rock and individual crystals, rich in color and brilliant. Some valuable
gems of a brownish red color have been taken from the mica and corundum
mines of Mitchell, Yancey, and Macon counties. On account of richness
and beautiful play of colors, the crystals of Burke, Caldwell, and
Catawba counties are excellent material from which to cut gems. The best
locality is about eight miles southeast of Morganton, where there are
blocks almost transparent, weighing 10 pounds. About four miles from
Marshall, in Madison county, is a locality rich in garnets. The writer
has seen beautiful specimens picked up from the ballasting of the
railroad. A few specimens of amethyst have been found associated with
garnet.
It will be impossible to discuss all the minerals of Western North
Carolina, or even all those of common commercial value. The interest of
10 years ago had in some measure died out on account of the apparent
failure of all the railroad projects. It matters little of how great
intrinsic value the resources of any section may be; their actual value
will be insignificant unless by rapid and cheap transit they can be made
a part of the great world. The flesh and rose colored marbles of
Cherokee and the Nantihala are worth no more now than common granite,
but carried to the great markets where art is cultivated and beauty
appreciated, they will command tempting prices. The prospect of an early
completion of through lines of railroad and the actual completion of the
greater portion of the Western North Carolina system, has given new
stimulus to the investigation of hidden resources, and is bringing in
the skill and capital necessary to their economical development.
[Illustration: THE SWANNONOA HOTEL.
Asheville.]
HISTORICAL RÉSUMÉ.
There is much in the race we spring from affecting both the
individual and the community. The physical and mental traits we
derive from our ancestors, are not more marked and important in
directing our destinies than are the prejudices, aspirations and
traditions we drink in from childhood. No profound observers of
human nature will ever estimate the conduct or capacities of a
people without first looking at their genealogical table and noting
the blood which flows in their veins.--[SENATOR VANCE.
[Illustration: T]his observation is illustrated by the character of the
settlements of both the Carolinas. Most of the first immigrants to the
coast country of South Carolina were English capitalists, who purchased
large plantations. The coast country of the north State drew its
population from Virginia and from Barbadoes. The whole east line of
settlement was English. Large plantations and numerous slaves were
acquired, and the inhabitants after the second generation lived in
comparative ease and luxury. Those of the south were particularly
devoted to the cultivation of manners and mind, a degree of excellence
being eventually attained, which has never been equalled elsewhere on
the continent.
The emigrants to the plains beyond the line of terraces and hills were
of entirely different stock, character, and situation in life. They
belonged to that sturdy race, now so widely distributed over the whole
country, which is known in history as Scotch-Irish. Their ancestors were
of pure Scotch blood, but lived in the north of Ireland, whence they
emigrated to America, landing at New York, Baltimore, and other northern
ports. The first arrivals found home near the eastern base of the
Alleghanies in Pennsylvania, but being annually joined by new immigrants
of their own blood and fatherland, the best lands were soon filled to
overflowing. The tide of immigration still continued, but an outlet was
found toward the south, through which it swept along the entire base of
the mountains into the inviting valleys of Carolina, and eventually
crossed them into Georgia. There is to the present day marked
homogeneity of character within this belt, from Pennsylvania to Virginia
southward. Scattered families of other nationalities followed into the
wilderness, but so largely did the Scotch-Irish prevail over all other
races that the amalgamation of blood which followed brought about no
perceptible change.
A long period elapsed from the time emigration from the north of Ireland
began until the Pennsylvania and Virginia plains had been filled; and
the Yadkin, in North Carolina, was reached near the middle of the last
century. So strong was the opposition, natural and human, encountered at
every point, that only dauntless courage and determined spirit was able
to overcome it. A wilderness had to be reduced in the face of a cruel
and cunning foe. Being poor, they purchased small farms, and the number
of their slaves was never large. Unlike the plantation lords of the
South State coast, they devoted themselves to rigorous labor, the number
being few who had time to devote to the cultivation of manners, or to
pleasure, and fewer still had the financial ability to educate their
children.
