Cranberry Forge is the first wedge of civilization fairly driven into
the northwest mountains of North Carolina. A narrow-gauge railway,
starting from Johnson City, follows up the narrow gorge of the Doe
River, and pushes into the heart of the iron mines at Cranberry,
where there is a blast furnace; and where a big company store, rows of
tenement houses, heaps of slag and refuse ore, interlacing tracks, raw
embankments, denuded hillsides, and a blackened landscape, are the signs
of a great devastating American enterprise. The Cranberry iron is in
great esteem, as it has the peculiar quality of the Swedish iron. There
are remains of old furnaces lower down the stream, which we passed on
our way. The present “plant” is that of a Philadelphia company,
whose enterprise has infused new life into all this region, made it
accessible, and spoiled some pretty scenery.
When we alighted, weary, at the gate of the pretty hotel, which crowns
a gentle hill and commands a pleasing, evergreen prospect of many gentle
hills, a mile or so below the works, and wholly removed from all sordid
associations, we were at the point of willingness that the whole country
should be devastated by civilization. In the local imagination this
hotel of the company is a palace of unequaled magnificence, but probably
its good taste, comfort, and quiet elegance are not appreciated after
all. There is this to be said about Philadelphia,--and it will go far
in pleading for it in the Last Day against its monotonous rectangularity
and the babel-like ambition of its Public Building,--that wherever its
influence extends, there will be found comfortable lodgings and the
luxury of an undeniably excellent cuisine. The visible seal that
Philadelphia sets on its enterprise all through the South is a good
hotel.
This Cottage Beautiful has on two sides a wide veranda, set about with
easy chairs; cheerful parlors and pretty chambers, finished in
native woods, among which are conspicuous the satin stripes of the
cucumber-tree; luxurious beds, and an inviting table ordered by a
Philadelphia landlady, who knows a beefsteak from a boot-tap. Is it
“low” to dwell upon these things of the senses, when one is on a tour in
search of the picturesque? Let the reader ride from Abingdon through a
wilderness of cornpone and rusty bacon, and then judge. There were,
to be sure, novels lying about, and newspapers, and fragments of
information to be picked up about a world into which the travelers
seemed to emerge. They, at least, were satisfied, and went off to their
rooms with the restful feeling that they had arrived somewhere and no
unquiet spirit at morn would say “to horse.” To sleep, perchance to
dream of Tatem and his household cemetery; and the Professor was heard
muttering in his chamber,
“Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head,
To work my mind, when body's work's expir'd.”
The morning was warm (the elevation of the hotel must be between
twenty-five hundred and three thousand feet), rainy, mildly rainy; and
the travelers had nothing better to do than lounge upon the veranda,
read feeble ten-cent fictions, and admire the stems of the white
birches, glistening in the moisture, and the rhododendron--trees, twenty
feet high, which were shaking off their last pink blossoms, and look
down into the valley of the Doe. It is not an exciting landscape,
nothing bold or specially wild in it, but restful with the monotony of
some of the wooded Pennsylvania hills.
Sunday came up smiling, a lovely day, but offering no church privileges,
for the ordinance of preaching is only occasional in this region.
The ladies of the hotel have, however, gathered in the valley a
Sunday-school of fifty children from the mountain cabins. A couple
of rainy days, with the thermometer rising to 80 deg., combined with
natural laziness to detain the travelers in this cottage of ease. They
enjoyed this the more because it was on their consciences that they
should visit Linville Falls, some twenty-five miles eastward, long held
up before them as the most magnificent feature of this region, and on no
account to be omitted. Hence, naturally, a strong desire to omit it. The
Professor takes bold ground against these abnormal freaks of nature, and
it was nothing to him that the public would demand that we should see
Linville Falls. In the first place, we could find no one who had ever
seen them, and we spent two days in catechizing natives and strangers.
The nearest we came to information was from a workman at the furnace,
who was born and raised within three miles of the Falls. He had heard
of people going there. He had never seen them himself. It was a good
twenty-five miles there, over the worst road in the State we'd think it
thirty before we got there. Fifty miles of such travel to see a little
water run down-hill! The travelers reflected. Every country has a local
waterfall of which it boasts; they had seen a great many. One more would
add little to the experience of life. The vagueness of information,
to be sure, lured the travelers to undertake the journey; but the
temptation was resisted--something ought to be left for the next
explorer--and so Linville remains a thing of the imagination.
Towards evening, July 29, between showers, the Professor and the Friend
rode along the narrow-gauge road, down Johnson's Creek, to Roan Station,
the point of departure for ascending Roan Mountain. It was a ride of
an hour and a half over a fair road, fringed with rhododendrons, nearly
blossomless; but at a point on the stream this sturdy shrub had formed
a long bower where under a table might have been set for a temperance
picnic, completely overgrown with wild grape, and still gay with bloom.
The habitations on the way are mostly board shanties and mean frame
cabins, but the railway is introducing ambitious architecture here
and there in the form of ornamental filigree work on flimsy houses;
ornamentation is apt to precede comfort in our civilization.
