south-west to a point in the southern boundary about thirty miles
east of where the Cumberland leaves the State defines the eastern
coal-measures of Kentucky. In area it is about a quarter of the State—a
region of plateaus, mountains, narrow valleys, cut in all directions by
clear, rapid streams, stuffed, one may say, with coals, streaked
with iron, abounding in limestone, and covered with superb forests.
Independent of other States a most remarkable region, but considered
in its relation to the coals and iron ores of West Virginia, western
Virginia, and eastern Tennessee, it becomes one of the most important
and interesting regions in the Union. Looking to the south-eastern
border, I hazard nothing in saying that the country from the Breaks of
Sandy down to Big Creek Gap (in the Cumberland Mountain), in Tennessee,
is on the eve of an astonishing development—one that will revolutionize
eastern Kentucky, and powerfully affect the iron and coal markets of the
country. It is a region that appeals as well to the imagination of the
traveller as to the capitalist. My personal observation of it extends
only to the portion from Cumberland Gap to Big Stone Gap, and the
head-waters of the Cumberland between Cumberland Mountain and Pine
Mountain, but I saw enough to comprehend why eager purchasers are buying
the forests and the mining rights, why great companies, American and
English, are planting themselves there and laying the foundations of
cities, and why the gigantic railway corporations are straining every
nerve to penetrate the mineral and forest heart of the region. A dozen
roads, projected and in progress, are pointed towards this centre. It
is a race for the prize. The Louisville and Nashville, running through
soft-coal fields to Jellico and on to Knoxville, branches from Corbin
to Barboursville (an old and thriving town) and to Pineville. From
Pineville it is under contract, thirteen miles, to Cumberland Gap. This
gap is being tunnelled (work going on at both ends) by an independent
company, the tunnel to be open to all roads. The Louisville and
Nashville may run up the south side of the Cumberland range to Big Stone
Gap, or it may ascend the Cumberland River and its Clover Fork, and pass
over to Big Stone Gap that way, or it may do both. A road is building
from Knoxville to Cumberland Gap, and from Johnson City to Big Stone
Gap. A road is running from Bristol to within twenty miles of Big Stone
Gap; another road nears the same place—the extension of the Norfolk and
Western—from Pocahontas down the Clinch River. From the north-west many
roads are projected to pierce the great deposits of coking and
cannel coals, and find or bore a way through the mountain ridges into
south-western Virginia. One of these, the Kentucky Union, starting from
Lexington (which is becoming a great railroad centre), has reached Clay
City, and will soon be open to the Three Forks of the Kentucky River,
and on to Jackson, in Breathitt County. These valley and transridge
roads will bring within short hauling distance of each other as great
a variety of iron ores of high and low grade, and of coals, coking
and other, as can be found anywhere—according to the official reports,
greater than anywhere else within the same radius. As an item it may be
mentioned that the rich, pure, magnetic iron ore used in the manufacture
of Bessemer steel, found in East Tennessee and North Carolina, and
developed in greatest abundance at Cranberry Forge, is within one
hundred miles of the superior Kentucky coking coal. This contiguity (a
contiguity of coke, ore, and limestone) in this region points to the
manufacture of Bessemer steel here at less cost than it is now elsewhere
made.
It is unnecessary that I should go into details as to the ore and coal
deposits of this region: the official reports are accessible. It may be
said, however, that the reports of the Geological Survey as to both
coal and iron have been recently perfectly confirmed by the digging of
experts. Aside from the coal-measures below the sandstone, there have
been found above the sandstone, north of Pine Mountain, 1650 feet of
coal-measures, containing nine beds of coal of workable thickness, and
between Pine and Cumberland mountains there is a greater thickness of
coal-measures, containing twelve or more workable beds. Some of these
are coking coals of great excellence. Cannel-coals are found in sixteen
of the counties in the eastern coal-fields. Two of them at least are of
unexampled richness and purity. The value of a cannel-coal is determined
by its volatile combustible matter. By this test some of the Kentucky
cannel-coal excels the most celebrated coals of Great Britain. An
analysis of a cannel-coal in Breathitt County gives 66.28 of volatile
combustible matter; the highest in Great Britain is the Boghead,
Scotland, 51.60 per cent. This beautiful cannel-coal has been brought
out in small quantities via the Kentucky River; it will have a market
all over the country when the railways reach it. The first coal
identified as coking was named the Elkhorn, from the stream where it was
found in Pike County. A thick bed of it has been traced over an area of
1600 square miles, covering several counties, but attaining its greatest
thickness in Letcher, Pike, and Harlan. This discovery of coking coal
adds greatly to the value of the iron ores in north-eastern Kentucky,
and in the Red and Kentucky valleys, and also of the great deposits
of ore on the south-east boundary, along the western base of the
Cumberland, along the slope of Powell’s Mountain, and also along
Wallin’s Ridge, three parallel lines, convenient to the coking coal in
Kentucky. This is the Clinton or red fossil ore, stratified, having
from 45 to 54 per cent, of metallic iron. Recently has been found on the
north side of Pine Mountain in Kentucky, a third deposit of rich “brown”
ore, averaging 52 per cent, of metallic iron. This is the same as the
celebrated brown ore used in the furnaces at Clifton Forge; it makes a
very tough iron. I saw a vein of it on Straight Creek, three miles north
of Pineville, just opened, at least eight feet thick.
