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ASHEVILLE,
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UNCOMBE COUNTY

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1933

STATEMENT

IN November of last year The Asheville Citizeti moved into its new
and permanent home at No. 25 Haywood Street.
In celebration of that event The Citizefi published a special
edition, in which appeared two most interesting and highly instructive
articles on the history of Western North Carolina and of Buncombe
County, one prepared by Dr. F. A. Sondley, and the other by General
Theodore F. Davidson.
These two articles attracted widespread attention as they both
narrated incidents and facts, many of which had never before been
printed, and many of The Citizeii's readers urged that these two articles
be reprinted in pamphlet form, so as to be more easily read and pre
served for the future.
At our request Dr. Sondley and General Davidson have both
revised those two articles and have brought them up to date; and, in
response to this request, The Citizen has had them printed and bound
in this little volume.
The Citizen believes that the public will be deeply interested in
the facts set forth in this little volume, and is glad to have the oppor
tunity of performing what it believes is a great public service in, hand
ing them down for future generations.
The expense of securing the illustrations and the printing of this
volume is considerably more than the management anticipated, and,
in order to help defray the cost of the same, we are making a nominal
charge for each book to help defray this expense.
The Citizen is under deep obligations to Dr. Sondley and General
Davidson for their arduous labors in compiling the facts set forth
herein. They have striven earnestly and faithfully to get together, in
an interesting and succinct manner, without remuneration, the facts
compiled, and are entitled to the thanks and appreciation of a grateful
public.
The Citizen Company.
February 27, 1922.

ASHEVILLE AND
BUNCOMBE COUNTY

By
F. A. Sondley, LL.D.

GENESIS OF
BUNCOMBE COUNTY
By
Hon. Theodore F. Davidson

ASHEVILLE
THE CITIZEN COMPANY
1922

asheville and buncombe county
Copyright, 1922, by
F. A. Sondley, LL.D.

IHE INLAND TRESS
ASHEVILLE. N. C.

DEDICATION

This Uttle work is dedicated to
Honorable Theodore F. Davidson
who has ever exerted himself for the preservation of
Buncombe' s history, and in so doing has
made that county his lasting debtor.
— Author.

PREFACE

THIS is intended to be a sketch of the
history of Asheville and Buncombe
County. It is difficult to tell in writing a local
history where to stop. There is always more
to be said. All facts are material; but all
facts are not equally interesting and all
facts are not equally well known. Public
records have been followed where available.
When they have failed, recourse has been had
to tradition; but no tradition has been fol
lowed unless, after careful scrutiny, it seems
to be true and even then is well attested. Too
great generality renders whatever is written
worthless. On the other hand, too much
detail is tedious. All history is incomplete.
This sketch makes no claim to even approxi
mate completeness. Its aim is to give the most
important events in the story of Asheville and
adjoining regions with enough explanation
and illustration to enable a reader to under
stand, in some measure at least, the people
who have made that story a reality.
F. a. Sondley.
Finis Viae,
December 31, 1921.

CONTENTS

Chapter I

Early Discoveries of America — Norwegians and Vinland — Irish and Land of the
White Men or Great Ireland or Huitramarmaland — Ari Marsson — North Caro
lina's first Lost Colony — North Carolina second Lost Colony — Welsh and
Madoc — Tuscaroras — Morgan Jones — North Carolina's third Lost Colony —
Columbus — Hernando De Soto — Hickorynut Gap — Pedro Menendez de Aviles
— Saint Helena and San Felipe — Juan Pardo — Xualla or Juada or Joara or
Sara or Suala — Otapales and Olagatanos — Yupaia, Aixacan, Chiquola, Chisca,
Ap'alatci, Onagatano — La Grand Copal, Florida — New France, Louisiane,
Apalche, Apalache — Virginia, Western North Carolina — ^Huguenots — Rene G.
Landonniere — French in Florida — "Mountaines of Apalatcy" — Silver and Gold
and "Redde Copper" — Francis Yardly — Spaniards — Haynokes or Enos — John
Lederer — Sir William Berkley — Ancient Mining in Western North Carohna —
Lincohi County — Cherokee County — Reed Mine-r-North Carolina Gold — John
and Sebastian Cabot — Sir Walter Raleigh — Virginia — Amidas anr Barlow —
Ralph Lane — Raleigh's Lost Colony — Old North State — Indian Corn, Sassa
fras, Irish Potatoes, Tobacco — First English Settlement in America, first Eng
lish Gold Mine in America, Virginia Dare, first Battle for Independence at
Alamance — Stamp Act in North Carolina — Tryon — John Ashe — Waddell —
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence — Halifax Provincial Congress —
Secession in North Carolina — Henry Wyatt — Battle of Big Bethel — William
Henry Foote's tribute to Scotch-Irish of North Carolina — George Bancroft's
tribute to North Carohna — Battle of Kings Mountain — White Occupation
to Revolution — Cherokees — Indian Relics — Site of Asheville old Battle
ground  :  page 25
Chapter II
French Broad River — ^Indian Names for French Broad — Tocheste, Pse-lico,
Agiqua, Tocheesstee, Zillicoah, Un-takiyastiyi — "French" — Origin of Name
of French Broad — Swannanoa River — Origin of Name of Swannanoa — Shaw-
anoes — Savannah, Swanee, Suanee — Cumberland River — "Chouanou" —
Sewanee — Shawanoes on Swannanoa — Davidson's River — Mills River — Little
' River — Muddy Creek — Clear Creek — Cane Creek — Catawba Grape — William
Camp — Hominy Creek — Newfound Creek — Turkey Creek — Sandymush Creek
— Cripple Creek, Big Branch, Town Branch, Gash's Creek — Nathan Smith's
Creek, Glenn's Creek — Asheville Gold — Beaverdam Creek — John Davis's
Branch — Reems Creek— Flat Creek — Ivy River — Laurel River — Spring Creek
— Warm Springs, Hot Springs, Discovery — Ross's Creek, Chuim's Cove —
Haw Creek, Whitson's Creek, "T. T. Patton's Mill Creek"— Grassy Branch-
Bull Creek — Bee Tree Creek — South Fork of Swannanoa River, Flat Creek —
Asheville Plateau — ^Blue Ridge — Appalachian or Alleghany Mountains —
Origins of Names Appalachian and Alleghany — ^Pisgah — Busby — Bearwallow
—Bald Top — Sugar Loaf— Pilot— Point Lookout— Craggy— jBlack Mountain-
Lane's Pinnacle— Mine Hole Gap — Forges on Hominy Creek and Reems
Creek — ^Beaucatcher — Judge Avery — Elks, last killed in North Carolina — Elk
Mountain — ^Last Panthers in North Carolina — ^Deer — Bears — Lynxes — Gooch's
Peak — Tryon's Line — Tryon Mountain — City of Tryon — French Broad,
Pse-li-co, Tocheste, Agiqua, Tocheeosstee, Zillicoah, Untakiyastiki, Zeehleeka.
Esseewah — Pisgah, Warwasseeta, Elseetoss — Balk Mountain, Sokassa — Sugar-