Roan Station is on the Doe River (which flows down from Roan Mountain),
and is marked at 1265 feet above the sea. The visitor will find here a
good hotel, with open wood fires (not ungrateful in a July evening), and
obliging people. This railway from Johnson City, hanging on the edge of
the precipices that wall the gorge of the Doe, is counted in this region
by the inhabitants one of the engineering wonders of the world. The
tourist is urged by all means to see both it and Linville Falls.
The tourist on horseback, in search of exercise and recreation, is not
probably expected to take stock of moral conditions. But this Mitchell
County, although it was a Union county during the war and is Republican
in politics (the Southern reader will perhaps prefer another adverb to
“although”), has had the worst possible reputation. The mountains
were hiding-places of illicit distilleries; the woods were full of
grog-shanties, where the inflaming fluid was sold as “native brandy,”
quarrels and neighborhood difficulties were frequent, and the knife
and pistol were used on the slightest provocation. Fights arose about
boundaries and the title to mica mines, and with the revenue officers;
and force was the arbiter of all disputes. Within the year four murders
were committed in the sparsely settled county. Travel on any of the
roads was unsafe. The tone of morals was what might be expected with
such lawlessness. A lady who came up on the road on the 4th of July,
when an excursion party of country people took possession of the cars,
witnessed a scene and heard language past belief. Men, women, and
children drank from whisky bottles that continually circulated, and a
wild orgy resulted. Profanity, indecent talk on topics that even the
license of the sixteenth century would not have tolerated, and freedom
of manners that even Teniers would have shrunk from putting on canvas,
made the journey horrible.
The unrestrained license of whisky and assault and murder had produced a
reaction a few months previous to our visit. The people had risen up in
their indignation and broken up the groggeries. So far as we observed
temperance prevailed, backed by public-opinion. In our whole ride
through the mountain region we saw only one or two places where liquor
was sold.
It is called twelve miles from Roan Station to Roan Summit. The distance
is probably nearer fourteen, and our horses were five hours in walking
it. For six miles the road runs by Doe River, here a pretty brook shaded
with laurel and rhododendron, and a few cultivated patches of ground,
and infrequent houses. It was a blithe morning, and the horsemen would
have given full indulgence to the spirit of adventure but for the
attitude of the Professor towards mountains. It was not with him a
matter of feeling, but of principle, not to ascend them. But here lay
Roan, a long, sprawling ridge, lifting itself 6250 feet up into the
sky. Impossible to go around it, and the other side must be reached. The
Professor was obliged to surrender, and surmount a difficulty which he
could not philosophize out of his mind.
From the base of the mountain a road is very well engineered, in easy
grades for carriages, to the top; but it was in poor repair and stony.
We mounted slowly through splendid forests, specially of fine chestnuts
and hemlocks. This big timber continues till within a mile and a half
of the summit by the winding road, really within a short distance of the
top. Then there is a narrow belt of scrubby hardwood, moss-grown, and
then large balsams, which crown the mountain. As soon as we came
out upon the southern slope we found great open spaces, covered with
succulent grass, and giving excellent pasturage to cattle. These rich
mountain meadows are found on all the heights of this region. The
surface of Roan is uneven, and has no one culminating peak that commands
the country, like the peak of Mount Washington, but several eminences
within its range of probably a mile and a half, where various views can
be had. Near the highest point, sheltered from the north by balsams,
stands a house of entertainment, with a detached cottage, looking
across the great valley to the Black Mountain range. The surface of the
mountain is pebbly, but few rocks crop out; no ledges of any size are
seen except at a distance from the hotel, on the north side, and the
mountain consequently lacks that savage, unsubduable aspect which
the White Hills of New Hampshire have. It would, in fact, have been
difficult to realize that we were over six thousand feet above the sea,
except for that pallor in the sunlight, that atmospheric thinness and
want of color which is an unpleasant characteristic of high altitudes.
To be sure, there is a certain brilliancy in the high air,--it is apt to
be foggy on Roan,--and objects appear in sharp outline, but I have often
experienced on such places that feeling of melancholy, which would,
of course, deepen upon us all if we were sensible that the sun was
gradually withdrawing its power of warmth and light. The black balsam is
neither a cheerful nor a picturesque tree; the frequent rains and mists
on Roan keep the grass and mosses green, but the ground damp. Doubtless
a high mountain covered with vegetation has its compensation, but for me
the naked granite rocks in sun and shower are more cheerful.
The advantage of Roan is that one can live there and be occupied for a
long time in mineral and botanical study. Its mild climate, moisture,
and great elevation make it unique in this country for the botanist. The
variety of plants assembled there is very large, and there are many, we
were told, never or rarely found elsewhere in the United States. At any
rate, the botanists rave about Roan Mountain, and spend weeks at a time
on it. We found there ladies who could draw for us Grey's lily (then
passed), and had kept specimens of the rhododendron (not growing
elsewhere in this region) which has a deep red, almost purple color.