Between 1750, the date of the first settlement on the upper Yadkin, and
the Revolution, a period of 25 years, the best lands were occupied to
the base of the Blue Ridge. Even that barrier was scaled, and the germs
of civilized industry planted along the Holston before 1770.
A character of the times, typical of a class of early settlers, was the
famous Daniel Boone, whose life is the inspiration and light of western
annals. Being but a lad, when his father removed from Pennsylvania, and
settled on the Yadkin in 1754, the wildness and beauty of his new home
made him a recluse of nature. In early youth he became a hunter, a
trapper, and fighter of Indians. When the country around him filled up,
he left his home and plunged again into the depths of the wilderness
beyond the mountains. After a period, crowded with blood-chilling
adventures in Kentucky, he returned to his old home, but the growth of
settlement had deprived it of its romance. He again crossed the Blue
Ridge and pitched his camp in the Watauga plateau. There is a curious
old church record in existence, which shows that he cursed “with profane
oaths” a fellow Baptist for building a cabin within ten miles of his.
His ideal of complete happiness was to be alone in a boundless
wilderness. He once said: “I am richer than the man mentioned in
Scripture who owned the cattle on a thousand hills. I own the wild
beasts in more than a thousand valleys.” He expired at a deer stand,
with rifle in hand, in the year 1818. It was of him that Byron wrote:
“Crime came not near him, she is not the child
Of solitude. Health shrank not from him, for
Her home is in the rarely trodden wild.”
The class of settlers of which Boone is mentioned as a type, is not
large; but it was the class, to paraphrase a line of Scott, which dared
to face the Indian in his den. They were hunters of wild animals and
wild men. But there was a larger class, the equal in sturdiness of the
former, and though less romantic in conduct, entitled to recognition by
posterity. They were the men who cleared farms and built up houses and
towns. In the valleys of the Yadkin and Catawba, is found a large
percentage of population of German descent, which is the source of the
German blood found in the western counties. Not far behind the
Scotch-Irish pioneers, by the same route, came the astute hard-working
ancestors of this class of citizens. Many were scattered through
Virginia, and some drifted even beyond the line of the old North State.
The least mixture of blood is found in the valley of the Catawba. It is
a mongrel German, known in the North as “Pennsylvania Dutch.” The
traveller from central Pennsylvania will frequently forget, while in the
Catawba valley, that he is away from home. Governor Vance, whose long
political career has familiarized him with all sections of the state,
declares that in agriculture, as a general rule, they have excelled all
other classes, especially in thrift economy and the art of preserving
their lands from sterility. “To this day there is less of that
desolation, known in the South as ‘old field,’ to be seen among the
lands of their descendants, than amongst any others of our people.... A
sturdier race of upright citizens is not to be found in this or any
other state. Their steady progress in wealth and education, is one of
their characteristics, and their enduring patience and unflinching
patriotism, tested by many severe trials, proclaim them worthy of the
great sires from whom they sprang.” Like their kin in Pennsylvania, and
scattered over other states, west and south, “they are Lutheran in
religion and Democratic in politics, and they are as steadfast as the
hills in each.”
The Scotch and Germans of the upper plains and valleys, from which the
trans-montane counties drew the bulk of their population, exist in the
rural districts unmixed. There has been, until very recently, little
immigration since the opening up of the great West soon after the
Revolution, the growth of population being almost wholly a natural
increase. It is further a fact, to the disadvantage of this community,
as a similar condition of things is to all other old communities, that
many of the most enterprising children of each generation leave their
homes for fields of industry in new sections. Conservatism in the old
community is an inevitable result. The western section of North Carolina
is a conspicuous example. The same statesman, whom we have already
quoted, a native there, has said:
“A very marked conservatism pervades all classes of North
Carolinians. Attachment to old forms and institutions seems to be
deeply implanted in them, as a part of their religion. They almost
equal the conservatism of Sydney Smith’s man, who refused to look
at the new moon, so great was his regard for the old. . . . North
Carolina was, I believe, the last state in the Union to abolish
property representation and suffrage in her legislature. The name
of the lower branch, house of commons, was only changed in 1868.