1 2 Contents
loaf Mountain, Salola — Broad River, Esseedaw, Craggy Mountain, Sunnalee —
Black Mountain, Seencyahs — Cold Mountain, Osteenoah — Balsam Mountains,
Judykullas — Smoky Mountains, Chesseetoahs — Newfound Mountains,
Chewassee — Cisco  page 37
Chapter III
Lake — Mountain Island — Former course of French Broad River — Ushery —
Lederer — De Soto — De Soto in North Carolina — Cofachiqui — Xuala or
Chouala — Suali, Suara, Suala, Cheraw, Sara — Guatule or Gauchule — Dis
covery of the Mississippi River — Rickohocans  page 47
Chapter IV
John Lederer — Sara or Suala — James Needham and Gabriel Arthur — Abraham
Wood — Tomahitan Indians, Cherokees — Sitteree — Death of Needham — First
Visit of English to Cherokees — John Stuart and Alexander Cameron — Georgia
Expedition against Cherokees — Colonel William Christian Expediton again.st
Cherokees — General Griffith Rutherford Expedition against Cherokees —
Rutherford's Route — Swannanoa Gap — War Ford of French Broad — Hominy
Creek — Pigeon River — Richland Creek — Tuckaseigee River — Cowee Moun
tain — Skirmish witli Indians — Tennessee River — Fight with Indians — Valley
Towns — Middle Towns — Indian towns of Watauga, Estotoa and Ellojay
Destroyed — Williamson's Expedition against Cherokees — Colonel William
son's Route — Catawbas — Colonel Williamson's fight with Indians — William
son joins Rutherford — Result of Rutherford Expedition — Rutherford's Return
— "Rutherford's Trace" — James Hall — Captain Charles Polk's Diary —
Nuckessey Town — Nowee — Hall's Sermon — Rutherford's Life — General
William Davidson — Captains William Moore and Harden's Expedition
against the Cherokees — Moore's Route — Moore and Harden destroy Indian
town on Tuckaseigee — Tracking, killing and scalping Indians — Captures —
Earthquake — "Vandue" of prisoners and plunder — Moore's Report — Balsam
Mountains — Indian poisoned at Sulphur Spring on Hominy Creek — Colonel
John Sevier's Expedition against Cherokees in 1781, up Cane Creek and
across Ivy and Swannanoa to Tuckasejah and headwaters of Little Tennessee
— Expedition of Tennesseeans against Cherokees to Coosawatee in 1789 
Indians at Warm Springs in 1793 — Blockhouses on French Broad at Hough's,
Burnt Canebrake, Painted Rock and Warm Springs — Buncombe Scout to Big
Laurel — Sevier's E.xpedition against Cherokees up French Broad River and
up Newfound Creek and back down Hominy — Settlers before Revolution on
Catawba River — Swannanoa valley — Samuel Davidson settles on Christian
Creek and is killed by Cherokees— Escape of wife and child— Expedition from
Old Fort to avenge his death — Fight with Cherokees from Cheesborough Place
on Swannanoa River to mouth of that river in Canebrake — White camp 
Hunters on North Fork of Swannanoa — John S. Rice, John Rice, David
Nelson, William Rhodes — "Swannanoa Settlement" on Swannanoa at mouth
of Bee Tree Creek— Alexanders, Davidsons— First Field cleared in Bun
combe — Bull Mountain — Settlements on Reems and Flat Creeks, and on
French Broad, and on Hominy Creek — Treaty of Long Island of Holston-—
Arrangements for treaty with Cherokees of Middle Towns and Valley Towns
—North Carolina Act of 1783  Page 51

Contents 1 3
Chapter V
Swannanoa River dividing line between Burke and Rutherford Counties— Joseph
McDowell's Line— Grant to Captain William Moore who put negroes on land
—Buncombe County formed from Burke and Rutherford Counties— Named
for Colonel Edward Buncombe— Genealogy of Buncombe County— Clarendon
County— New Hanover County— Bladen County— Anson County— Rowan
County— Burke County— Mecklenburg County— Tryon County— Lincoln
County— Rutherford County— David Vance and Colonel William Davidson-
Creation of Buncombe County— Organization of Buncombe County— First
place of Sitting of County Court— "Talking for Buncombe"— FeUx Walker—
Dr. R. B. Vance — James Graham— S. P. Carson— Vance-Carson duel— David
Crockett — Indian Empire — Christian Priber  page 62
Chapter VI
Town of .\sheville— John Burton— Grants for Asheville— Town laid out-
Named ilorristown — Plan of Town — Formation of Buncombe County — Loca
tion of county lown — Called Morristown — Places considered for site of town —
Steam-saw-mill Place — William Morrison — Origin of Name of Morristown —
Indian Graves— Big Branch— Asheville Public Square— Grants of Charles II.
to Lords ¦ Proprietors — Conveyances to George II. — John Carteret, Earl of
Granville — Granville Land — Granville Suit — John Carteret, Earl of Granville
— .\ct establishing Buncombe County — Commissioners to locate County town
— Election of first County officers — John Davidson — Thomas Davidson —
John Dillard — Reuben Wood — Superior Court of District of Morgan — Jurors
first from Buncombe — Sale of town lots — Thomas Foster — Thomas Foster,
Sr. — Zebulon and Bedent Baird — Zebulon Baird — First wagon in Buncombe —
Stage-coach — Baird Suit — John Street — Joseph Hughey — James Hughey —
John Gray Blount Tax Sale — John Craig — Henry West — First Sheriff — First
Treasurer — William Forster, Sr. — Ephraim Drake Harris — Samuel Lusk —
James Brittain — Colonel William Davidson — Buncombe's first State Senator —
General William Davidson — Samuel Davidson — Major William Davidson —
Daniel Smith — Swannanoa Settlement — Gabriel Ragsdale and William
Brittain, first members of House of Commons from Buncombe — Colonel John
Patton — Opened first County Court — First County Surveyor — Patton's Bridge
— Samuel Ashe — Asheville named for him — Change of Morristown to Ashe
ville — Bayard v. Singleton — Colonel David Vance — Buncombe County Court's
first clerk — Governor Z. B. Vance — General R. B. Vance — Colonel A. T.
Davidson — Cherokees plan attack in 1793 on Swannanoa settlements —
Colonel Doherty and Colonel McFarland's invasion of Cherokee country from
Tennessee in 1793 — Asheville saved from Cherokees  page 69
Chapter VII
Asheville incorporated— Act of incorporation — John Jarrett — Samuel Chunn —
William Welch — George Swain — Zebulon Baird — Plan of Asheville and addi
tions — N. Blackstock — R. B. Johnston — John Jarrett — Edmund Sams — First
Ferry over French Broad, Sams's Ferry, later Jarrett's Ferry — Smith's
Bridge — Concrete Bridge — Edmund Sams — Buncombe's first Coroner — Benoni
Sams — Wilham Gudger, Sr. — James Gudger — James M. Smith — First white
child born west of Blue Ridge in North Carolina — Iron Bridge — Samuel
Chunn — Chunn's Tanyard — Chunn's Cove — A. B. Chunn — William Welsh —
George Swain — Joel Lane, founder ot Raleigh — General Joseph Lane —
David L. Swain — First wagon in Buncombe — Post-road through Buncombe —

