valley is 1,100 feet, the distance in an air line about two miles--the
old stage road covering it in a little less than three, an average grade
of 400 feet to the mile. Of course the railroad had to be constructed on
a more circuitous route, which was found by following the general course
of a mountain stream, rounding the head of its rivulets, and cutting or
tunneling sharply projecting spurs. At two places, a stone tossed from
the track above would fall about 100 feet upon the track below; one of
these is Round Knob, the circuit of which is more than a mile. The whole
distance to the top, by rail, is nine and three-quarters miles. The
grade at no point exceeds 116 feet to the mile, and is equated to less
than that on curves. There are seven tunnels, the shortest being
eighty-nine feet, and the longest,--at the top,--Swannanoa, 1,800. The
total length of tunneling was 3,495 feet. During the ascent the traveler
catches many charming glimpses of valley, slope, and stream. The view
just before plunging into the blackness of Swannanoa tunnel is
enchanting. A narrow ravine is crossed at right angles, between whose
cañon walls, far below, glistens the spray of a small torrent. The
background of the picture is the delicately tinted eastern sky, against
which appears, in pale blue, the symmetrical outline of King’s mountain,
sixty miles away. It is an interesting experiment, in making this trip,
to pick out some point on the top of the ridge, say the High Pinnacle,
easily distinguished as the highest point in view from Henry’s; fix its
direction in your mind, and then, at intervals, as you round the curves
of the ascent, try to find it among the hundred peaks in view.
After the long tunnel is passed, you are in the Swannanoa valley. The
next hour takes you rapidly through the fields and meadows of this
highland bottom, bordered by mighty mountains, until the train enters
the Asheville depot.
In the center of the widest portion of that great plateau, watered by
the French Broad and its tributaries, is situated the city of the
mountains--Asheville, the county-seat of Buncombe. To obtain some idea
of the location of the place, picture to yourself a green, mountain
basin, thirty miles in breadth, rolling with lofty rounded hills, from
the crest of any of which the majestic fronts of the Black and Craggy
can be seen along the eastern horizon; the Pisgah spur of the Balsams,
the Junaluskas and Newfound range, looming along the western; in the
northern sky, far beyond the invisible southern boundary of Madison, the
misty outlines of the Smokies; and towards the south, across Henderson
county, the winding Blue Ridge. Amid such sublime surroundings, at an
altitude of 2,250 feet, stands the city on the summits of a cluster of
swelling eminences, whose feet are washed by the waters of the French
Broad and Swannanoa. Close along the eastern limit of the city arises a
steep, wooded ridge, whose most prominent elevation, named Beaucatcher,
affords an admirable standpoint from which to view the lower landscape.
The habitations and public buildings of 3,500 people lie below. You see
a picturesque grouping of heavy, red buildings, dazzling roofs, a great
domed court-house, a white church spire here and there, humble dwellings
clinging to the hill-sides, and pretentious mansions amid fair orchards
on the green brows of hills; yellow streets, lined with noble shade
trees, climbing the natural elevations, sinking into wide, gentle
hollows, and disappearing utterly;--this for the heart of the city.
Around, on bare slopes of hills, low beside running rivulets, on
isolated eminences, and in the distance, on the edges of green,
encircling woods, stand houses forming the outskirts. Three hundred
feet below the line of the city’s central elevation, through a wide
fertile valley, sweeps smoothly and silently along, the dark waters of
the French Broad. It is through sweet pastoral scenes that this river is
now flowing; the rugged and picturesque scenery for which it is noted
lies further down its winding banks. At the east end of the substantial
iron bridge which spans the stream, is the depot for the Western North
Carolina railroad. From your perch you may perceive, wafted above the
distant brow of the hill, the smoke-rings from the locomotive which has
within the past two hours “split the Blue Ridge,” and is now on its way
toward the station.
If it is a clear, sunny day, the beauty of the scene will be
indescribable: the city on its rolling hills, the deep valley beyond,
and, far away, Pisgah (a prince among mountains), the symmetrical form
of Sandy Mush Bald, and between them, distant thirty miles, the almost
indistinct outlines of the majestic Balsams. A transparent sky, a mellow
sunlight, and that soft air, peculiar to this country, which covers with
such a delicate purple tinge the distant headlands, add their charms to
the landscape.