John Doe and Richard Roe died a violent death and departed our
courts at the hands of the carpet-bag invasion the same year. This
horde, also, with the most extraordinary perversion of its possible
uses, unanimously deposed the whipping-post as a relic of
barbarism, to which our people had clung as the great conservator
of their goods and chattels.”
The present generation of Highlanders may be proud of the revolutionary
record of their ancestors, though there were among them numerous tories,
the proportion being one King George man to four revolutionists.
Representatives from the west are found among the signers of the
Mecklenburg declaration of independence in 1775, and by subsequent
conduct they proved their enthusiasm in the cause of liberty. Their
chief peril was to be apprehended from tory brigands and the Cherokees,
incited to blood and cruelty by British agents. The danger was greatest
in the summer of 1780, after Lord Cornwallis had made his victorious
raid through the South. The liberty men were disheartened, and not a few
went over to the tory militia, of which Colonel Patrick Moore appeared
as the commander in North Carolina. He published both inducements and
threats, as a means of increasing his forces, and was meeting with a
degree of success dangerous to the patriot cause, when three companies
of old Indian-fighters, under command of Colonels Shelby, McDowell, and
Sevier, attacked him, with successful results. This was a small event in
itself, but it encouraged the liberty party, and showed the British
commander that there was a force in the scattered settlements of the
mountain foot-hills which he had reason to fear.
Colonel Ferguson, with a nucleus of 100 regulars, had collected a band
of 1,200 native Tories, from the foot of the mountains, in South
Carolina. His progress northward was “marked with blood, and lighted up
with conflagration.” For this reason he was selected to operate against
the western settlements of North Carolina.
The mountain men made one dashing and successful onslaught on his
advancing divisions, and then retired to the mountain fastnesses, for
consultation and organization. Ferguson pursued as far as Rutherfordton
(then Gilbert town), whence he dispatched a messenger to the patriots
with the threat that if they did not lay down their arms he would burn
their houses, lay waste their country, and hang their leaders.
This cruel threat aroused the settlers adjacent to the mountains, on
both sides, and north, into Virginia. More men were willing to go to the
field than it was prudent to have leave the settlements. Their fame as
“center shots,” with the rifle, was well known to the British regulars,
who feared to meet them; but the chivalric Ferguson was stimulated by
this fact to greater watchfulness and exertion.
Ramsey draws this picture of the Revolutionary forces.
“The sparse settlements of the frontier had never before seen
assembled a concourse of people so immense, and so evidently
agitated by great excitement. The large mass of the assembly were
volunteer riflemen, clad in the homespun of their wives and
sisters, and wearing the hunting shirt of the back-woods soldiery,
and not a few of them the moccasins of their own manufacture. A few
of the officers were better dressed, but all in citizen’s clothing.
The mien of Campbell was stern, authoritative, and dignified.
Shelby was stern, taciturn, and determined; Sevier, vivacious,
ardent, impulsive, and energetic; McDowell, moving about with the
ease and dignity of a colonial magistrate, inspiring veneration for
his virtues, and an indignant sympathy for the wrongs of himself
and co-exiles. All were completely wrapt in the absorbing subject
of the Revolutionary struggle, then approaching its acme, and
threatening the homes and families of the mountaineers themselves.
Never did mountain recess contain within it a loftier or more
enlarged patriotism--never a cooler or more determined courage.”
Carrying their shot-pouches, powder-horns and blankets, they started
from the Watauga, over Yellow mountain, to the head of the Catawba.
Ferguson broke up his camp at Gilbert town (Rutherfordton), on the
approach of the patriots. This was the most westward point he reached,
in the execution of his threat to lay waste the country. The tories of
his command quailed on the approach of so large a body of riflemen, and
many of them deserted the royal standard. Ferguson dispatched for
reinforcement, and took his position on King’s mountain, from which he
declared “God Almighty could not drive him.”
After being in the saddle thirty hours, in a dashing rain the patriots,
on the afternoon of October 7, 1780, arrived at the foot of the
mountain. This, one of the most historic spots in the South, is located
on the North Carolina border in Cleveland county. The area of its summit
is about 500 yards by seventy.