The hotel (since replaced by a good house) was a rude mountain
structure, with a couple of comfortable rooms for office and
sitting-room, in which big wood fires were blazing; for though the
thermometer might record 60 deg., as it did when we arrived, fire was
welcome. Sleeping-places partitioned off in the loft above gave
the occupants a feeling of camping out, all the conveniences being
primitive; and when the wind rose in the night and darkness, and the
loose boards rattled and the timbers creaked, the sensation was not
unlike that of being at sea. The hotel was satisfactorily kept, and
Southern guests, from as far south as New Orleans, were spending the
season there, and not finding time hang heavy on their hands. This
statement is perhaps worth more than pages of description as to the
character of Roan, and its contrast to Mount Washington.
The summer weather is exceedingly uncertain on all these North Carolina
mountains; they are apt at any moment to be enveloped in mist; and it
would rather rain on them than not. On the afternoon of our arrival
there was fine air and fair weather, but not a clear sky. The distance
was hazy, but the outlines were preserved. We could see White Top, in
Virginia; Grandfather Mountain, a long serrated range; the twin towers
of Linville; and the entire range of the Black Mountains, rising from
the valley, and apparently lower than we were. They get the name of
Black from the balsams which cover the summits.
The rain on Roan was of less annoyance by reason of the delightful
company assembled at the hotel, which was in a manner at home there,
and, thrown upon its own resources, came out uncommonly strong in
agreeableness. There was a fiddle in the house, which had some of the
virtues of that celebrated in the history of old Mark Langston; the
Professor was enabled to produce anything desired out of the literature
of the eighteenth century; and what with the repartee of bright women,
big wood fires, reading, and chat, there was no dull day or evening on
Roan. I can fancy, however, that it might tire in time, if one were not
a botanist, without the resource of women's society. The ladies staying
here were probably all accomplished botanists, and the writer is
indebted to one of them for a list of plants found on Roan, among which
is an interesting weed, catalogued as Humana, perplexia negligens. The
species is, however, common elsewhere.
The second morning opened, after a night of high wind, with a
thunder-shower. After it passed, the visitors tried to reach Eagle
Cliff, two miles off, whence an extensive western prospect is had, but
were driven back by a tempest, and rain practically occupied the
day. Now and then through the parted clouds we got a glimpse of a
mountain-side, or the gleam of a valley. On the lower mountains, at wide
intervals apart, were isolated settlements, commonly a wretched cabin
and a spot of girdled trees. A clergyman here, not long ago, undertook
to visit some of these cabins and carry his message to them. In
one wretched hut of logs he found a poor woman, with whom, after
conversation on serious subjects, he desired to pray. She offered no
objection, and he kneeled down and prayed. The woman heard him, and
watched him for some moments with curiosity, in an effort to ascertain
what he was doing, and then said:
“Why, a man did that when he put my girl in a hole.”
Towards night the wind hauled round from the south to the northwest, and
we went to High Bluff, a point on the north edge, where some rocks are
piled up above the evergreens, to get a view of the sunset. In every
direction the mountains were clear, and a view was obtained of the vast
horizon and the hills and lowlands of several States--a continental
prospect, scarcely anywhere else equaled for variety or distance. The
grandeur of mountains depends mostly on the state of the atmosphere.
Grandfather loomed up much more loftily than the day before, the giant
range of the Blacks asserted itself in grim inaccessibility, and we
could see, a small pyramid on the southwest horizon, King's Mountain in
South Carolina, estimated to be distant one hundred and fifty miles. To
the north Roan falls from this point abruptly, and we had, like a map
below us, the low country all the way into Virginia. The clouds lay like
lakes in the valleys of the lower hills, and in every direction were
ranges of mountains wooded to the summits. Off to the west by south lay
the Great Smoky Mountains, disputing eminence with the Blacks.
Magnificent and impressive as the spectacle was, we were obliged to
contrast it unfavorably with that of the White Hills. The rock here is a
sort of sand or pudding stone; there is no limestone or granite. And
all the hills are tree-covered. To many this clothing of verdure is most
restful and pleasing. I missed the sharp outlines, the delicate artistic
sky lines, sharply defined in uplifted bare granite peaks and ridges,
with the purple and violet color of the northern mountains, and which it
seems to me that limestone and granite formations give. There are none
of the great gorges and awful abysses of the White Mountains, both
valleys and mountains here being more uniform in outline. There are few
precipices and jutting crags, and less is visible of the giant ribs and
bones of the planet.
Yet Roan is a noble mountain. A lady from Tennessee asked me if I
had ever seen anything to compare with it--she thought there could be
nothing in the world. One has to dodge this sort of question in the
South occasionally, not to offend a just local pride. It is certainly
one of the most habitable of big mountains. It is roomy on top, there is
space to move about without too great fatigue, and one might pleasantly
spend a season there, if he had agreeable company and natural tastes.