In a stroll or drive through the city you will find it remarkably well
built up for the extent of its population. If it were not for the
knowledge of its being a summer resort, one would wonder at the number
and capacity of its hotels. The Swannanoa and Eagle, two commodious,
elegant, and substantial buildings, stand facing each other on the main
thoroughfare. Several other good public houses, although less
pretentious, line the same street. There is a busy air about the square
before the court-house and on the streets which branch from it.
Men of capital are beginning to locate here. With every summer new
houses are growing into form on the many charming sites for the display
of costly residences. The smooth streets arise and descend by well-kept
lawns, orchards, and dwellings. A home-like air pervades. There are few
towns in the United States which, for natural advantages, combined with
number of population, and pleasant artificial surroundings, can compare
with Asheville. Besides advancing in commercial and manufacturing
importance, Asheville will, at no late date, be spoken of as the city of
retired capitalists.
As early as the War of 1812, Asheville was a small hamlet and trading
post. Twenty years after, it received its charter of incorporation.
Morristown was the original name; which was changed, in compliment to
Governor Samuel Ashe. The county was named in honor of Edward Buncombe.
In 1817 Felix Walker was elected to the House of Representatives. On one
occasion, while Walker was making a speech in Congress, he failed to
gain the attention of the members, who kept leaving the hall. Noticing
this, he remarked that it was all right, as he was only talking for
Buncombe, meaning his district. The expression was immediately caught
up, and used in application to one speaking with no particular object in
view.
At present, Asheville is the principal tobacco market west of Danville,
on the Richmond & Danville system, four large warehouses being located
here. Two newspapers are published in the city. The _Citizen_, a
Democratic weekly and semi-weekly sheet, one of the best papers in the
state, is the official organ of the Eighth district. The _News_ is a
weekly Republican paper.
Among the societies worthy of notice, is the Asheville club, comprising
about forty members. Its organization is for social purposes. A pleasant
room has been fitted up for its headquarters, where the members can
while away their leisure hours in reading and conversation.
Before the advent, into Asheville, of the railroad, in 1880, tourists
approached the mountain city by stages from either the terminus of the
Western North Carolina railroad, at the eastern foot of the Blue Ridge;
from Greenville, South Carolina; or up the French Broad from Tennessee.
With the present speedy and convenient way of reaching it, the influx of
new-comers increases with every season. Every day during the months of
July, August, and September, when the season is at its height, the
business portion of Asheville resembles the center, on market days, of a
metropolis of twenty times the size of the mountain town. The streets,
especially before the hotels, are thronged with citizens, and the crowds
of summer visitors, on foot or in carriages, returning from or starting
on drives along some of the romantic roads. Parties on horseback canter
through the streets, drawing short rein before suddenly appearing,
rattling, white-covered, apple-loaded wagons, driven by nonchalant
drivers, and drawn by oxen as little concerned as those who hold the
goad or pull the rope fastened to their horns; the only animated member
of the primitive party being the dog which, in the confusion, having his
foot trodden upon by one of the reined-up, prancing horses, awakes the
welkin with his cries as he drags himself into a blind alley.
Even in daytime a dance is going on in the Swannanoa ball-room on a
level with the street. The strains of music from it and whirling figures
seen from the sidewalk, will be enough to clinch the opinion that you
are in a gay and fashionable summer resort. Every week-day night dances
are held at both the Swannanoa and Eagle. If you are single, there is
little doubt but you will participate in this revelry; if you have lost
the sprightliness of youth or the happy chuckle of healthy later life,
in vain you may tuck your head under the pillow and vent your empty
maledictions upon the musicians and their lively strains.