The mountaineers approached the summit in divisions so as to make the
attack from opposite sides simultaneously. The center reached the enemy
first, and a furious and bloody fight was commenced. The royalists drove
the attacking division down the mountain side, but were compelled to
retreat by an onslaught from the end and opposite side. The battle
became general all around, Ferguson’s forces being huddled in the
center. The mountain men aimed coolly, and shot fatally, giving away
before a fierce charge at one point, and charging with equal fierceness
from another. The British commander, at length, gave up the idea of
further resistance, but, determined not to surrender, made a desperate
attempt to break through the lines. He fell in the charge with a mortal
shot. A white flag asked for terms of capitulation; 225 royalists and 30
patriots lay dead upon the field; 700 prisoners were taken in custody;
1,500 stand of arms captured, and a great many horses and other booty
which had been taken from the settlers, restored to the rightful owners.
More than all, the frontier was freed from the ravages of a merciless
foe.
The captured arms and booty was shouldered upon the prisoners and taken
to a point in Rutherford county, where a court martial was held. Thirty
of the tories were sentenced to death for desertion and other crimes
they had committed, but only nine were executed. One of these was
Colonel Mills, a distinguished leader. The remaining prisoners and
captured arms were turned over to General Gates, commander of the
Continental army in the South.
John Sevier, one of the leading spirits in the King’s mountain affair,
and commander of the transmontane militia, was a brilliant, daring,
dashing character; the idol and leader of bold frontiersmen, who
nicknamed him “Nollichucky Jack.” The whole of Tennessee then belonged
to North Carolina, but the settlers on the Holston were so far removed
from the seat of government that, practically, they were without
government. Sevier and his friends conceived the idea of organizing a
new state, which, being in the nature of a measure for self-protection,
was unquestioned west of the mountains as a just and proper proceeding,
but by the home government denounced as an insurrection. The new state
was named Franklin, in honor of the Philadelphia philosopher and
patriot. For four years there was civil contention, which, in one
instance, resulted in contact of arms and bloodshed. After this the
parent state adopted a radical policy for the restraint of her premature
liberty-seeking child. “Nollichucky Jack,” the governor of the
insurrectionary state, was arrested for “high treason against the state
of North Carolina,” and taken to Morganton for trial.
The prisoner’s chivalric character and gallant military services, on the
one hand, and the extraordinary nature of the indictment on the other,
gave the trial momentous interest. The village streets were crowded with
old soldiers and settlers from far and near, eager to catch a glimpse of
the court. There were others there with different purposes. The chivalry
of the infant settlement of Tennessee; the men who had suffered with the
trials of frontier life and savage warfare, who had fought under him to
establish their country’s freedom, and who loved him as a brother, armed
to the teeth, had followed the captive across the mountains, determined
to “rescue him, or leave their bones.” Their plan was to rescue him by
stratagem, but if that failed, to fire the town, and in the excitement
of the conflagration make their escape.
On the day of trial, two of the “Franks,” as they were called, leaving
their companions concealed near the town, and hiding reliable sidearms
under their hunting shirts, rode up before the court-house, one of them
on “Governor” Sevier’s fine race mare. He dismounted, and with the rein
carelessly thrown over her neck, stood with the manner of an indifferent
spectator. The companion having tied his horse, went into the
court-room. Sevier’s attention, by a slight gesture, was directed to the
man outside. During a pause in the trial, the bold “Frank” stepped into
the bar, and with decided manner and tone, addressed the judge: “Are you
done with that there man?” The scene was so unusual, the manner and tone
of the speaker so firm and dramatic, that both officers and audience
were thrown into confusion. The “Governor” sprang like a fox from his
cage, one leap took him to the door, and two more on his racer’s back.
The quick clash of hoofs gave notice of his escape. The silence of the
bewildered court was broken by the exclamation of a waggish by-stander:
“Yes, I’ll be damned if you haint done with him.”
Sevier was joined by his neighbors with a wild shout, and they bore him
safely to his home. No attempt was made to re-arrest him. The State of
Franklin died from various causes, and a few years later the new State
of Tennessee honored “Nollichucky Jack” with the first governorship, and
later, by an election to the United States Senate.