The railway to Pineville follows the old Wilderness road, the trail of
Boone and the stage-road, along which are seen the ancient tavern
stands where the jolly story-telling travellers of fifty years ago were
entertained and the droves of horses and cattle were fed. The railway
has been stopped a mile west of Pineville by a belligerent property
owner, who sits there with his Winchester rifle, and will not let the
work go on until the courts compel him. The railway will not cross the
Cumberland at Pineville, but higher up, near the great elbow. There
was no bridge over the stream, and we crossed at a very rough and rocky
wagon-ford. Pineville, where there has loner been a backwoods settlement
on the south bend of the river just after it breaks through Pine
Mountain, is now the centre of a good deal of mining excitement and
real-estate speculation. It has about five hundred inhabitants, and a
temporary addition of land buyers, mineral experts, engineers, furnace
projectors, and railway contractors. There is not level ground for a
large city, but what there is is plotted out for sale. The abundant iron
ore, coal, and timber here predict for it a future of some importance.
It has already a smart new hotel, and business buildings, and churches
are in process of erection. The society of the town had gathered for the
evening at the hotel. A wandering one-eyed fiddler was providentially
present who could sing and play “The Arkansas Traveller” and other tunes
that lift the heels of the young, and also accompany the scream of the
violin with the droning bagpipe notes of the mouth-harmonica. The star
of the gay company was a graduate of Annapolis, in full evening dress
uniform, a native boy of the valley, and his vis-à-vis was a heavy man
in a long linen duster and carpet slippers, with a palm-leaf fan, who
crashed through the cotillon with good effect. It was a pleasant party,
and long after it had dispersed, the troubadour, sitting on the piazza,
wiled away sleep by the break-downs, jigs, and songs of the frontier.
Pineville and its vicinity have many attractions; the streams are clear,
rapid, rocky, the foliage abundant, the hills picturesque. Straight
Creek, which comes in along the north base of Pine Mountain, is an
exceedingly picturesque stream, having along its banks fertile little
stretches of level ground, while the gentle bordering hills are
excellent for grass, fruit orchards, and vineyards. The walnut-trees
have been culled out, but there is abundance of oat, beech, poplar,
encumber, and small pines. And there is no doubt about the mineral
wealth.
We drove from Pineville to Cumberland Gap, thirteen miles, over the now
neglected Wilderness road, the two mules of the wagon unable to pull
us faster than two miles an hour. The road had every variety of badness
conceivable—loose stones, ledges of rock, bowlders, sloughs, holes,
mud, sand, deep fords. We crossed and followed up Clear Creek (a muddy
stream) over Log Mountain (full of coal) to Canon Creek. Settlements
were few—only occasional poor shanties. Climbing over another ridge, we
reached the Yellow Creek Valley, through which the Yellow Creek meanders
in sand. This whole valley, lying very prettily among the mountains, has
a bad name for “difficulties.” The hills about, on the sides and tops of
which are ragged little farms, and the valley itself, still contain some
lawless people. We looked with some interest at the Turner house, where
a sheriff was killed a year ago, at a place where a “severe” man fired
into a wagon-load of people and shot a woman, and at other places where
in recent times differences of opinion had been settled by the revolver.
This sort of thing is, however, practically over. This valley, close to
Cumberland Gap, is the site of the great city, already plotted, which
the English company are to build as soon as the tunnel is completed.