Getting down from Roan on the south side is not as easy as ascending on
the north; the road for five miles to the foot of the mountain is merely
a river of pebbles, gullied by the heavy rains, down which the horses
picked their way painfully. The travelers endeavored to present a
dashing and cavalier appearance to the group of ladies who waved good-by
from the hotel, as they took their way over the waste and wind-blown
declivities, but it was only a show, for the horses would neither
caracole nor champ the bit (at a dollar a day) down-hill over the
slippery stones, and, truth to tell, the wanderers turned with regret
from the society of leisure and persiflage to face the wilderness of
Mitchell County.
“How heavy,” exclaimed the Professor, pricking Laura Matilda to call her
attention sharply to her footing--
“How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek--my weary travel's end
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
Thus far the miles are measur'd from thy friend!
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed, being made from thee:
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
For that same groan doth put this in my mind;
My grief lies onward and my joy behind.”
This was not spoken to the group who fluttered their farewells,
but poured out to the uncomplaining forest, which rose up in
ever statelier--and grander ranks to greet the travelers as they
descended--the silent, vast forest, without note of bird or chip of
squirrel, only the wind tossing the great branches high overhead in
response to the sonnet. Is there any region or circumstance of life that
the poet did not forecast and provide for? But what would have been his
feelings if he could have known that almost three centuries after these
lines were penned, they would be used to express the emotion of an
unsentimental traveler in the primeval forests of the New World? At any
rate, he peopled the New World with the children of his imagination.
And, thought the Friend, whose attention to his horse did not permit him
to drop into poetry, Shakespeare might have had a vision of this vast
continent, though he did not refer to it, when he exclaimed:
“What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?”
Bakersville, the capital of Mitchell County, is eight miles from the
top of Roan, and the last three miles of the way the horsemen found
tolerable going, over which the horses could show their paces. The
valley looked fairly thrifty and bright, and was a pleasing introduction
to Bakersville, a pretty place in the hills, of some six hundred
inhabitants, with two churches, three indifferent hotels, and a
court-house. This mountain town, 2550 feet above the sea, is said
to have a decent winter climate, with little snow, favorable to
fruit-growing, and, by contrast with New England, encouraging to people
with weak lungs.
This is the center of the mica mining, and of considerable excitement
about minerals. All around, the hills are spotted with “diggings.” Most
of the mines which yield well show signs of having been worked before,
a very long time ago, no doubt by the occupants before the Indians. The
mica is of excellent quality and easily mined. It is got out in large
irregular-shaped blocks and transported to the factories, where it is
carefully split by hand, and the laminae, of as large size as can be
obtained, are trimmed with shears and tied up in packages for market.
The quantity of refuse, broken, and rotten mica piled up about the
factories is immense, and all the roads round about glisten with its
scales. Garnets are often found imbedded in the laminae, flattened by
the extreme pressure to which the mass was subjected. It is fascinating
material, this mica, to handle, and we amused ourselves by experimenting
on the thinness to which its scales could be reduced by splitting. It
was at Bakersville that we saw specimens of mica that resembled the
delicate tracery in the moss-agate and had the iridescent sheen of the
rainbow colors--the most delicate greens, reds, blues, purples, and
gold, changing from one to the other in the reflected light. In
the texture were the tracings of fossil forms of ferns and the most
exquisite and delicate vegetable beauty of the coal age. But the
magnet shows this tracery to be iron. We were shown also emeralds and
“diamonds,” picked up in this region, and there is a mild expectation in
all the inhabitants of great mineral treasure. A singular product of the
region is the flexible sandstone. It is a most uncanny stone. A slip of
it a couple of feet long and an inch in diameter each way bends in the
hand like a half-frozen snake. This conduct of a substance that we have
been taught to regard as inflexible impairs one's confidence in the
stability of nature and affects him as an earthquake does.
This excitement over mica and other minerals has the usual effect of
starting up business and creating bad blood. Fortunes have been
made, and lost in riotous living; scores of visionary men have been
disappointed; lawsuits about titles and claims have multiplied, and
quarrels ending in murder have been frequent in the past few years. The
mica and the illicit whisky have worked together to make this region one
of lawlessness and violence. The travelers were told stories of the lack
of common morality and decency in the region, but they made no note of
them. And, perhaps fortunately, they were not there during court week
to witness the scenes of license that were described. This court week,
which draws hither the whole population, is a sort of Saturnalia.
Perhaps the worst of this is already a thing of the past; for the
outrages a year before had reached such a pass that by a common movement
the sale of whisky was stopped (not interdicted, but stopped), and not a
drop of liquor could be bought in Bakersville nor within three miles of
it.
The jail at Bakersville is a very simple residence. The main building is
brick, two stories high and about twelve feet square. The walls are so
loosely laid up that it seems as if a colored prisoner might butt his
head through. Attached to this is a room for the jailer. In the lower
room is a wooden cage, made of logs bolted together and filled with
spikes, nine feet by ten feet square and perhaps seven or eight feet
high. Between this cage and the wall is a space of eighteen inches in
width. It has a narrow door, and an opening through which the food is
passed to the prisoners, and a conduit leading out of it. Of course it
soon becomes foul, and in warm weather somewhat warm. A recent prisoner,
who wanted more ventilation than the State allowed him, found some
means, by a loose plank, I think, to batter a hole in the outer wall
opposite the window in the cage, and this ragged opening, seeming to the
jailer a good sanitary arrangement, remains. Two murderers occupied this
apartment at the time of our visit. During the recent session of court,
ten men had been confined in this narrow space, without room enough for
them to lie down together. The cage in the room above, a little larger,
had for tenant a person who was jailed for some misunderstanding about
an account, and who was probably innocent--from the jailer's statement.