There are a number of pleasant drives out of Asheville. One is on the
old stage-road leading up from Henry’s, a station for a few years the
terminus of the slow-moving construction of the railroad. You drive or
walk down the hill towards the south by houses close upon the road and
several rural mansions back in natural groves. A heavy plank bridge,
with trees leaning over either approach to it, spans the slow, noiseless
Swannanoa. Instead of taking the bridge, turn sharp to the left and wind
with the smooth road along the stream. There is a rich pulseless quiet
along this river road that is truly delightful. At places the vista is
of striking tropical character. The brilliant trees, their flowing green
draperies, the seemingly motionless river! If you have time, you can
follow on for miles until where the waters are noisy, the bed shallow,
rhododendrons and kalmia fringe its banks and the gradual rise of the
country becomes perceptible. It is the route generally taken from
Asheville to the Black mountains. Another drive is to the White Sulphur
Springs, four miles from the city. The way is down the steep hill on the
west to the French Broad, across the long bridge, and by the village of
Silver Springs, where lately a comfortable hotel has been erected. The
lands of this village being level, close on the river bank and connected
by the bridge at the depot, afford excellent sites for manufactories.
The road now leads up a winding ascent, around the outskirts of
Takeoskee farm (the extensive grounds, overlooking the river, of a
wealthy Asheville citizen), through woods and cultivated lands to the
Spring farm.
Big Craggy is an objective point for the tourist. The easiest route to
it is via the road towards Burnsville and then up Ream’s creek, making a
morning’s drive. A carriage can be taken to the summit of the mountain.
A portion of the old stage road to Warm Springs is an inviting drive. It
runs north from the court-house, over the hills and then down the French
Broad. Exquisite landscape pictures lie along the ancient thoroughfare.
The country residence of General Vance will be passed on the way.
Peaceful farm-houses, surrounded by green corn lands, yellow wheat
fields, clover-covered steeps, and dark woods, will file by in panoramic
succession. As late as 1882, the stages pursuing this road were the only
regular means of conveyance from Asheville to Marshal and Warm Springs.
The road was as rough as it was picturesque. From the fact of its being
hugged for miles by the river and beetling cliffs, this could not have
been otherwise. At times the horses and wheels of the stage splashed in
the water of the river where it had overflown the stone causeways;
again, boulders, swept up by a recent freshet, rendered traveling almost
impossible. A considerable portion of the road has been appropriated for
the bed of the railroad, and all that was once seen from a stage-top can
now with more comfort be looked upon from a car window.
Sixteen miles west of Asheville is a model country hotel, at Turnpike.
For long years it was the noonday stopping place for the stages on the
way from Asheville to Waynesville. Since the railroad began operation it
has become a station, and when we last came through from the West it was
the breakfast place for the passengers. It is situated at the head of
Hominy valley, amid pleasant mountain surroundings. John C. Smathers,
the genial, rotund proprietor, will, with his pleasant wife and
daughters, render the tourist’s stay so agreeable that the intended week
of sojourn here may be lengthened into a month. John C. is a
representative country man. What place he actually fills in the small
settlement at Turnpike, can be best illustrated by giving the reported
cross-examination which he underwent one day at the hands of an
inquisitive traveler:
“Mr. Smathers,” said this traveler, “are you the proprietor of this
hotel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who is postmaster here?”
“I am.”
“Who keeps the store?”
“I do.”
“Who runs the blacksmith shop?”
“I do.”
“How about the mill?”
“Ditto.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, I have something of a farm, let me tell you.”
“And as a Christian?”
“I am a pillar in the Methodist church; the father of thirteen children;
and my sons and sons-in-law just about run the neighboring county-seat.”
With a low whistle the traveler surveyed John C. from head to foot.
The trip from Asheville to Hendersonville, Cæsar’s Head, and the
mountains of Transylvania should not be omitted by the tourist. The
first place you pass, on the State road, ten miles from your starting
point, and twelve from Hendersonville, is Arden Park. The estate,
consisting of more than 300 acres, is owned by C. W. Beal. The unwooded
portion is well improved and under a good state of cultivation. Upon an
elevation near the center of the farm, is situated the residence of the
proprietor, and near it the commodious buildings of Arden Park hotel,
which are annually open for the reception of guests during the summer
months.