It is called Middleborough, and the streets are being graded and
preparations made for building furnaces. The north side of Cumberland
Mountain, like the south side of Pine, is a conglomerate, covered with
superb oak and chestnut trees. We climbed up to the mountain over
a winding road of ledges, bowlders, and deep gullies, rising to an
extended pleasing prospect of mountains and valleys. The pass has a
historic interest, not only as the ancient highway, but as the path of
armies in the Civil War. It is narrow, a deep road between overhanging
rocks. It is easily defended. A light bridge thrown over the road,
leading to rifle-pits and breastworks on the north side, remains to
attest the warlike occupation. Above, on the bald highest rocky head on
the north, guns were planted to command the pass. Two or three houses, a
blacksmith’s shop, a drinking tavern, behind which on the rocks four men
were playing old sledge, made up the sum of its human attractions as we
saw it. Just here in the pass Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia touch
each other. Virginia inserts a narrow wedge between the other two.
On our way down the wild and picturesque road we crossed the State of
Virginia and went to the new English hotel in Tennessee. We passed a
magnificent spring, which sends a torrent of water into the valley, and
turns a great millwheel—a picture in its green setting—saw the opening
of the tunnel with its shops and machinery, noted the few houses and
company stores of the new settlement, climbed the hill to the pretty
hotel, and sat down on the piazza to look at the scene. The view is
a striking one. The valley through which the Powell River runs is
pleasant, and the bold, bare mountain of rock at the right of the
pass is a noble feature in the landscape. With what joy must the early
wilderness pilgrims have hailed this landmark, this gate-way to the
Paradise beyond the mountains! Some miles north in the range are the
White Rocks, gleaming in the sun and conspicuous from afar, the first
signal to the weary travellers from the east of the region they sought.
Cumberland Gap is full of expectation, and only awaits the completion of
the tunnel to enter upon its development. Here railways from the north,
south, and west are expected to meet, and in the Yellow Creek Valley
beyond, the English are to build a great manufacturing city. The valleys
and sides of these mountain ranges (which have a uniform elevation
of not much more than 2000 to 2500 feet) enjoy a delightful climate,
moderate in the winter and temperate in the summer. This whole region,
when it is accessible by rail, will be attractive to tourists.
We pursued our journey up the Powell River Valley, along the base of
the Cumberland, on horseback—one day in a wagon in this country ought
to satisfy anybody. The roads, however, are better on this side of the
mountain; all through Lee County, In Virginia, in spots very good.
This is a very fine valley, with good water, cold and clear, growing in
abundance oats and corn, a constant succession of pretty views. We dined
excellently at a neat farm-house on the river, and slept at the house
of a very prosperous farmer near Boon’s Path post-office. Here we are
abreast the White Rocks, the highest point of the Cumberland (3451
feet), that used to be the beacon of immigration.
The valley grows more and more beautiful as we go up, full fields of
wheat, corn, oats, friendly to fruit of all sorts, with abundance of
walnut, oak, and chestnut timber—a fertile, agreeable valley, settled
with well-to-do farmers. The next morning, beautifully clear and
sparkling, we were off at seven o’clock through a lovely broken
country, following the line of Cumberland (here called Stone) Mountain,
alternately little hills and meadows, cultivated hill-sides, stretches
of rich valley, exquisite views—a land picturesque and thriving.
Continuing for nine miles up Powell Valley, we turned to the left
through a break in the hills into Poor Valley, a narrow, wild, sweet
ravine among the hills, with a swift crystal stream overhung by masses
of rhododendrons in bloom, and shaded by magnificent forest-trees. We
dined at a farm-house by Pennington’s Gap, and had a swim in the north
fork of Powell River, which here, with many a leap, breaks through the
bold scenery in the gap. Farther on, the valley was broader and
more fertile, and along the wide reaches of the river grew enormous
beech-trees, the russet foliage of which took on an exquisite color
towards evening. Indeed, the ride all day was excitingly interesting,
with the great trees, the narrow rich valleys, the frequent sparkling
streams, and lovely mountain views. At sunset we came to the house of an
important farmer who has wide possessions, about thirteen miles from Big
Stone Gap. We have nothing whatever against him except that he routed
us out at five o’clock of a foggy Sunday morning, which promised to
be warm—July 1st—to send us on our way to “the city.” All along we had
heard of “the city.” In a radius of a hundred miles Big Stone Gap is
called nothing but “the city,” and our anticipations were raised.
