started, and the two ghosts began to pour corn from a bag into the
hopper. I had no idea that they were anything but living men; but the
light was faint. Their faces were covered with some white substance, and
I failed to recognize them. A little reason began to creep into Bun’s
superstitious brain. We crept closer. Then we saw that they were
talking, and their voices reached us. The sounds dazed me, and I started
as if shot. It was not our language these shadows conversed in; it was a
strange tongue, but I recognized it. It was the dialect of the
Cherokees!
“Under the impulse of the discovery, I leveled my rifle, aimed the
barrel in the darkness, and fired. Both millers stopped in their work,
and in an instant an intense darkness wrapped the scene, followed by a
crashing in the thickets on the farther side of the mill. Several owl
hoots ensued, then all was silent. Having no means of procuring a light,
we did not venture to enter the mill that night, but quickly found our
way home. The next morning I returned here at an early hour. A bag of
corn, some ground meal, and a few drops of blood on the floor, were what
I discovered in the grinding-room; these were enough to convince the
most skeptical of the mountaineers of the truth of what Bun and I
related of our night’s adventure.
“The conclusion drawn was this: A settlement of half-civilized Cherokees
over the mountains, being in need of a mill, taking advantage of this
one being unused, and also of the mountaineers’ fears, had, by managing
to play the role of spectres, secured a good mill, rental free, for two
or three years.
“My shot that night, together with a sharp watch kept up for some time,
during which we fired, on two occasions, at parties approaching the
place after dark, had the desired effect, and the mill was run no more.”
“But who killed your brother? What were the cries that you heard? And
why was the mill, after you discovered who the millers were, deserted?”
I asked.
“The murder remained a mystery until a few days after we drove out the
Indians. The discovery occurred in this way: I determined to have the
old road cleared out and go to working again. The fallen ash was first
attacked. As we rolled away a severed part of it from before the hollow
in that oak, standing there, one of the choppers noticed a pair of boots
in the rotten wood within the hollow. He pulled them out and a full
skeleton was dragged with them. Part of the clothes was still preserved
on this lately securely-sepulchred corpse. A revolver was also scraped
out the rubbish. It was the body of a man who had disappeared four years
since, as believed up to that time, for the war.
“Of course, I had no doubt but he was the murderer of my brother. He had
fired the shot; heard my rapid approach, and, knowing that to step from
behind the tree would reveal himself, he squeezed up into the hollow
trunk of the old oak. The lightning played the part of a slow
executioner. It was probably some time before he attempted to make exit
from his confinement. His endeavors, of course, were fruitless. Then he
began calling in his terror for help. These were the cries I heard
during that stormy night. Afterwards he probably became unconscious
through fright. His dreadful cries at intervals for a few days were what
startled the mountaineers, who, had they been less superstitious, might
have rescued him from a horrible lingering death. His motive in taking
the life of my brother remains a mystery.
“This revelation sickened me, and reviving, as it did, sad
recollections, I had the men stop work for a few days. In that time a
heavy flood aided in breaking down and sweeping away the worn-out race.
I never attempted to repair it, and the old mill was left to rot and
molder in solitary idleness.”
* * * * *
We had been so engaged with the stories that the rising of the wind had
passed unnoticed, and suddenly a few rain drops fell upon us and the
fire. I was about to resume my walk, but was prevailed upon to remain,
because of the storm. It began pouring in a few minutes; and, crawling
with two of the party into one of the wagons, in spite of the novelty of
the situation, I enjoyed a sound sleep on a pile of herb bags and under
the rain-beaten wagon-cover.