This box is a wretched residence, month after month, while awaiting
trial.
We learned on inquiry that it is practically impossible to get a jury to
convict of murder in this region, and that these admitted felons would
undoubtedly escape. We even heard that juries were purchasable here,
and that a man's success in court depended upon the length of his purse.
This is such an unheard-of thing that we refused to credit it. When the
Friend attempted to arouse the indignation of the Professor about the
barbarity of this jail, the latter defended it on the ground that
as confinement was the only punishment that murderers were likely to
receive in this region, it was well to make their detention disagreeable
to them. But the Friend did not like this wild-beast cage for men, and
could only exclaim,
“Oh, murder! what crimes are done in thy name.”
If the comrades wished an adventure, they had a small one, more
interesting to them than to the public, the morning they left
Bakersville to ride to Burnsville, which sets itself up as the capital
of Yancey. The way for the first three miles lay down a small creek and
in a valley fairly settled, the houses, a store, and a grist-mill
giving evidence of the new enterprise of the region. When Toe River was
reached, there was a choice of routes. We might ford the Toe at that
point, where the river was wide, but shallow, and the crossing safe,
and climb over the mountain by a rough but sightly road, or descend the
stream by a better road and ford the river at a place rather dangerous
to those unfamiliar with it. The danger attracted us, but we promptly
chose the hill road on account of the views, for we were weary of the
limited valley prospects.
The Toe River, even here, where it bears westward, is a very respectable
stream in size, and not to be trifled with after a shower. It gradually
turns northward, and, joining the Nollechucky, becomes part of the
Tennessee system. We crossed it by a long, diagonal ford, slipping and
sliding about on the round stones, and began the ascent of a steep hill.
The sun beat down unmercifully, the way was stony, and the horses did
not relish the weary climbing. The Professor, who led the way, not for
the sake of leadership, but to be the discoverer of laden blackberry
bushes, which began to offer occasional refreshment, discouraged by the
inhospitable road and perhaps oppressed by the moral backwardness of
things in general, cried out:
“Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,--
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily foresworn,
And gilded honor shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.”
In the midst of a lively discussion of this pessimistic view of the
inequalities of life, in which desert and capacity are so often put
at disadvantage by birth in beggarly conditions, and brazen assumption
raises the dust from its chariot wheels for modest merit to plod along
in, the Professor swung himself off his horse to attack a blackberry
bush, and the Friend, representing simple truth, and desirous of getting
a wider prospect, urged his horse up the hill. At the top he encountered
a stranger, on a sorrel horse, with whom he entered into conversation
and extracted all the discouragement the man had as to the road to
Burnsville.
Nevertheless, the view opened finely and extensively. There are few
exhilarations comparable to that of riding or walking along a high
ridge, and the spirits of the traveler rose many degrees above the point
of restful death, for which the Professor was crying when he encountered
the blackberry bushes. Luckily the Friend soon fell in with a like
temptation, and dismounted. He discovered something that spoiled his
appetite for berries. His coat, strapped on behind the saddle, had
worked loose, the pocket was open, and the pocket-book was gone. This
was serious business. For while the Professor was the cashier, and
traveled like a Rothschild, with large drafts, the Friend represented
the sub-treasury. That very morning, in response to inquiry as to the
sinews of travel, the Friend had displayed, without counting, a roll of
bills. These bills had now disappeared, and when the Friend turned back
to communicate his loss, in the character of needy nothing not trimm'd
in jollity, he had a sympathetic listener to the tale of woe.
Going back on such a journey is the woefulest experience, but retrace
our steps we must. Perhaps the pocket-book lay in the road not half a
mile back. But not in half a mile, or a mile, was it found. Probably,
then, the man on the sorrel horse had picked it up. But who was the man
on the sorrel horse, and where had he gone? Probably the coat worked
loose in crossing Toe River and the pocket-book had gone down-stream.
The number of probabilities was infinite, and each more plausible than
the others as it occurred to us. We inquired at every house we had
passed on the way, we questioned every one we met. At length it began
to seem improbable that any one would remember if he had picked up a
pocketbook that morning. This is just the sort of thing that slips an
untrained memory.
At a post office or doctor's shop, or inn for drovers, it might be
either or neither, where several horses were tied to the fence, and a
group of men were tilted back in cane chairs on the veranda, we unfolded
our misfortune and made particular inquiries for a man on a sorrel
horse. Yes, such a man, David Thomas by name, had just ridden towards
Bakersville. If he had found the pocket-book, we would recover it. He
was an honest man. It might, however, fall into hands that would freeze
to it.