14 Contents
AsheviUe distributing point for mails for Georgia, Carolinas, and Tennessee —
George Swain postmaster — Hatter-shop — William Coleman — Baccus J. Smith
— Grove Park — Early Roads — Indian Annoyances — Road to Benjamin David
son's Creek — Road over Reems Creek — Road "from Buncombe Courthouse to
the Bull Mountain Road near Robt. Love's" — Road to Jonathan McPeters's
on Hominy — Road from Asheville north — Beaverdam Road — Old Warm
Springs Road — Hopewell Turnpike — Jewel Hill Road — Philip Hoodenpile —
Road from Buncombe Courthouse to Tennessee — Warm Springs Discovered —
Colonel J. Barnett — Saluda Gap and first wagon — Saluda Gap Road — Colonel
Earle — Old State Road, Buncombe Road — "Road from Augusta in Georgia to
Knoxville" — First wagon from North Carolina to Tennessee  page 92
Chapter VIII
Bishop .^sbury's Visits to Buncombe and Asheville in 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803,
1805, 1806, 1807, 1808, 1809, 1810, 1812, 1813— Killian's— Side-fords—
Captain Thomas Foster — Francis Asbury — Asbury's Journals — States owning
back-country at dose of Revolution — South Carolina's cession to United
States — Georgia's cession — United States cession to Georgia — Georgia's
Walton County — Location of North Carolina's southern boundary next to
Georgia — 35° Parallel of Latitude — Controversy between North Carolina and
Georgia — "Georgia War"  page 106
Chapter IX
Buncombe Turnpike— Travel — Asheville and Greenville Plank Road — Thomas
Foster's Bridge and Road — Hogs, cattle, horses, droves from Tennessee and
Kentucky — John Patton's Road— Biltmore Concrete Bridge — Asheville as a
resort for seekers of health and pleasure from South Carolina — Court at
Colonel William Davidson's home — Buncombe's first Courthouse, second
Courthouse — Buncombe's Jail in 1802 — Asheville's Public Square  Commis
sioners to buy land for Public Square — Deeds for Public Square — Commis
sioners, Samuel Murray, senr., Thomas Foster, Jacob Byler, Thomas Love
and James Brittain — Buncombe's third Courthouse, 1825-1833 — N. W. Wood
fin — Buncombe's fourth Courthouse, destroyed in 1865 — ^Buncombe's fifth
Courthouse — Buncombe's sixth Courthouse — G. W. Pack — Buncombe's
seventh Courthouse — Buncombe's third Jail — Buncombe's fourth Jail  Bun
combe's fifth Jail — Buncombe's first Jail — Sale by County of part of Public
Square — Lawyers — Reuben Wood, Buncombe's first Solicitor  Waighstill
Avery, North Carolina''s first Attorney General — First motion in court 
Wallace Alexander — Joseph McDowell — James Holland — Joseph Spencer 
Bennett Smith — Robert Williamson — Robert Henry — Sulphur Springs  Last
of the Heroes of Kings Mountain — Deaver's Springs — John P. Arthur, History
¦ of Western North Carolina, History .of Watauga County — Thomas Ilarren 
Israel Pickens — Joseph Wilson — Joseph Carson — Robert H. Burton  Henrv
Harrison — Saunders Donoho — John C. Elliott — Henry Y. Webb  Tench
Cox, Jr. — A. R. Ruffin — John Paxton — Abe Collins — Counterfeiters  D L
Swain — George Newton — Mr. Porter — Newton Academy — B. F. Perry  '¦
Waddy Thompson — M. Patton — R. B. Vance — James W. Patton — Univetsitv
of North Carolina — Z. B. Vance's Life and Character of Hon. D. L. Sw.ain--
Judge Seawell — Old Warping Bars, Old Bunk — James R. Dodge — Samuel
Hillman — Thomas Dewes — Mrs. Silvers hung — State Capitol — Joshua Roberts
—John H. Christy — ^Highland Messenger — Asheville Citizen — Thomas Lanier