Surrounded by the ordinary scenes of rural farm life, this hotel
partakes more of the character of a country house than any other in
Western North Carolina. The view from the front veranda is over an
expanse of undulating fields, stretching down to the French Broad and
rising beyond; and is bounded in the distance by massive spurs of the
high Pisgah mountains, behind which the sun hides itself at evening.
More than 100 acres of the estate is in the native forest, making, with
its winding roads and paths, a pleasant park. The river, only one mile
distant, will afford the angler an opportunity to utilize his skill and
the more idle pleasure-seeker many an interesting stroll.
The park is richly favored with springs, both of mineral and soft
freestone water. A chalybeate spring, near the hotel, has been analyzed,
and found almost identical in its properties with the famed
“Sweetwater,” in Virginia. The interior of the main building is
peculiarly attractive. The parlor, hall, and reception room are finished
in handsome designs with native woods--chestnut, oak, and pine.
On the main thoroughfare, one mile from the hotel, is the village of
Arden, laid out a few years since by Mr. Beal. Upon completion of the
Spartanburg and Asheville railroad, it will be the intermediate station
between Hendersonville and Asheville. At present both village and hotel
are dependent upon the daily stage line.
The visitor to Arden hotel will find it a pleasant home-like place. Its
surroundings are beautiful, but not grand. It will be found an agreeable
place to rest and enjoy the comforts of wholesome country living. A
large percentage of the company the past two seasons came from the coast
regions of South Carolina.
Hendersonville is the hub of the upper French Broad region. This
prosperous village, the second in size west of the Blue Ridge, is
situated on the terminus of a ridge which projects into the valley of
the Ochlawaha, and overlooks a wide stretch of low bottom lying within a
circle of mountains. When the county was formed in 1838, a point on the
river six miles distant was designated as the site of the seat of
justice, but a more central location was generally desired, and
accordingly the law was amended two years later and the seat removed to
Hendersonville.
The town has a cheerful appearance. The main street is wide and well
shaded by three rows of trees, one on each side and one through the
center. Several of the business houses are substantially and
artistically built of brick, giving the stranger a favorable opinion of
the thrift and enterprise of the merchants. A number of handsome
residences give additional evidence of prosperity.
The population of Hendersonville numbers about one thousand. Seventeen
stores transact the mercantile business, and five hotels keep open doors
to the traveling public. As in all resort towns, private boarding houses
are numerous. The moral and educational interests of the community are
ministered to by churches, a public school, and an academy of more than
local reputation.
There seems to be a harmony of effort among the citizens to make the
stay of strangers pleasant, by furnishing them both information and
entertainment. Several mountains in the vicinity afford extensive
landscape views. “Stony,” four miles distant, commands the whole
Ochlawaha valley and a wide sweep of the curving French Broad. The
country embraced within the view from Mount Hebron is more rugged and
broken. A good standpoint from which to view the village, valley, and
bordering mountains is Dun Cragin, the residence of H. G. Ewart, Esq.
Thirteen miles of plateau and valley intervene between that point and
Sugar Loaf; Bear Wallow is about the same distance; Shaking Bald
twenty-five miles away, and Tryon twenty-one. A part of the view is
represented by the illustration on page 135.
Sugar Loaf mountain, one of the most conspicuous points seen from
Hendersonville, has associated with it an historical legend of
revolutionary times. The Mills family, living below the Ridge, were
noted tory leaders. Colonel Mills and his brother William were both
engaged on the royalist side in the battle of King’s Mountain. The
former was captured, and afterward hanged by the patriot commanders at
Guilford C. H. The latter escaped, with a wound in the heel, and made
his home in a cave in the side of Sugar Loaf, living on wild meats, and
sleeping on a bed of leaves. There he remained till the close of the war
when, his property having been confiscated, he entered land in the
French Broad valley, and became one of its earliest settlers. In the
cave there are still found evidences of its ancient occupancy--coals,
charred sticks, and bones.