Upon consultation, it was the general verdict that there were men in
the county who would keep it if they had picked it up. But the assembly
manifested the liveliest interest in the incident. One suggested Toe
River. Another thought it risky to drop a purse on any road. But there
was a chorus of desire expressed that we should find it, and in this
anxiety was exhibited a decided sensitiveness about the honor of
Mitchell County. It seemed too bad that a stranger should go away with
the impression that it was not safe to leave money anywhere in it. We
felt very much obliged for this genuine sympathy, and we told them that
if a pocket-book were lost in this way on a Connecticut road, there
would be felt no neighborhood responsibility for it, and that nobody
would take any interest in the incident except the man who lost, and the
man who found.
By the time the travelers pulled up at a store in Bakersville they
had lost all expectation of recovering the missing article, and were
discussing the investment of more money in an advertisement in the
weekly newspaper of the capital. The Professor, whose reform sentiments
agreed with those of the newspaper, advised it. There was a group of
idlers, mica acquaintances of the morning, and philosophers in front of
the store, and the Friend opened the colloquy by asking if a man named
David Thomas had been seen in town. He was in town, had ridden in within
an hour, and his brother, who was in the group, would go in search of
him. The information was then given of the loss, and that the rider had
met David Thomas just before it was discovered, on the mountain beyond
the Toe. The news made a sensation, and by the time David Thomas
appeared a crowd of a hundred had drawn around the horsemen eager for
further developments. Mr. Thomas was the least excited of the group as
he took his position on the sidewalk, conscious of the dignity of the
occasion and that he was about to begin a duel in which both reputation
and profit were concerned. He recollected meeting the travelers in the
morning.
The Friend said, “I discovered that I had lost my purse just after
meeting you; it may have been dropped in Toe River, but I was told back
here that if David Thomas had picked it up, it was as safe as if it were
in the bank.”
“What sort of a pocket-book was it?” asked Mr. Thomas.
“It was of crocodile skin, or what is sold for that, very likely it is
an imitation, and about so large indicating the size.”
“What had it in it?”
“Various things. Some specimens of mica; some bank checks, some money.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, a photograph. And, oh, something that I presume is not in another
pocket-book in North Carolina,--in an envelope, a lock of the hair of
George Washington, the Father of his Country.” Sensation mixed with
incredulity. Washington's hair did seem such an odd part of an outfit
for a journey of this kind.
“How much money was in it?”
“That I cannot say, exactly. I happen to remember four twenty-dollar
United States notes, and a roll of small bills, perhaps something over a
hundred dollars.”
“Is that the pocket-book?” asked David Thomas, slowly pulling the loved
and lost out of his trousers pocket.
“It is.”
“You'd be willing to take your oath on it?”
“I should be delighted to.”
“Well, I guess there ain't so much money in it. You can count it
[handing it over]; there hain't been nothing taken out. I can't read,
but my friend here counted it over, and he says there ain't as much as
that.”
Intense interest in the result of the counting. One hundred and ten
dollars! The Friend selected one of the best engraved of the notes, and
appealed to the crowd if they thought that was the square thing to do.
They did so think, and David Thomas said it was abundant. And then said
the Friend:
“I'm exceedingly grateful to you besides. Washington's hair is getting
scarce, and I did not want to lose these few hairs, gray as they are.
You've done the honest thing, Mr. Thomas, as was expected of you. You
might have kept the whole. But I reckon if there had been five hundred
dollars in the book and you had kept it, it wouldn't have done you half
as much good as giving it up has done; and your reputation as an honest
man is worth a good deal more than this pocket-book. [The Professor
was delighted with this sentiment, because it reminded him of a
Sunday-school.] I shall go away with a high opinion of the honesty of
Mitchell County.”
“Oh, he lives in Yancey,” cried two or three voices. At which there was
a great laugh.
“Well, I wondered where he came from.” And the Mitchell County people
laughed again at their own expense, and the levee broke up. It was
exceedingly gratifying, as we spread the news of the recovered property
that afternoon at every house on our way to the Toe, to see what
pleasure it gave. Every man appeared to feel that the honor of the
region had been on trial--and had stood the test.
The eighteen miles to Burnsville had now to be added to the morning
excursion, but the travelers were in high spirits, feeling the truth of
the adage that it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have
lost at all. They decided, on reflection, to join company with the
mail-rider, who was going to Burnsville by the shorter route, and could
pilot them over the dangerous ford of the Toe.
The mail-rider was a lean, sallow, sinewy man, mounted on a sorry sorrel
nag, who proved, however, to have blood in her, and to be a fast walker
and full of endurance. The mail-rider was taciturn, a natural habit
for a man who rides alone the year round, over a lonely road, and has
nothing whatever to think of. He had been in the war sixteen months, in
Hugh White's regiment,--reckon you've heerd of him?
“Confederate?”
“Which?”
“Was he on the Union or Confederate side?”
“Oh, Union.”
“Were you in any engagements?”
“Which?”
“Did you have any fighting?”
“Not reg'lar.”