Contents 1 5
Clingman — Clingman- Yancey Duel — Black Mountain— Mitchell's Peak —
Highest Land in United States east of Rocky Mountains— Elisha Mitchell—
Clingman's Dome — Zebulon B. Vance — Robert Brank Vance — Allen Turner
Davidson — Augustus S. Merrimon — John L. Bailey — Aston Park — David Cole
man — Nicholas W. Woodfin — Orchard Grass in Buncombe — Sorghum in Bun
combe — Woodfin Street — Marcus Erwin — North Carolina Secession-page 117
Chapter X
First Buncombe County Court — James Davidson — David Vance — William
Whitson — William Davidson — James Alexander — James Brittain — Philip
Hoodenpile — First Action of Court— John Patton — ^Lambert Clayton —
William Brittain — Election of County officers — First Trials — State v. Richard
Yardly — ^W. Avery v. W. Fletcher — Susannah Baker first pauper — First Pro
cessioning — William Whitson, processioner — Lineing Branch — First Will
probated that of Jonas Gooch — First Will on Record that of Colonel John
Patton — First Dower to Denry Gash — "Rev. George Newton" and his "Pres
bytery" and "Circular" and action of Court thereon — Newton Academy
Lottery — Edward Williams sentenced to be whipped — ^Whipping-post —
Capital offences in North Carolina- — Cropping — Thomas Hopper's fight with
Philip Williams and loss therein of right ear — Certificate of Court about the
fight — "Jail, Stocks, and Pillery" — Imprisonment for Debt never, in Bun
combe — North Carolina Homestead Exemption — Old Debtor laws — Emanci
pation of Thomas Foster's negro Jerry Smith — Buncombe's first Fairs — Caty
Troxell's Deposition — First Suit tried in Morristown (Asheville) — W. Avery
V. W. Fletcher, Caveat — North Carolina's first Attorney General — Elections
of sheriff, clerk, register of deeds, coroner, entry-taker, surveyor, treasurer,
treasurer of public buildings, standard-keeper, made by County Court — First
Buncombe Superior Court — Buncombe in Sixth Circuit — Sixth Circuit com
posed of Surry, Wilkes, Ashe, Buncombe, Rutherford, Burke, Lincoln, IredeU,
Cabarrus, Mecklenburg — Buncombe Superior Courts first Monday after fourth
Monday in March and September — First Capital Trial that of Randal DeUc
for Murder — Delk first man hung was executed south of Patton Avenue op
posite post-office — Negro named Christopher next executed — Execution of
Sneed and Henry — Gallows Field — Negroes shot under sentence of court-
martial by Yankees — East and Chestnut Streets — Early service by publica
tion — Early Asheville Ordinances!— Zebulon Baird, Daniel Jarrett, William
Brittain, Samuel Chunn, William Welshe, George Swain, John Patton —
Newton Academy Lottery — ^Processioning, its origin and history — Mason hung
—College Street  page 133
Chapter XI
Early manufactures in Buncombe — Wool cloth. Flax, Felt hats. Straw hats.
Furniture, Ropes, Flour, Lumber, Leather, Shoes, Harness, Saddles, Cow bells.
Guns, Pottery and Delftware, Mills — Game — 'Thomas Foster — Fish — Fish-
traps — Gigging — Brandy and Whiskey — Barrooms — Powder — Jacob Byler —
Bounty — Iron and Forges — Charles Lane — Forges on Hominy, Reems Creek,
and Mills River — Boilston Gold Mine-^Forge Mountain — Grist Mills —
William Davidson's Mill — John Burton's Mill — James Gudger — Indians hang
boys on Battery Park hill — Captain J. M. Gudger — Going to Mill — Handlen
killed by Indians — Handlen Mountain — Going to Mill to Old Fort — John
Burton — Gap Creek— Patton and Erwin — James Patton — Andrew Erwin —

1 6 Contents
Warm Springs — Valley Street — James W. Patton — Albert T. Summey — Hay
wood County created — Act of creation — Eastern jealousy of West — Columbus
County — Part of Buncombe to make Yancey County — Parts of Buncombe to
make Henderson County — First Settlers of Buncombe — Presbyterians, Metho
dists, and Baptists — Preachers — Churches — Piney Grove, Reems Creek, Ashe
ville, and Cane Creek, first Presbyterian Churches — Beaverdam, Salem, Ashe
ville, and Turkey Creek, first Methodist Churches — Asheville, Green River,
and Ivy, first Baptist Churches — Newton Academy — William Foster, Jr. —
First Church in Asheville — Andrew Erwin, Daniel Smith, John Patton, Ed-
mond Sams, James Blakely, William Foster, Senr., Thomas Foster, Jr.,
William Whitson, William Gudger, Samuel Murray, Joseph Henry, David
Vance, William Brittain, George Davidson, John Davidson of Hominy, George
Newton — "Cain Creek" — "Robert Patton's Meetinghouse" — Benjamin
Hawkins, James Patton, William Gudger, Sr., Samuel Murray, Sr., John
McLane, William McLane, William Moore, Sr., Samuel Davidson — Union
Hill Academy — First house at Newton Academy, second, third — George
Newton — Dickson Academy — I'irst Church in Asheville, Baptist — Second
Baptist Church — Jewish Synagogue — Third Baptist Church in Asheville —
David Garren, C. C. Matthews, G. M. Alexander, J. F Sullivan, G. W.
Shackelford — First Methodist Church in Asheville — James M. Alexander —
WiUiam Coleman, Israel Baird, Wilie Jones, J. F. E. Hardy, N. W. Woodfin,
James M. Alexander, George W. Jone.s, James M. Smith, Joshua Roberts —
Second Methodist Church — Third Methodist Church — First Presbyterian
Church after Newton Academy — James Patton and Samuel Chunn — Charles
Moore, James W. Patton, Samuel Chunn, John Hawkins, John B. Whiteside —
Next Presbyterian Church — First Episcopal Church in Asheville — James W.
Patton — Nicholas W. Woodfin, Lester Chapman, Hatfield Ogden — Second
Episcopal Church — Third Episcopal Church — John Alexander — James
Alexander — James Mitchell Alexander — Kings Mountain — Musgrove's Mill —
Swannanoa Gap — Swannanoa Tunnel — Buncombe Turnpike — "French Broad"
— Alexander's Chapel — Montrealla — James M. Smith — Daniel Smith — Femi-
hurst — First Catholic Church in .'Vsheville— W. D. Rankin — James Gibbons —
Second Catholic Church in AsheviUe — Third Catholic Church — First Female
School in .\sheville — John Dickson — Elizabeth Blackwell — First Woman
Physician in United States — Asheville College for Young Women — Stephen
Lee — Colonel Lee's School — Buncombe- Illiteracy — Asheville's first newspaper.
Highand Messenger — D. R. McAnally — Joshua Roberts — John H. Chris^^^"
W. H. Deaver and The Journal, semi-weekly newspaper — Asheville Citizen
first daily newspaper in Asheville  page 141
Chapter XII
John C. Calhoun — Prediction about highest land east of Rocky Mountain and
ground of prediction — Elisha Mitchell — T. L. Clingman — Controversy about
first measurement of Mitchell's Peak— "Big Tom Wilson"— Mitchell's Falls
on Cat Tail Creek of Cane River— Mitchell's Peak, Mitchell's High Peak,
Mount Mitchell, Clingman's Peak, Black Dome— Mountain House— Measure
ments of Mitchell's Peak; Guyot's 6,701, Turner's 6,711, Clingman's 6,941,
Mitchell's 6,708 and 6,772— Mitchell's reason for thinking Black Mountain
had highest peak east of Rocky Mountains — United States signal station —
Charies Glass— Robert Y. Hayne— Asheville a military centre— Camp Patton,
Camp Clingman, Camp Jeter, Battery Porter, Beaucatcher, Opposite former