That morning’s ride I shall not forget. We crossed and followed Powell
River. All along the banks are set the most remarkable beech-trees I
have ever seen—great, wide-spreading, clean-boled trees, overbading the
stream, and giving under their boughs, nearly all the way, ravishingly
lovely views. This was the paradisiacal way to Big Stone Gap, which we
found to be a round broken valley, shut in by wooded mountains, covered
more or less with fine trees, the meeting-place of the Powell River,
which comes through the gap, and its south fork. In the round elevation
between them is the inviting place of the future city. There are two Big
Stone Gaps—the one open fields and forests, a settlement of some thirty
to forty houses, most of them new and many in process of building, a
hotel, and some tents; the other, the city on the map. The latter is
selling in small lots, has wide avenues, parks, one of the finest hotels
in the South, banks, warehouses, and all that can attract the business
man or the summer lounger.
The heavy investments in Big Stone Gap and the region I should say were
fully justified by the natural advantages. It is a country of great
beauty, noble mountain ranges, with the valleys diversified by small
hills, fertile intervales, fine streams, and a splendid forest growth.
If the anticipations of an important city at the gap are half realized,
the slopes of the hills and natural terraces will be dotted with
beautiful residences, agreeable in both summer and winter. It was the
warmest time of the year when we were there, but the air was fresh and
full of vitality. The Big Stone Gap Improvement Company has the city and
its site in charge; it is a consolidation of the various interests of
railway companies and heavy capitalists, who have purchased the land.
The money and the character of the men behind the enterprise insure a
vigorous prosecution of it. On the west side of the river are the depot
and switching-grounds which the several railways have reserved for
their use, and here also are to be the furnaces and shops. When the
city outgrows its present site it can extend up valleys in several
directions. We rode through line forests up the lovely Powell Valley to
Powell Mountain, where a broad and beautiful meadow offers a site for a
suburban village. The city is already planning for suburbs. A few miles
south of the city a powerful stream of clear water falls over precipices
and rocks seven hundred feet in continuous rapids. This is not only
a charming addition to the scenic attractions of the region, but the
stream will supply the town with excellent water and unlimited “power.”
Beyond, ten miles to the north-east, rises High Knob, a very sightly
point, where one gets the sort of view of four States that he sees on an
atlas. It is indeed a delightful region; but however one may be charmed
by its natural beauty, he cannot spend a day at Big Stone Gap without
being infected with the great enterprises brooding there.
We forded Powell River and ascended through the gap on its right bank.
Before entering the gorge we galloped over a beautiful level plateau,
the counterpart of that where the city is laid out, reserved for
railways and furnaces. From this point the valley is seen to be wider
than we suspected, and to have ample room for the manufacturing and
traffic expected. As we turned to see what we shall never see again—the
virgin beauty of nature in this site—the whole attractiveness of this
marvellously picturesque region burst upon us—the great forests, the
clear swift streams, the fertile meadows, the wooded mountains that have
so long secluded this beauty and guarded the treasures of the hills.
The pass itself, which shows from a distance only a dent in the green
foliage, surprised us by its wild beauty. The stony road, rising little
by little above the river, runs through a magnificent forest, gigantic
trees growing in the midst of enormous bowlders, and towering among
rocks that take the form of walls and buttresses, square structures like
the Titanic ruins of castles; below, the river, full and strong, rages
over rocks and dashes down, filling the forest with its roar, which is
echoed by the towering cliffs on either side. The woods were fresh and
glistening from recent rains, but what made the final charm of the
way was the bloom of the rhododendron, which blazed along the road and
illuminated the cool recesses of the forest. The time for the blooming
of the azalea and the kalmia (mountain-laurel) was past, but the pink
and white rhododendron was in full glory, masses of bloom, not small
stalks lurking like underbrush, but on bushes attaining the dignity of
trees, and at least twenty-five feet high. The splendor of the forest
did not lessen as we turned to the left and followed up Pigeon Creek to
a high farming region, rough but fertile, at the base of Black Mountain.
Such a wealth of oak, beech, poplar, chestnut, and ash, and, sprinkled
in, the pretty cucumber-magnolia in bloom! By sunset we found our way,
off the main road, to a lonely farm-house hidden away at the foot of
Morris Pass, secluded behind an orchard of apple and peach trees. A
stream of spring-water from the rocks above ran to the house, and to the
eastward the ravine broadened into pastures. It seemed impossible to
get farther from the world and its active currents. We were still in
Virginia.