“What did you do?”
“Which?”
“What did you do in Hugh White's regiment?”
“Oh, just cavorted round the mountains.”
“You lived on the country?”
“Which?”
“Picked up what you could find, corn, bacon, horses?”
“That's about so. Did n't make much difference which side was round, the
country got cleaned out.”
“Plunder seems to have been the object?”
“Which?”
“You got a living out of the farmers?”
“You bet.”
Our friend and guide seemed to have been a jayhawker and mountain
marauder--on the right side. His attachment to the word “which”
prevented any lively flow of conversation, and there seemed to be only
two trains of ideas running in his mind: one was the subject of horses
and saddles, and the other was the danger of the ford we were coming to,
and he exhibited a good deal of ingenuity in endeavoring to excite
our alarm. He returned to the ford from every other conversational
excursion, and after every silence.
“I do' know's there 's any great danger; not if you know the ford. Folks
is carried away there. The Toe gits up sudden. There's been right smart
rain lately.
“If you're afraid, you can git set over in a dugout, and I'll take your
horses across. Mebbe you're used to fording? It's a pretty bad ford
for them as don't know it. But you'll get along if you mind your eye.
There's some rocks you'll have to look out for. But you'll be all right
if you follow me.”
Not being very successful in raising an interest in the dangers of his
ford, although he could not forego indulging a malicious pleasure
in trying to make the strangers uncomfortable, he finally turned his
attention to a trade. “This hoss of mine,” he said, “is just the kind of
brute-beast you want for this country. Your hosses is too heavy. How'll
you swap for that one o' yourn?” The reiterated assertion that the
horses were not ours, that they were hired, made little impression on
him. All the way to Burnsville he kept referring to the subject of a
trade. The instinct of “swap” was strong in him. When we met a yoke of
steers, he turned round and bantered the owner for a trade. Our saddles
took his fancy. They were of the army pattern, and he allowed that one
of them would just suit him. He rode a small flat English pad, across
which was flung the United States mail pouch, apparently empty. He
dwelt upon the fact that his saddle was new and ours were old, and the
advantages that would accrue to us from the exchange. He did n't care
if they had been through the war, as they had, for he fancied an army
saddle. The Friend answered for himself that the saddle he rode belonged
to a distinguished Union general, and had a bullet in it that was put
there by a careless Confederate in the first battle of Bull Run, and the
owner would not part with it for money. But the mail-rider said he did
n't mind that. He would n't mind swapping his new saddle for my old one
and the rubber coat and leggings. Long before we reached the ford we
thought we would like to swap the guide, even at the risk of drowning.
The ford was passed, in due time, with no inconvenience save that of wet
feet, for the stream was breast high to the horses; but being broad and
swift and full of sunken rocks and slippery stones, and the crossing
tortuous, it is not a ford to be commended. There is a curious delusion
that a rider has in crossing a swift broad stream. It is that he is
rapidly drifting up-stream, while in fact the tendency of the horse is
to go with the current.
The road in the afternoon was not unpicturesque, owing to the streams
and the ever noble forests, but the prospect was always very limited.
Agriculturally, the country was mostly undeveloped. The travelers
endeavored to get from the rider an estimate of the price of land. Not
much sold, he said. “There was one sale of a big piece last year; the
owner enthorited Big Tom Wilson to sell it, but I d'know what he got for
it.”
All the way along, the habitations were small log cabins, with one room,
chinked with mud, and these were far between; and only occasionally
thereby a similar log structure, unchinked, laid up like a cob house,
that served for a stable. Not much cultivation, except now and then
a little patch of poor corn on a steep hillside, occasionally a few
apple-trees, and a peach-tree without fruit. Here and there was a house
that had been half finished and then abandoned, or a shanty in which a
couple of young married people were just beginning life. Generally the
cabins (confirming the accuracy of the census of 1880) swarmed with
children, and nearly all the women were thin and sickly.
In the day's ride we did not see a wheeled vehicle, and only now
and then a horse. We met on the road small sleds, drawn by a steer,
sometimes by a cow, on which a bag of grist was being hauled to the
mill, and boys mounted on steers gave us good-evening with as much pride
as if they were bestriding fiery horses.
In a house of the better class, which was a post-house, and where the
rider and the woman of the house had a long consultation over a letter
to be registered, we found the rooms decorated with patent-medicine
pictures, which were often framed in strips of mica, an evidence of
culture that was worth noting. Mica was the rage. Every one with whom
we talked, except the rider, had more or less the mineral fever. The
impression was general that the mountain region of North Carolina was
entering upon a career of wonderful mineral development, and the most
extravagant expectations were entertained. Mica was the shining object
of most “prospecting,” but gold was also on the cards.
The country about Burnsville is not only mildly picturesque, but very
pleasing. Burnsville, the county-seat of Yancey, at an elevation of 2840
feet, is more like a New England village than any hitherto seen. Most of
the houses stand about a square, which contains the shabby court-house;
around it are two small churches, a jail, an inviting tavern with a long
veranda, and a couple of stores. On an overlooking hill is the seminary.