The valley watered by that prong of Richland creek, which rises in the
balsams of the Great Divide and beech groves of Old Bald, is one of
great beauty. It is quite narrow. The stream flows through its center,
overhung with oaks, buckeyes, beeches, maples, black gums, and a dozen
other varieties of trees, and fringed with laurel, ivy, and the alder;
while at intervals cleared lands roll back to the mountains. Lickstone,
with gentle slope, walls it on one side; a lofty ridge on the other, and
the black front of the Balsams shuts off at its southern end all
communication with what lies beyond, except by a steep winding trail and
unfinished dug road over a mountain 5,786 feet in altitude. The road
along the creek’s bank, upward from the place of nightly encampments,
possesses all the charms of a woodland way. At places the umbrageous
branches of monarch trees cross themselves overhead; beautiful vistas of
a little stream, streaked with silver rapids and losing itself under the
bending laurels, are presented at every turn; at intervals, branch roads
wind away into some mountain cove; and here and there, disappearing into
leafy coverts, are smooth-beaten by-paths, which tell of a log
school-house back in the grove, a hill-side meadow, or some hidden
lonely cabin. Wayside log cabins and a few frame farm-houses, all widely
separated, are occasionally seen; the noise from a sooty blacksmith shop
attracts attention; a weird mill rises amid the chestnut trees; while
the roar of waters in its rotten flume awakes the landscape.
The most picturesque location for a house in this valley, is owned and
dwelt upon by W. F. Gleason, at present United States commissioner for a
portion of the western district. It is an old homestead site on the
round top of a little hill, which forms a step, as it were, to the
wooded mountain ridge towering above it. Before the front of the
dwelling, 100 yards away, down the hill and across a level strip of
land, runs the Richland around the edge of a chestnut grove which
springs on its opposite bank. Through the shady grove, beyond the
rivulet bridges, is the Richland road, up which the traveler will come,
and (unless he notices the branch path and turns under the trees) which
he will follow through woodland scenery like that described. From the
door-yard of the commissioner’s unpretentious dwelling, a
mountain-walled picture is presented. Old Bald, the Balsams, Lickstone,
Wild Cat, Wolf’s Pen, and the ridge in the rear of the house, whose
highest point is the Pinnacle, bend around the valley like the
ragged-brimmed sides of a bowl with one rather deeply-broken nick in the
rim through which are visible the purple fronts of the Haywood
mountains. The valley view is too confined to be interesting, and only
one cabin, the indistinct outlines of an old farm-house, and a few acres
of cleared land amid the forests, are to be seen. It was at this
sequestered country home where, for several seasons while sojourning in
the Alleghanies, we made our head-quarters. Of the gorgeous sun-rises
over Lickstone, witnessed by us from the low porch of the cottage; of
the full-moon ascents above the night-darkened rim of the same
mountain,--we might write with enthusiasm, but with perhaps too tedious
detail for the reader.
During one of these sojourns, we roomed in an old frame house in the
valley, distant about three hundred yards from the hill-side place just
described. In the early October mornings, our way when going to
breakfast, was along a beaten path through the chestnut grove, where the
ground would be covered with nuts larger than any which ever find their
way to the market. Those short walks in the bright, clear mornings are
indelibly stamped in memory. Again the creaking, wood-latched gate of
the unpainted mansion closes with a rattle; the great piles of waste
mica around the shops gleam in the sunshine; the birds twitter in the
green vines so heavily clustered in the buckeyes that the limbs of
contiguous trees meeting, form overhead rich arbors for the passers
beneath; the rough planks of the bridge across one smooth branch of the
stream shake under our footsteps; the chestnut woods, turning yellow,
drop their dry burrs in our path; the two long, hewn-top logs, with
their crooked hand-rail, bridging one of the maddest and most musical of
mountain streams, tremble as we run across them; the bordering alders
sparkle with dew-drops; the frame farm-yard gate stands shut before us.
Over this we leap and go chasing up the hill. If the family is still
slumbering, a gun is taken from its stand beside the chimney; a whistle
given for a dog, whose quick appearance, bright eyes, and wagging tail
show his pleasure; and at the foot of the hill the black-berry thickets
are beaten, until before the yelping dog a shivering rabbit bounds out
in sight, whose race is perhaps ended rather abruptly.
For mountain parties both Lickstone and Old Bald offer exceptional
attractions. The ascent of the latter peak and the character of the
views from its summit are described in the sketch on bear hunting.
Lickstone can be easily ascended on foot or on horse-back, and is
admirably situated for the observer to bring within his ken the most
prominent peaks of eight surrounding counties, and see unrolled below
him a mountain-bounded landscape of beauty and grandeur beyond the power
of delineation by poet or painter. Lickstone takes its curious name from
a huge flat rock near the summit of the mountain, whereon the
cattle-herders used formerly to place the salt brought by them to the
stock which range the summit meadows. On the east slope are located
valuable mica mines.