Contents 1 7
Oaks Hotel, Montford Avenue, Riverside Drive, and Battle Ground— Battle
of Asheville— Tobacco Culture and Sale— S. C. Shelton— Warehouses, comer
of North Main and Walnut Streets, South part of Swannanoa Hotel, Valley
Street, Lexington Avenue and Walnut Street, Patton Avenue and Bailey
Street— Confederate Post-office in Asheville — Confederate Commissary— Con
federate Hospital — Confederate armories — Confederate Armory at AshevUle
on Valley and Eagle Streets— Charter of Asheville Amended in 1840— Philip
Brittain, Thomas Foster, and James Gudger— Amendment in 1841 — James M.
Smith, James W. Patton, N. W. Woodfin, Isaac T. Poor, and James F. E.
Hardy— City of Asheville in 1883— Amendments in 1901, and 1905— Ramoth
and Woolsey — Montford— Kenilworth— Victoria— West Asheville— Consolida
tion of Asheville and West Asheville — Asheville first town of Buncombe —
Salem — Weaversville, Weaverville — Leicester, Lick Skillet, The Skillet —
Western North Carolina Railroad sold to W. J. Best and others— Best —
G. W. Vanderbilt — Biltmore Estate — Biltmore — South Biltmore — ^Black
Mountain, Gray Eagle, S. Dougherty — Montreal, Mountain Retreat Associa
tion — Arden — Alexander — Swannanoa, Coopers, A. D. Cooper — Hazel — ^Buena
Vista — Fairview — Ridgecrest — Acton — Turnpike — Skyland — Busbee — Candler
— Barnardsville — Early Roads to Buncombe — Caesar's Head Road — Saluda
Gap Road — Howard's Gap Road — Mills Gap Road — Cooper's Gap Road —
Hickorynut Gap Road — Swannanoa Gap Road — Road down Pigeon River —
Rabun's Gap Road — Little Tennessee Road — Old Warm Springs Road —
Murphy Road — Watauga Road — Burnsville Road — C. S. Featherstone — Paint
Rock to Saluda Gap — Colonel Enoch H. Cunningham — Carriages — Stock-
drivers — Turkey Droves — Droves of Hogs — Com and Taverns  page 157
Chapter XIII
No-Fence Law — Farms — Western Turnpike — Asheville Paving — Crushed Rock —
Stone blocks — Bricks — Paving South Main Street — General P. M. B. Young —
Road Improvement — Caney Brown — J. E. Rankin — M. L. Reed — Western
North Carolina Railroad first to reach Asheville — First Depot — Second Depot
— Passenger Station — Asheville and Spartanburg Railroad — Captain C. M.
McLoud — First Telegraph — Henry Station — First Street Cars in Asheville —
Mr. Davidson — South.side Avenue — Electric Street Lights — Tower on Public
Square — Gas Lamps — Telephones — Sidewalks in Asheville — Cobble-stones.
planks, flagstones, bricks, concrete — Tournaments and Baseball Ground and
Picknics and Public Speaking — Tournaments — Gander-pulling — Baseball — -
Town-ball — Public-gatherings place — Merchants of AsheviUe ahd Buncombe —
Goods hauled from Charleston and Augusta — Teams and wagons — Visits to
markets — Morganton, Greenville, and Greeneville — Railroad from Morris
town to Wolf Creek — Marion, Old Fort, Henry Station — First Money in
Buncombe — Pounds, Shillings, Spanish Milled Dollars or Mexican DoUars —
United States Currency — Bechtler Gold Coins — Testing Bechtler Coins — Bun
combe Treasurer in Confederate days issued State Paper Money for one
Dollar and less, and during same time AsheviUe issued paper money for less
than dollar — Exchange of Country Produce for Goods, barter, "taking out in
trade" — Asheville Market House — Asheville Stores, General Stores — City
Hall — Asheville's First Burying-ground at corner of Eagle and Market Streets
— Next between Aston Street and Church Street Presbyterian Church — Next
South of Central Methodist Church — Riverside Cemetery — John Lyon's tomb
stone oldest in Asheville and in Riverside Cemetery — John Lyon — Shawano