Mica mining is the exciting industry, but it is agriculturally a good
country. The tavern had recently been enlarged to meet the new demands
for entertainment and is a roomy structure, fresh with paint and
only partially organized. The travelers were much impressed with the
brilliant chambers, the floors of which were painted in alternate
stripes of vivid green and red. The proprietor, a very intelligent
and enterprising man, who had traveled often in the North, was full
of projects for the development of his region and foremost in its
enterprises, and had formed a considerable collection of minerals.
Besides, more than any one else we met, he appreciated the beauty of his
country, and took us to a neighboring hill, where we had a view of
Table Mountain to the east and the nearer giant Blacks. The elevation of
Burnsville gives it a delightful summer climate, the gentle undulations
of the country are agreeable, the views noble, the air is good, and
it is altogether a “livable” and attractive place. With facilities of
communication, it would be a favorite summer resort. Its nearness to the
great mountains (the whole Black range is in Yancey County), its fine
pure air, its opportunity for fishing and hunting, commend it to those
in search of an interesting and restful retreat in summer.
But it should be said that before the country can attract and retain
travelers, its inhabitants must learn something about the preparation of
food. If, for instance, the landlord's wife at Burnsville had traveled
with her husband, her table would probably have been more on a level
with his knowledge of the world, and it would have contained something
that the wayfaring man, though a Northerner, could eat. We have been on
the point several times in this journey of making the observation, but
have been restrained by a reluctance to touch upon politics, that it was
no wonder that a people with such a cuisine should have rebelled. The
travelers were in a rebellious mood most of the time.
The evidences of enterprise in this region were pleasant to see, but
the observers could not but regret, after all, the intrusion of the
money-making spirit, which is certain to destroy much of the present
simplicity. It is as yet, to a degree, tempered by a philosophic spirit.
The other guest of the house was a sedate, long-bearded traveler for
some Philadelphia house, and in the evening he and the landlord fell
into a conversation upon what Socrates calls the disadvantage of the
pursuit of wealth to the exclusion of all noble objects, and they let
their fancy play about Vanderbilt, who was agreed to be the richest man
in the world, or that ever lived.
“All I want,” said the long-bearded man, “is enough to be comfortable. I
would n't have Vanderbilt's wealth if he'd give it to me.”
“Nor I,” said the landlord. “Give me just enough to be comfortable.”
[The tourist couldn't but note that his ideas of enough to be
comfortable had changed a good deal since he had left his little farm
and gone into the mica business, and visited New York, and enlarged and
painted his tavern.] “I should like to know what more Vanderbilt gets
out of his money than I get out of mine. I heard tell of a young man who
went to Vanderbilt to get employment. Vanderbilt finally offered to give
the young man, if he would work for him, just what he got himself. The
young man jumped at that--he'd be perfectly satisfied with that pay.
And Vanderbilt said that all he got was what he could eat and wear, and
offered to give the young man his board and clothes.”
“I declare” said the long-bearded man. “That's just it. Did you ever see
Vanderbilt's house? Neither did I, but I heard he had a vault built in
it five feet thick, solid. He put in it two hundred millions of dollars,
in gold. After a year, he opened it and put in twelve millions more,
and called that a poor year. They say his house has gold shutters to the
windows, so I've heard.”
“I shouldn't wonder,” said the landlord. “I heard he had one door in
his house cost forty thousand dollars. I don't know what it is made of,
unless it's made of gold.”
Sunday was a hot and quiet day. The stores were closed and the two
churches also, this not being the Sunday for the itinerant preacher. The
jail also showed no sign of life, and when we asked about it, we learned
that it was empty, and had been for some time. No liquor is sold in the
place, nor within at least three miles of it. It is not much use to try
to run a jail without liquor.
In the course of the morning a couple of stout fellows arrived, leading
between them a young man whom they had arrested,--it didn't appear on
any warrant, but they wanted to get him committed and locked up. The
offense charged was carrying a pistol; the boy had not used it against
anybody, but he had flourished it about and threatened, and the
neighbors wouldn't stand that; they were bound to enforce the law
against carrying concealed weapons.
The captors were perfectly good-natured and on friendly enough terms
with the young man, who offered no resistance, and seemed not unwilling
to go to jail. But a practical difficulty arose. The jail was locked
up, the sheriff had gone away into the country with the key, and no
one could get in. It did not appear that there was any provision for
boarding the man in jail; no one in fact kept it. The sheriff was sent
for, but was not to be found, and the prisoner and his captors loafed
about the square all day, sitting on the fence, rolling on the grass,
all of them sustained by a simple trust that the jail would be open some
time.
Late in the afternoon we left them there, trying to get into the
jail. But we took a personal leaf out of this experience. Our Virginia
friends, solicitous for our safety in this wild country, had urged us
not to venture into it without arms--take at least, they insisted, a
revolver each. And now we had to congratulate ourselves that we had
not done so. If we had, we should doubtless on that Sunday have been
waiting, with the other law-breaker, for admission into the Yancey
County jail.