An interesting day’s journey, from Waynesville, is to and from Soco
Falls. The road can be traveled over by carriage, and leads up
Jonathan’s creek to its source. The falls are on the distant slope of
the mountain, sixteen miles from the village. The headwaters of the Soco
rise in a dark wilderness. At the principal fall, two prongs of the
stream, coming from different directions, unite their foaming waters by
first leaping over a series of rocky ledges, arranged like a stairway.
Into a boiling basin, fifty feet below, the stream whirls and eddies
around, and then, with renewed impetuosity, rushes down the gradual
descent to the valley. By following down the road, the traveler will
soon find himself in the Indian reservation.
[Illustration: THE JUNALUSKAS.]
One mile from Waynesville, on the state road toward Webster, is a level
and well-cultivated farm of about one hundred acres, forming a portion
of the wide, cleared valley between the base of the hills, on one side,
and the wood-fringed Richland on the other. It is the property of
Sanborn and Mears, two young men who have lately moved into the
mountains. With enlarged ideas on farming, they are bringing the
naturally rich soil into a state of perfection for grain and grazing. A
cheery, comfortable farm-house stands under the door-yard trees beside
the driveway. Behind the house the ground rises gradually to the oak
woods along the summit of the hill. In the front, visible from the
doorway, is a wide-sweeping mountain prospect. The valley, broad, open,
level, diversified with farms and forests, crossed by winding fences and
roads hidden by green hedges, extends away for two miles or more, to the
steep fronts of lofty mountains. It is these mountains which so enhance
the picture, giving it, morning and evening, soft shadows, sunlight
intensified by shooting through the gap between the Junaluskas and Mount
Serbal, and a peaceful, pleasing slumber, like that of a noble grayhound
at the feet of his trusted master. A portion of this prospect is given
in the accompanying illustration.
From Waynesville to Webster, twenty miles distant, there was no regular
hack or stage line running in 1882, but either saddle-horses or
carriages can be obtained at reasonable rates in Waynesville. There are
no scenes along the route that the traveler would be likely to retain in
memory. Hills, mountains, woods, and farms fill up the way, with no
particularly striking features. Dr. Robert Welch’s farm, about two miles
from the village, is one which will not be passed unnoticed. The large,
white residence, white flouring mill opposite, high solid fences formed
from rocks picked from the roads and fields, and level lands of several
hundred acres, make up a pleasant homestead.
Webster is an antiquated village, on the summit of a red hill, silently
overlooking the Tuckasege river. It has a population of about 200, and
is the county-seat of a large and fertile section of the mountains.
About forty-five miles south of the village, by the way of the river
road, is Highlands, an objective point for the tourist. East La Porte is
one of the points passed on the river. It is a country post, with two
stores, a school-house or academy, and a few houses. The academy,
resembling a Tell chapel, is situated on a hill-top in a bend of the
Tuckasege. As this structure rises from the forest-crowned hill, around
whose base sweeps the sparkling river, with a line of distant mountains
for its back ground, it is extremely picturesque.
The road up Shoal Creek mountain, on the way to Cashier’s Valley and
Highlands, is noted for its wild scenery. Frail wooden bridges span deep
ravines echoing with the roar of waters; the road winds at times around
the steep side of the wooded mountain; then again it dips down to the
margin of the stream. The falls of Grassy creek are close in full view
at one point. The water of this stream in order to empty into the larger
stream, flings itself over a perpendicular cliff, falling through space
with loud roar and white veil-like form.
The stupendous falls of the Tuckasege are near this Shoal creek road,
but it is not advisable for the tourist to attempt the tramp to them by
this wild approach. In our last pilgrimage up the mountain we attempted
it. A few incidents which occurred on this trip may prove interesting to
the reader. The artist was with me. Stopping at McCall’s lonely cabin,
we hired a twelve-year-old boy for a quarter to act as our guide. The
day was uncomfortably warm. We led our horses up a mile ascent, so
steep, that in scaling it not a dry spot remained on our underclothes.