18 Contents
Indians burying-ground oldest in Buncombe — Robert Patton burying-ground
oldest for whites — Newton Academy burying-ground — Indian Graves on
Patton Avenue — Tradition about location of County-town of Buncombe
County — Bar-room Story  page 169
Chapter XIV
First Preachers — George Newton — Swanino Circuit, Samuel Edney, Samuel Lowe
— J. S. Burnett, first Station Methodist preacher — Jarvis Buxton, first Epis
copalian preacher — Thomas Stradley, first regular Baptist preacher — Mrs.
WiUiam Coleman, first member of Episcopal Church — Jarvis Buxton — R. B.
Vance, first physician — P. C. Lester conducted first drug-store in Asheville —
First Photograph Gallery in Asheville — James M. Alexander, first hotel-
keeper — First Asheville Hitching-lot — Second Hitching-lot — Later Hitching-
lots — Second hotel. Eagle Hotel — James Patton — Buck Hotel, James M.
Smith^ — Israel Baird's Hotel — Carolina House, John Reynolds — Battery Park
Hotel — Frank Coxe — Asheville all-the-year Resort — Langren Hotel — Grove
Park Inn — Invalids — Gatchells — Gleitzman's Sanatorium — Confederate
Hospital — Mission Hospital — Attempt to prevent last — State v. Tenant —
Waterworks — Public Wells — Private Wells and Springs — Changes in Physical
features — Famous Asheville Springs — Bogs in Lexington Avenue and Central
Avenue — Old Chestnut Tree near Beaucatcher Gap — E. H. Cunningham —
Waterworks before the War — Hosea Lindsey — Captain Thomas W. Patton —
First Waterworks — Pumping-Station — Montraville Patton's MiU — "Old
Reservoir" — Standpipe — North Fork of Swannanoa — Filter Station — "New
Reservoir" — Bee Tree Line — Fire Department — Hook and Ladder .Companies
— Sewers — Asheville's Altitude — Public Square — City on hiUs — Freshets of
1791, 1845, 1852, 1876, 1916— Freshet of 1852 carried away on French Broad
bridges at Captain Wiley Jones, Smith's Bridge, Gannon's Bridge, Alexander's
Bridge, Chunn's Bridge, Warm Springs ; and on Swannanoa Colonel Patton's
Bridge — Freshet of 1810 or 1811 — Freshet on July 16, 1916, flooded lower
streets in Asheville and Biltmore and drowned men in both places, destroyed
property, and injured bridges — Patton Avenue — Patton Street — E. Clayton —
First Planing-Mill — Wofford College — Newton Academy — John Dickson
School-house — Lowndes or Everett or Ward houses — Confederate guns 
R. W. PuUiam — G. W. Whitson — Buncombe County's Centennial  page 177
Chapter XV
Names of AsheviUe Streets — ^P. Rollins, and F, M. Miller, Aldermen and
Colonel R. W. PuUiam, Captain Thomas W. Patton, and Captain WUliam M
Cocke, Jr., Committee, name streets — Changes in street names. Academy
Street and Montford Avenue, Mulberry Street and Cumberland Avenue, Starnes
Street and and Hiawassee Street , North Main Street and Broadway,' Beaver
dam Street and Merrimon Avenue, Libbey Street and Liberty Street Bridee
Street and Central Avenue, White Oak Street and Oak Street, Pine Street
and Furman Avenue, South Main Street and Biltmore Avenue, Bailey Street
and Asheland .\venue, Maria Avenue and French Broad Avenue, Rob t
Street and Bartlett Street, Buxton Street and Park Avenue, Public Saua
and Pack Square — Asheville Public Library — Principal books on ea 1
Western North Carolina — Francis Asbury's Journals, Charles Lanma'^'^
Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, Bennett's Chronology of North Car ^
lina, Colton's Mountain Scenery, Land of the Sky by Christian Reid, Clin

Contents 19
man's Writings and Speeches, Zeigler and Grosscup's Heart of the Alleghanies,
Standard Guide to Asheville and Western North Carolina, Arthur's Western
North Carolina — Eoneguski — Myths of the Cherokee — ^M. A. Curtis's Trees
and Shrubs of North Carolina — G. F. Kunz's History of Gems Found in
North Carolina — "Land of the Sky"  page 187

ILLUSTRATIONS

Mount Mitchell above the clouds  Frontispiece PAGE
Asheville, 1856 — Boarding-House of Holston Conference Female College
(later Asheville Female College) — Later site of Oaks Hotel, then
Cherokee Inn, now Y.^^'.C.A. Building — Right, School Building of
H. C. F. College, site now of .¦\sheviUe Public School BuUding — Upper
right corner, Beaucatcher Summerhouse, which gave peak its name  44
Grave of Samuel Davidson  60
Autograph Signature of Colonel Edward Buncombe for whom Buncombe
County was named  63
A Plan of the Town of AsheviUe  70
A Plan of Asheville as first incorporated  94
AsheviUe, 1883 — Iron Bridge looking west — Railroad Bridge higher in
picture — Site of Sams's Ferry over French Broad, later Jarrett's Ferry,
later Smith's Bridge, now Concrete Bridge  96
Asheville, 1854 — Drawn by C. H. G. F, Loehr, published as lithograph
by James M. Edney and later as steel engraving in H. Colton's Moun
tain Scenery — Court House, 1850-1865 — First Methodist Church — First
Presbyterian Church — First Episcopal Church on Church Street  121
Asheville — Court House, 1876-1903 — Public Square — Vance Monument  123
Asheville— Central (Church Street) M. E. Church, South, 1857-1903  149
Grave of James Alexander — Piney Grove — Dark Slab with white piece
inserted  ¦__ 152
Mitchell's Falls — Yancey County — Cat-tail Branch of Caney River — Scene
of Death of Dr. Elisha Mitchell in 1857  158
Mitchell's Peak  160
Bechtler Coins  173
AshevUle Confederate Currency  174
Grave of John Lyon — Riverside Cemetery — Asheville  175
Bank Hotel looking north, site of T. C. Smith Drug-store  1_ 178
North Public Square— Buck Hotel, left background— 1888  178
Asheville, 1883 — Eastern side of French Broad River near (earlier) site of
Smith's Bridge  180
Asheville — Patton Avenue — Public Square looking west — about 1885  182
Gun for Confederate use made on Spruce Street in .\sheville by E. Clayton,
R. W. PuUium, and G. W. Whitson  184
Asheville, 1866 — Right centre, Roberts House — Stable above, site of
Elks Building on Haywood Street — Walnut Street between — ^House
above Stable site of Haywood Building — Lower left comer, Stable on
Lexington Avenue — Penland Street now crosses centre from left to right 186
Asheville — Eastern side of South Main Street — Upper Floor marked
"Reading" first room occupied by Asheville Public Library — About
1878 — Site of Old George Swain House where John Lyon died in
portion just south of cut  188