Recall a picture of the mountain soldier a century ago, during the
heroic or military period: a tall, athletic form, hardy appearance,
noiseless step, and keen pair of eyes--attired in an upper garment of
blue home-spun, fringed at the bottom, and belted with wampum; deerskin
leggins and buckskin moccasins, and armed with a large knife, tomahawk,
and long rifle. This emblem of antiquity is now found only in museums.
Before the close of the Revolution there was a well-beaten road from the
Catawba to the Watauga, the path of travel from Carolina to the
incipient states west of the Alleghanies. South of this, except by
hunters and Indian traders, the passes of the Blue Ridge had not been
crossed. The fame of the luxuriant highland valleys was widespread,
however, when an extinguishment of the Indian title opened them up to
the settler.
It was a miscellaneous throng that filled the narrow roads leading from
the head-waters of the eastward streams, in search of homes and lands in
the cool upper plateau. Ahead, on horse-back, was a far-seeing man of
middle age, a member of the legislature, whose industry had rewarded him
with a small fortune, with which he would purchase a fertile tract of
wild land, and hold it for an advance of price. Slowly moving along
behind was a boat-shaped, great covered wagon, drawn by four oxen. It
contained the family and household goods of a man whose earthly
possessions amounted to but a few dollars besides. Then followed the
foot emigrants of a still poorer class, badly clad, and scantily fed.
The man and woman and larger children carried upon their backs, an axe,
a few agricultural tools, a couple of cooking pots, and a light bundle
of bed clothing. The man with the wagon would purchase a few hundred
acres of valley land, erect a cabin, such as may yet be seen any where
in the rural districts, make a clearing, and eventually become a
prosperous citizen. The foot emigrant, without examining titles or
running lines, built a hut where it suited him, deadened the trees on a
few acres, which, cultivated with the hoe, yielded bread for his family.
A flint-lock rifle, saved from the soldiering times, supplied meat and
clothing. Neither the freehold settler nor the “squatter” was able to
convert more than the hides of wild animals into money with which to
make annual purchases of such supplies as could not be raised. The
squatter had the advantage from a cash point of view over the land
owner, for he had no taxes to pay, and more time to devote to the chase.
Alive to this advantage he had no incentive to aspire to the ownership
of property; an indifference to worldly condition characterized his
simple life, an indifference which his children and his children’s
children have inherited. It was different with the freeholder; he knew
of the luxury of low country civilization; he had himself tasted the
sweets of a substantial prosperity, and looked forward to their full
enjoyment in his new home in the mountains. When times grew better he
was able to purchase a few slaves, give his children an elementary
education, and live in a comfortable house. From this class of the
settler ancestry is descended the substantial element of the present
generation of native mountaineers. They are famous business and
professional men, who would be a credit to any community. They own
nearly all the land, and inhabit the most inviting farms. Many of the
wealthier land owners were not far behind the first settlers, and their
posterity may be found in almost every county, some of them continuing
to control large boundaries.
The nucleus of settlement was on the French Broad, at the mouth of the
Swannanoa. It was there that the first white child was born, in the
inter-montane plateau--James M. Smith. In the year 1795, a wagon passed
from South Carolina, through Mill’s gap, down the French Broad, to the
prosperous settlements in Tennessee. Scores of emigrants, intending to
go on to the West, were charmed by broad stretches of valley between the
mountains, and went no further. The Indians frequently showed hostile
intentions, but the occasion for alarm was never great enough to deflect
the tide of settlement. The best lands on the French Broad and Pigeon
were occupied by freeholders, and the smoke of squatters’ cabins rose in
almost every cove, before the Cherokee treaty of 1819 opened up the
valleys beyond the Balsams, which were rapidly occupied by settlers
mainly from the piedmont and trans-Blue Ridge regions. East Tennessee
made slight contributions. The buying up of cove lands, by actual
settlers, from speculators, or the state, began after the valleys were
filled, and many small farms on mountain sides have been acquired by
“undisturbed possession.”