. Flaws in iron are detected with absolute certainty by this method. More probably, however, the whole procedure is pure, unadulterated humbug. In all such cases the failures are unrecorded, while the successes are noted, wondered at and published. By shooting arrows all day, even a blind man may hit the mark sometimes

During this journey it was a habit with me to relate to my invalid companion any fact or incident of the day's travel. She came to expect this, and would add incidents and observations of her own. In this way I was led to compile the following little narrative of feminine constancy and courage during the late war." p. 432

P. 430 Harney, Will Wallace, "A Strange Land and a Peculiar People,"  Lippincott's Magazine, 12: 429-38 (October 1873), p. 430

See also: Will Wallace Harney, The Spirit of the South. Boston, Massachusetts: Richard G. Badger, The Gorham Press, 1909.

1874

Strouther, David Hunter [pseud.: 'Porte-Crayon']. "The Mountains." Harper's Magazine 44: 659-675, 801-15 ; 45: 21-34, 347-361 502-516, 801-815; 46: 669-680; 47 821-32 ;  49: 156-67 (July 1874) ; 51: 475-485 (April-June, August, September, November 1872 ; April, November 1873 ; July 1874 ; September 1875).

King

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. 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.)

1875 and
1877

CHRISTIAN REID
 Land of the Sky

"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

1875 -1880

REBECCA HARDING DAVIS -

THE YARES OF BLACK MOUNTAIN

"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
dream, on rushing water-falls, on rainbow veils of mist floating over dizzy heights; they dress in homespun, and sit on wooden benches, but knowing nothing of fashions or bric-a-brac, their souls sit at ease and are quiet, and they never feel the aching void of an empty pocket. Our travelers were welcomed to many a room where trunks, the spinning-wheel, and the cooking-stove filled one side, and the bed and a portrait of a Revolutionary ancestor the other, where flat-irons and silver goblets, Shakespeare and the blacking-brushes, amicably kept company on the mantel-shelf, but in which the fine quick wit and the grave courtesy of their hosts would have dwarfed the stateliest surroundings." Davis, Rebecca Harding. "By-Paths in the Mountains II,"  Harper's New Monthly Magazine. 61: 353-369 (July 1880).

1. Davis, Rebecca Harding  By-Paths in the Mountains  
2. Davis, Rebecca Harding  By-Paths in the Mountains  
3. Davis, Rebecca Harding  By-Paths in the Mountains  

Woolson

1875 -1878

CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON

THE FRENCH BROAD.

“What is it ?“ asked Uncle Jack.
“A river,” replied Ermine.
“Very well,” said the old gentlenian.
Then, after a moment, “Where is it ?”
“In Western North Carolina.
“Very well,” said the old gentleman again, taking up his newspaper. “Pray don’t for-
get my slippers.”
Later in the day, however, he took me aside.
“Do you know any thing about this Western North Carolina, Miss Martha ," he asked.
“Only how it looks on the map, Sir.”
“And how does it look ?“
“Black in the face with mountains.”
“Apoplectic !“
“Decidedly. Bald Mountain, you remember, had a stroke not long since.” [earthquake on the 'Rumbling Bald']
“Are we going there ?“ asked Uncle Jack, resignedly.
“I don’t think any one knows, Sir, exactly where we are going except Ermine,” I
replied.
We found it at Ashville. I use the word found because it was a regular game of hide-
and-seek, in which the knolls, the river, and ourselves took part. It begins life down on the South Carolina border, and runs almost tine north, placidly taking in small streams, and concealing its ultimate purposes with a delicate art worthy of Undine’s watery relations. Near Asheville is the trysting-place where it meets the Swannanoa on its way down from the Blue Ridge, but so cunningly is it all managed that no road, no path,will take you there, and unless you have the spirit and the boots of a pioneer you will miss the wedding. Having neither, we yet went, driven by the fiat of Ermine.
“I said I would witness this meeting of the waters,” she began. Then, putting out
a slender foot incased in a stern little double-soled boot, “Thus do I leave my mark
upon the strand !“
“Upon the mud,” said Uncle Jack.
“Witness, my friends,” continued Ermine,“this is the majority of our river. Its life,
so far, has been but awkward growing. It has had no definite character; no one could tell what it might come to—a swampy, a stony, or a bucolic and grassy end. Having received the Swannanoa, however, it now for the first time feels its strength. My friends let us return. Later in the day we will view it from the summit of that fern-covered hill behind the town.”
“Beaucatcher Knob,” said Uncle Jack.
“I never hear that country-farmer name,”
replied Ermine. “I make it a point to not
hear such titles in my rambles through Arcadia.When the dialect descends too
far, I simply ignore it, and thus save myself much vexation of spirit.”
Later in the dlay, however, although we scaled the Knob, and saw a wondrous vision of grandeur and beauty,we saw no river in all the green valley of knolls below us, no gleam of water at the foot of the far mountains, no flash of white through the sunset gap.
She is hiding,” said Ermine ; “let us go down and find her.”
Time view from the Knob is one of the few that linger in memory distinct as a painted picture. As yet it is unknown to the world at large, but it will be famous some day, when the eager artists and tourists discover this hidden region locked up behind mountain walls whose peaks seem to thrust back scornfully the railroads that would penetrate within. So far they have stood at bay, these magnificent cloud-capped ranges, defying the world. Behind the Knob rise the rounded summits of the Blue Ridge,singularly blue always both in sunshine and in storm. Sitting on the grass-grown earthworks of the old Confederate fort that crowned the summit, one faces the west, glorious in sunset tints. In the north rise near and (lark peaks leading toward the Black Mountain and its lonely grave. No man had ever a grander sepulcher than Elisha Mitchell, who lost his life while exploring this lofty range. The mountaineers buried him on the peak, whose height, as measured by his own hand, is engraved in the rough stone at the head of the grave—6711 feet, the highest summit east of the Mississippi. The government signal. station that once stood near has been abandoned and burned.
Looking from the Knob toward the west, we saw a crowd of peaks, apparently endless, fading away into the horizon on the far Tennessee border. But the southwest holds the genius loci, the god who gallery is the valley—Mount Pisgah, solemn, grand old peak, dominant in its gaunt majesty, although one hundred and eighty brother summits are in sight, and the Cold Mountain beyond is counted higher.
“Physically, perhaps, but not spiritually,” said Ermine. “Pisgah is the king, the native-born god of the valley.”
As the sun sank behind the mountain down into Tennessee the one gap in the massive western wall, the gap guarded by Pisgah, began to grow purple and soft, like a beautiful pass into some better country. Looking through, far beyond we saw a distant mountain all tinged with gold.
“And the building of the wall of it was of jasper, and the city was pure gold,” said
Uncle Jack.

Woolson, Constance Fenimore. "The French Broad," Harper's New Monthly Magazine,  50 (1875):617-636

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

A story of divided love that centers on the lives of the people

Woolson, Constance Fenimore.
"Up In the Blue Ridge."  Appleton's Journal 5 (1878): 104-25.

1877

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