ASHEVILLE AND
BUNCOMBE COUNTY

Asheville and Buncombe County
Chapter I
DISCOVERIES OF AMERICA
THE early history of every country is wrapt in obscurity. Per
haps this was to be expected in ancient days. But modem
lands form no exception to this observation.
It has been remarked that there are few nations in Europe or
Asia which have not put forward claims to a discovery of America long
prior to that made by Columbus. One of the earliest of these claims
made by white men is that in which the Norwegian Sagas assert that in
986 A.D. some of the Norwegians found North America. But these
same Sagas relate a discovery of still earlier date made by the Irish.
They say that while the Norwegians were on the American shores at a
place which they called Vinland, the natives told them of a country
farther south and beyond what is now the Chesapeake Bay, where there
lived "white men, who clothed themselves in long white garments,
carried before them poles to which cloths were attached, and called
with a loud voice." By this the Norwegian visitors understood that
these unknown white men marched in processions and carried banners
and sang songs. In the oldest of these Sagas the present Carolinas are
called "Land of the White Men" and "Great Ireland" and "Huitra-
mannaland." These Sagas further related that, before the Norwegians
saw America, and probably in 982, Ari Marsson, of the Icelandic race
of Ulf the Squint-eyed, in a voyage from Iceland, was driven to the
Land of the White Men and was there recognized by men who had
come from the Orkney Islands and Iceland, and it has even been said
that Iceland was first settled by white men who had come from this
colony of Irishmen in the Carolinas.
If this story of the Land of the White Men and its Irish inhabi
tants be true, this was North Carolina's first "Lost Colony."
Hiunboldt believed in this story of the discovery of North America
by the Norwegians, but thought that their Vinland was "the central

26 Asheville and Buncombe County
and southern portions of the United States of America." If he was
correct in this, North Carolina in the Norwegians had a second "Lost
Colony." According to a Welsh statement, Madoc, a prince of Wales, sailed
westward from his country in 1170 and found an unknown land where,
on a second voyage, he planted a colony of his people. This settlement
has been supposed to be in the Carolinas ; and it is said that among the
Tuscaroras of Eastern North Carolina once lived Indians who spoke
the Welsh language.
"In 1660, Rev. Morgan Jones, a Welsh clergyman, seeking to go
by land from South Carolina to Roanoke, was captured by the Tus-
carora Indians," then in North Carolina. "He declares that his life
was spared because he spoke Welsh, which some of the Indians under
stood; that he was able to converse with them in Welsh, though with
some difficulty; and that he remained with them for months, some
times preaching to them in Welsh. John Williams, LL.D., who repro
duced the statement of Mr. Jones in his work on the story of Prince
Madog's Emigration, published in 1791, explaining it by assuming
that Prince Madog settled in North Carolina, and that the Welsh
colony, after being weakened, was incorporated with these Indians.
If we may believe the story of Mr. Jones (and I cannot find that his
veracity was questioned at the time) , it will seem necessary to accept
this explanation. It will be recollected that, in the early colony times,
the Tuscaroras were sometimes called 'White Indians.' " (J. D.
Baldwin's Pre-historic Nations, 1869, 402-403.) Was this North
Carolina's third "Lost Colony"?
Whether these stories, or any of them, be accepted, the American
Indians were the first discoverers of America. At last, then, all the
Controversies on the subject merely relate to the question. Who was the
second or later discoverer of America?
When Columbus set out in 1492 on his first voyage, which resulted
in the discovery of the West India Islands, he but acted in obedience
to the impulses of a spirit that was then common among the maritime
peoples of Europe. It was an age of adventure and discovery, the
border line between the two great periods of modern development,

Asheville and Buncombe County 27
between the age of war and war-like adventure which had just passed
its meridian and the age of commerce and commercial adventure which
had just begun. Although by reason of his wonderful discovery and
remarkable career, he was the most eminent, he was, by no means, the
first of the venturesome and restless spirits of his century who risked
the unknown perils of the sea in search of new lands and the wild
pursuits of fabulous wealth ; nor was he the last of these.
His success inflamed the more the spirit of reckless daring which
already burned so brightly. Hundreds rushed forward to retrace his
course and transcend the utmost limits which even he had reached.
And when these had found new lands, others of kindred spirit stood
ready to explore and settle them. Discovery and occupation went hand
in hand. Probably at no other period in the world's history would
new-found territory have been visited at so early a day after its dis
covery by such numbers of people seeking homes upon its shores.
In 1539 Hernando De Soto, one of the Spanish conquerors of
Peru, undertook to explore the eastern part of the present United States
in search of another Peru. Starting from Tampa Bay in Florida, he
marched northward through Florida, Georgia and South Carolina and
into North Carolina. Then he turned west into the mountains, probably
through Hickorynut Gap to French Broad River, and pursued, in
1540, his journey toward the southwest until he came to the Mississippi
River ; and, after some further explorations, he died on that stream in
1542. The chief object of his search was gold. If he found little gold
he probably found where there were gold mines. In 1566 Pedro
Menendez de Aviles, the celebrated Spanish commander who drove the
French from their settlement in Florida, built a fort in South Carolina
at Port Royal, or as the Spaniards called the region Saint Helena, and
named the fort San Felipe and garrisoned it with one hundred and ten
soldiers under Stephen de las Alas. In November of that year Captain
Juan Pardo was sent from that fort with a company to explore the
interior. Marching northwestwardly and northeastwardly, Pardo
came, at the end of about 300 or 350 miles, to the country of the Sara
or Suala Indians. He built a fort there and placed in it a garrison of

28 Asheville and Buncombe County
thirty soldiers under a sergeant. This was at Xualla where twenty-
six years before De Soto turned Vi^est into the mountains.
The chief of the Juada or Joara (Sara or Suala) Indians had
renewed at San Felipe the acquaintance which he had formed at
Xualla with the Spaniards under De Soto in 1540, and now accom
panied Pardo from San Felipe. Pardo returned to San Felipe; and
in 1567, under his order the sergeant entered the mountains and
pursued the way which De Soto had taken from Xualla. Four hundred
and twenty miles of this journey brought the sergeant to Coosa whither
Pardo, by appointment, had marched to meet him. While the
Spaniards were at San Felipe they obtained gold and silver from a
country in latitude north 35>4 degrees, 180 miles to the north, where
were "the townes of Otapales and Olagatanos." These towns were in a
country called by the Indians Yupaha, Aixacan, Chiquola, Chisca,
Apalatci, and Onagatano; by the Spaniards La Grand Copal .or
Florida; by the French New France, Louisiane Apalche, or Apalache;
by the English Virginia, and now known as Western North Carolina.
It had mines of gold, copper and silver.
In 1564 some Huguenots, sent from France through the efforts of
Admiral Coligni and commanded by Rene G. Laudonniere, formed a
settlement and built a fort in Florida on Saint John's River near its
mouth, and remained there a little more than a year, when the fort was
taken and destroyed and their settlement broken up by the Spaniards
under Pedro Menendez de Aviles. While in Florida Laudonniere
collected much silver and some gold from the Indians who claimed to
have brought these metals from "the mountaines of Apalatcy." These
"mountaines" were in Western North Carolina. From the same
Indians he learned that in those mountains was to be found also "redde
copper." In 1653 an expedition from Virginia into North Carolina under
Francis Yardly's patronage learned from the Tuscarora Indians of a
wealthy Spaniard living with his family of thirty members and eight
negro slaves in the principal town of those Indians where he had