Our host, an old man over six feet in height, with spare, straight,
athletic form, a fine head, and large clear gray eyes, lived here alone
with his aged spouse. He had done his duty by his country in raising
twelve children (that is the common and orthodox number in this region),
who had all left him except one son, who lived in a shanty up the
ravine. It was this son’s wife who helped about the house and did the
milking, taking care also of a growing family of her own, and doing her
share of field-work. I had heard that the women in this country were
more industrious than the men. I asked this woman, as she was milking
that evening, if the women did all the work. No, she said; only their
share. Her husband was all the time in the field, and even her boys, one
only eight, had to work with him; there was no time to go to school, and
indeed the school didn’t amount to much anyway—only a little while in
the fall. She had all the care of the cows. “Men,” she added, “never
notice milking;” and the worst of it was that she had to go miles around
in the bush night and morning to find them. After supper we had a call
from a bachelor who occupied a cabin over the pass, on the Kentucky
side, a loquacious philosopher, who squatted on his heels in the
door-yard where we were sitting, and interrogated each of us in turn as
to our names, occupations, residence, ages, and politics, and then gave
us as freely his own history and views of life. His eccentricity in this
mountain region was that he had voted for Cleveland and should do it
again. Mr. Morris couldn’t go with him in this; and when pressed for his
reasons he said that Cleveland had had the salary long enough, and got
rich enough out of it. The philosopher brought the news, had heard it
talked about on Sunday, that a man over Clover Fork way had killed his
wife and brother. It was claimed to be an accident; they were having
a game of cards and some whiskey, and he was trying to kill his
son-in-law. Was there much killing round here? Well, not much lately.
Last year John Cone, over on Clover Fork, shot Mat Harner in a dispute
over cards. Well, what became of John Cone? Oh, he was killed by Jim
Blood, a friend of Harner. And what became of Blood? Well, he got shot
by Elias Travers. And Travers? Oh, he was killed by a man by the name
of Jacobs. That ended it. None of ‘em was of much account. There was a
pleasing naivete in this narrative. And then the philosopher, whom the
milkmaid described to me next morning as “a simlar sort of man,” went on
to give his idea about this killing business. “All this killing in the
mountains is foolish. If you kill a man, that don’t aggravate him; he’s
dead and don’t care, and it all comes on you.”
In the early morning we crossed a narrow pass in the Black Mountain into
“Canetucky,” and followed down the Clover Fork of the Cumberland.
All these mountains are perfectly tree-clad, but they have not the
sombreness of the high regions of the Great Smoky and the Black
Mountains of North Carolina. There are few black balsams, or any sort of
evergreens, and the great variety of deciduous trees, from the shining
green of the oak to the bronze hue of the beech, makes everywhere soft
gradations of color most pleasing to the eye. In the autumn, they say,
the brilliant maples in combination with the soberer bronzes and yellows
of the other forest-trees give an ineffable beauty to these ridges and
graceful slopes. The ride down Clover Fork, all day long, was for the
most part through a virgin world. The winding valley is at all times
narrow, with here and there a tiny meadow, and at long intervals a
lateral opening down which another sparkling brook comes from the
recesses of this wilderness of mountains. Houses are miles apart, and
usually nothing but cabins half concealed in some sheltered nook. There
is, however, hidden on the small streams, on mountain terraces, and high
up on the slopes, a considerable population, cabin dwellers, cultivators
of corn, on the almost perpendicular hills. Many of these cornfields are
so steep that it is impossible to plough them, and all the cultivation
is done with the hoe. I heard that a man was recently killed in this
neighborhood by falling out of his cornfield. The story has as much
foundation as the current belief that the only way to keep a mule in the
field where you wish him to stay is to put him into the adjoining lot.
But it is true that no one would believe that crops could be raised on
such nearly perpendicular slopes as these unless he had seen the planted
fields.
In my limited experience I can recall no day’s ride equal in simple
natural beauty—not magnificence—and splendor of color to that down
Clover Fork. There was scarcely a moment of the day when the scene did
not call forth from us exclamations of surprise and delight. The road
follows and often crosses the swift, clear, rocky stream. The variegated
forest rises on either hand, but all along the banks vast trees without
underbrush dot the little intervales. Now and then, in a level reach,
where the road wound through these monarch stems, and the water spread
in silver pools, the perspective was entrancing. But the color! For
always there were the rhododendrons, either gleaming in masses of white
and pink in the recesses of the forest, or forming for us an allée,
close set, and uninterrupted for miles and miles; shrubs like trees,
from twenty to thirty feet high, solid bouquets of blossoms, more
abundant than any cultivated parterre, more brilliant than the
finest display in a horticultural exhibition. There is an avenue of
rhododendrons half a mile long at Hampton Court, which is world-wide
famous. It needs a day to ride through the rhododendron avenue on Clover
Fork, and the wild and free beauty of it transcends all creations of the
gardener.