Then we tied the panting animals and walked and slid down a mountain
side whose steepness caused us to grow pale when we contemplated the
return. When we reached the dizzy edge of the precipice above the
thundering cataract, the artist, unused to so arduous a journey, was in
such a state of prostration, that he could not hold a pencil between
his thumb and fingers. To sketch was impossible; to breathe was little
less difficult for him. We rested a few minutes, viewing from above the
mad plunge of white waters, and then, with the small boy’s help, I
carried, pushed, and pulled my exhausted companion up the ascent to the
horses. How many times he fell prostrate on that desolate mountain
slope, stretching wide his arms and panting like a man in his last
agony, we failed to keep account of.
The last spoonfull of medicine in a flask taken from the saddle-bags
enabled him to mount his horse, and we rode off around a flinty mountain
with warm air circling through the trees and the hollow voice of the
upper falls of the Tuckasege, seen below us in the distance, sounding in
our ears. We dragged our horses after us down a steep declivity; passed
a muddy-looking cabin; wended through a deserted farm under an untrimmed
orchard, with rotten peaches hanging to the limbs; startled several
coveys of quails from the rank grass; entered a green, delicious forest
alive with barking gray squirrels; and then, through several rail fences
and troublesome gates, reached the sandy road leading into Hamburg,--a
store with a post office. It is the ancient site of a fort of that name
erected for use in case of Indian depredations.
Here we tried to get something to more fully resuscitate the still
trembling artist, but everything had gone dry; and all the encouragement
we received was a cordial invitation, from a man who was hauling a log
to a neighboring saw-mill, to come and spend a week at his house, and he
would have a keg of blockade on hand for us. This manner of the
mountaineers of inviting strangers to visit them is illustrative of
their warm-hearted natures. W. N. Heddin was the logger who extended
this invitation. I had met him once before while on a tramp through
Rabun county, Georgia, where he was then living. A minute’s stop at his
house, on that occasion to procure a drink of water, was the extent of
our acquaintance. His farm was situated at the base of a frowning, rocky
wall called Buzzard cliffs, and although just outside the North Carolina
line deserves some mention, because of certain interest connected with
it. This interest is gold.
The sand in the beds of some of the smooth-flowing rivulets down the
sultry southern slope of the Blue Ridge have, as regards the precious
mineral, panned out well in the past. Over thirty years ago the stream
through Heddin’s property was discovered to contain gold; and for a
time, as he related, was worked at the rate of ten pennyweights a day
per man. After living with the gold fever for many years, he lately sold
his property, and removed across the Blue Ridge.
Declining Heddin’s proffered hospitality we pushed on, gradually but
imperceptibly ascending the Blue Ridge. I was riding on ahead. Suddenly
my companion called to me.
“Say, I’ve lost my overcoat.”
“Too bad! Shall we return and search for it?”
“No; but it’s strange how I’m losing everything.”
“Yes. You lost your pipe yesterday; your breath this morning, and now
it’s your coat.”
“Just so; and do you know, I’m getting demoralized. Something worse is
going to happen. Say!”
“What?”
“If you hear anything weighing about one hundred and ten pounds fall off
my horse, turn and come back, will you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“You’ll know _I’m_ lost. Hang me, but I feel cut up!”
The overcoat was not recovered by its owner; and fortunately the fall,
of which forewarning had been given, did not occur.
We easily ascended the Ridge. Luxuriant forests--perfect tropical
tangles--spread over the last portion of the way. A stream with water
the color of a pure topaz flows under the rich green rhododendron
hedges. Down the slope toward Cashier’s Valley the road is of white
sand, beaten as level as a floor. A drive in easy carriage over it with
the broad-sweeping limbs of the cool trees overhead, would be
delightful. These woods were filled with insects termed “chatteracks” by
the natives. Their shrill chirping toward evening is much louder than
the noise of the locust, and fairly deafens the traveler. Locusts also
joined in the chorus, giving a concert as melodious as it was singular
and primeval.
Cashier’s Valley is a mountain plateau of the Blue Ridge, 3,400 feet in
altitude, from four to five miles long and a mile and a half wide.