Hendersonville is reached by two routes--by stage, from Asheville, and
by rail from Spartanburg, on the Air Line. The latter road, the usual
course of travel from the south, in making the ascent of the Blue Ridge,
does not circle and wind as does the Western North Carolina; but its
grade, at places, is almost frightful. One mile of track overcomes 300
feet of elevation. One bold, symmetrical peak is in view from the train
windows during most of the journey, and from several points of interest
in the upper valley. Tryon mountain may be styled the twin of Pisgah,
and both, in shape, resemble the pyramids of Egypt. From Captain Tom’s
residence, in Hendersonville, both may be seen, in opposite directions.
Tryon preserves the name of the most tyrannical and brutal of North
Carolina’s colonial governors. It was his conduct, in attempting to
destroy the instincts of freedom, which precipitated the Mecklenburg
declaration of independence in 1775.
The Spartanburg and Asheville railroad at present terminates at
Hendersonville. It is partially graded to Asheville, and there is some
prospect of its early completion.
The attractions of this section of the grand plateau of the Alleghanies,
was made known to the coast residents of South Carolina about the year
1820. Four years after that date, Daniel Blake, of Charleston, pioneered
the way from the low country, and built a summer residence on Cane
creek. Charles Bering was the founder of the Flat Rock settlement, in
the year 1828, and made a purchase of land, built a summer residence,
about four miles from the site of the present county-seat and near the
crest of the Blue Ridge. His example was followed by Mitchell King and
C. S. Memminger, Sr., a year or two later. The community soon became
famous for refinement, and the place for healthfulness of climate and
beauty of scenery.
The Flat Rock valley is about two miles wide and four miles long,
reaching from the Ochlawha to the crest of the Blue Ridge, and may be
described as an undulating plain. It embraced, before the war, about
twenty estates, among others the country seats of Count de Choiseue, the
French consul-general, and E. Molyneux, the British consul-general. The
valley, until recently, was reached in carriages by the low country
people.
At the opening of summer the planter or merchant and his family, taking
along the entire retinue of domestic servants, started for the cool,
rural home in the highlands, where the luxurious living of the coast was
maintained, to which additional gaiety and freedom was given by the
invigorating climate and wildness of surroundings. Carriages and four,
with liveried drivers, thronged the public highways. The Flat Rock
settlement brought the highest development of American civilization into
the heart of one of the most picturesque regions of the American
continent. Wealthy and cultured audiences assembled at St. John’s church
on each summer Sabbath. The magnificence of the ante-war period is no
longer maintained; the number of aristocratic families has decreased,
and some of the residences show the dilapidations of time; yet a refined
and sociable air pervades the place, which, with the recollections of
the past, makes it an interesting locality to visit. All who may have
occasion to stop, will find a good hotel and hospitable entertainment
at the hands of Henry Faunce, Esq., an eccentric but interesting
landlord of the old school.
From Hendersonville to Buck Forest is twenty miles over a fair road.
This place derives its name from the fact that the hills and mountains
in the vicinity are reported to abound in deer. Of late years the amount
of game has been rapidly decreasing, but even yet a well-organized and
well-conducted chase is seldom barren of results. Buck Forest hotel is
an old-fashioned frame house, situated in the midst of wild and inviting
scenery. The traveler will recognize the place by the sign of an immense
elk horn on a post, and by a line of deer heads and buck antlers under
the full length veranda.
From Hendersonville to Cæsar’s Head is twenty miles. There are two
roads--one up the valley of Green river, and the other to Little river,
thence up that stream through Jones’ gap. Cæsar’s Head is also reached
by stages from Greenville, South Carolina, on the Air Line railroad,
distant twenty-four miles. The Little River road leads through the
picturesque valley of the upper French Broad region. After traversing
wide and fertile alluvions, the road enters, between close mountain
slopes, a narrow gorge, through which the river, for a distance of four
miles, rushes and roars in a continuous succession of sparkling cascades
and rapids. The most noted point is Bridal Veil falls, so named from the
silvery appearance of the spray in sunlight. It is not a sheer fall, but
an almost vertical rapid with numerous breaks. On a bright day the
colors of the rainbow play between the cañon walls.