Attracted by its climate, freedom from dampness, its utter isolation
from the populated haunts of man, the rugged character of its scenery,
and deer and bear infested wildwoods, years since, wealthy planters of
South Carolina drifted in here with each recurring summer. Now, a few
homes of these people are scattered along the highland roads. One
residence, the pleasant summer home of Colonel Hampton, the earliest
settler from South Carolina, is situated, as it appears from the road,
in the gap between Chimney Top and Brown mountain, through which, twenty
miles away, can be seen a range of purple mountains. A grove of pines
surrounds the house. Governor Hampton formerly spent the summers here,
engaged, among other pastimes, in fishing for trout along the head
streams of the Chatooga, which have been stocked with this fish by the
Hampton family.
The sun had hidden himself behind the western ranges, but daylight still
pervaded the landscape, when through a break of the forest of the
hill-side around which the road winds, we came out before the massive
front of a peculiar mountain. Whiteside, or in literal translation of
the Cherokee title, Unakakanoos, White-mountain, is the largest exposure
of perpendicular, bare rock east of the Rockies. It is connected,
without deeply-marked intervening gaps, with its neighboring peaks of
the Blue Ridge; but from some points of observation it appears
isolated--a majestic, solitary, dome-shaped monument, differing from all
other mountains of the Alleghanies in its aspect and form. The top line
of its precipitous front is 1,600 feet above its point of conjunction
with the crest of the green hill, which slopes to the Chatooga, 800 feet
lower. The face of the mountain is gray, not white; but is seared by
long rifts, running horizontal across it, of white rock. With the
exception of a single patch of green pines, half-way up its face, no
visible verdure covers its nakedness.
Below the eastern foot of the mountain spreads away rolling valley-land,
with hills forest-crowned, fertile depths drained by the Chatooga’s
headwaters, and portions of it laid out in cultivated fields, and dotted
with farm-houses. At the base of Whiteside, on one of a series of green
rounded hills, lives an independent, elderly Englishman, named
Grimshawe; and near by, in a commodious, sumptuously-furnished dwelling,
partially concealed by a hill and its natural grove, resides his son, a
pleasant man, with a healthy, English cast of countenance. In the dark
we passed unseen the latter place; and, pushing along on our dejected
and dispirited steeds, fording the cold, splashing streams, disappearing
from each other under the funereal shadows of the melancholy forests,
climbing the cricket-sounding hills, we at length drew rein before the
almost imperceptible outlines of a low building arising under some gaunt
trees.
I dismounted, tossed my bridle to my companion, felt my way through a
trembling gate, stumbled upon a black porch and approached a door
through whose latch-string hole and gaping slits rays of light were
sifting. My rattling knock was responded to by a savage growl from an
animal whose sharpness of teeth I could easily imagine, and whose
presence I felt relieved in knowing was within. Then the door opened,
and a queer looking man stood before me. He was very short in stature.
His face was thin and colorless. A neglected brown moustache adorned his
upper lip. His hair was long and uncombed; and his person, attired in an
unbleached, unstarched shirt and dirty pantaloons, was odorous with
tallow. This was Picklesimer.
“Can my friend and I stay here all night?” I asked.
“I reckon. Our fare’s poor, but you’re welcome.”
The door swung wider. Several children, fac similes of their sire, and a
woman were eating at a table lighted by a tallow dip,--a twisted woolen
rag laid in a saucer of tallow and one end of it ablaze. There was
nothing inviting in this picture; but a shelter, however miserable, was
better than the night; and rest, in any shape, preferable to several
miles more of dark riding. In a few minutes our supper was ready.
Picklesimer sat opposite to us and to keep us company, poured out for
himself a cup of black coffee.
“Coffee is good fer stimilation,” said he.
“That’s so,” said the artist.
“When I drinks coffee fer stimilation,” he continued, running his
fingers back through his hair, “I drinks it without sugar or milk.”
We had evidently struck a coffee toper.
“Do you drink much of it?” inquired my companion, as Picklesimer began
pouring out another cup full.
“I drinks three and four cups to a meal. Hits powerful stimilation;” and
then he rolled his dark, deep-sunken eyes at us over the rim of his
saucer as he tipped the contents into the cavity under his moustache.
Evidently he drank coffee as a substitute for unattainable blockade. Our
host had no valuable information to impart; so, soon after supper we
retired to a room set apart for us, and sank away for a sound night’s
sleep in a high bed of suffocating feathers.