Asheville and Buncombe County 29
resided for seven years, and that the Haynokes or Eno Indians
"valiantly resisted the Spaniard's further northern attempts" in North
Carolina. In 1670 a Virginia explorer into North Carolina, named John
Lederer, ascertained from the Usheries (Catawbas) and some visiting
Sara Indians "that two days' journey and a half from hence to the
southwest, a powerful nation of bearded men were seated, which I
suppose to be Spaniards, because the Indians never have any." In
1669 Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, expected to find
silver mines in North Carolina, "for certaine it is that the Spaniard in
the same degrees of latitude has found many." In 1690 James Moore,
secretary of the colony settled at Charlestown in South Carolina, made
an exploring tour up the country to the mountains until he reached a
place where his Indian guides said that twenty miles away Spaniards
were mining and smelting with furnaces and bellows. Numerous
traces of mining operations in Western North Carolina before the
English came but. in which iron implements (unknown to Indians)
were used have been found, some in the country of the Sara Indians
near Lincolnton, some at Kings Mountain, and some in Cherokee
County which the Cherokees said had been made by Spaniards from
Florida throughout three summers until the Cherokees killed them.
Thus the Spaniards lived and mined in Western North Carolina more
than 125 years from 1540 till 1690 and later.
The first gold mine opened in the United States by Enghsh-
speaking people was the Reed mine near Charlotte. From 1793 North
Carolina gold was minted by the United States and from 1804 to 1827
all the gold produced in the United States came from North Carolina.
In 1497, John Cabot discovered the continent of North America,
and in 1498, his son, Sebastian Cabot, explored the coast of his father's
discovery from Nova Scotia to Cape Hatteras. Almost immediately
England began to claim this land and English adventurers began to
plan its exploration and colonization. The most able, as well as the
most enterprising and eminent, of these was the famous Sir Walter
Raleigh. He early conceived the scheme of colonizing. this new world,
and at once entered upon' the undertaking with that vigor and daring

30 Asheville and Buncombe County
which characterized all his enterprises. In 1584, he sent out an ex
pedition under Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow. These men con
ducted a most prosperous trade with the Indians of the North Carolina
coast; and upon their return to England with numerous proofs of the
wonderful land which they had visited and the wonderful people whom
they had seen. Queen Elizabeth caught the enthusiasm of the voyagers
and allowed the land to be named in honor of herself, Virginia.
Strange it is, but true, that the original Virginia should, at a later date,
have lost its name to its more Northern sister and taken from another
British monarch the new name of Carolina. The next year another
expedition, sent out by Sir Walter Raleigh under Ralph Lane, founded
a colony on Roanoke Island on the coast of North Carolina. This
attempt at an English settlement in a new world was a failure ; but it
was, by no means, fruitless in results, as we shall see hereafter.
Two years later another attempt was made by the indefatigable
Raleigh to effect a settlement at Roanoke Island, an attempt which
resulted in that historical mystery, "the lost colony." But again the
unfortunate Raleigh was doomed to disappointment. This man opened
a way, and his fellow countrymen soon found means to accomplish
what he had endeavored, at such loss and sacrifice, to achieve. He
was, beyond question, the greatest of the founders of the American
States; and the honor which North Carolina has paid to his memory
in bestowing his name upon her capital city is a well-deserved tribute
to her greatest benefactor.
After several more efforts, a settlement was made in North Caro
lina which proved to be permanent. From such beginnings arose the
Old North State. She has been charged with being always behind;
yet few States can justly claim to have kept pace with her.
Of the voyage of Amidas and Barlow to her shores Wheeler
declares that, "it was then and there 'the meteor flag' of England was
first displayed in the United States and on the sandy banks of North
Carolina rested the first Anglo-Saxon anchor."
Through Lane's expedition in 1585, she first introduced to the
civilized world Indian corn, sassafras, Irish potatoes and tobacco; or
it is so claimed.

Asheville and Buncombe County 31
Upon her borders was founded the first English settlement in
America. In the far-famed "lost colony" was bom and disappeared Virginia
Dare, the first child of English parentage bom upon American soil.
The first gold mines worked by Americans were the Reed mines in
Cabarrus County, North Carolina.
The first battle for American independence was fought by North
Carolinians on North Carolina soil at Alamance, in resistance to the
tyrannical British Governor, Tryon, on May 16, 1771, and here was
spilled the first blood ever shed in the cause of American freedom.
In 1765, the British Parliament passed the famed Stamp Act
taxing paper and certain other articles used by the American colonies.
This was a distinct violation of a fundamental principle of the British
Constitution, forbidding taxation without representation, submission
to which on the part of these colonies would have been an unequivocal
concession that they were not entitled to the rights of English freemen.
Of the reception of the attempt to enforce this act in North Carolina
her historian Wheeler says :
"This act produced a violent excitement throughout the whole
coimtry, and in none more than in North Carolina. The Legislature
was then in session, and such was the excitement this odious measure
of Parliament created among the members, that apprehending some
violent expression of popular indignation. Governor Tryon on the 18th
of May, prorogued that body after a session of fifteen days. The
speaker of the House, John Ashe, Esq., informed Governor Tryon that
this law would be resisted to blood and death. Governor Tryon knew
that the storm raged ; courageous as he was, he dreaded its fury. He
did not allow the Legislature to meet during the existence of this act,
but faithful to the government, he condescended to use the arts of the
demagogue, to avoid the odium of its measures. He mingled freely
with the people, displaying profuse hospitahty, and prepared dinners
and feasts. But unawed by power, the people were not to be seduced
by blanishments. Early in the year 1765, the Dilligence, a sloop of
war, arrived in the Cape Fear river with stamp paper for the use of the
colony. Colonel John Ashe, of the County of New Hanover, and

•32 Asheville and Buncombe County
Colonel Waddell of the County of Brunswick, marched at the head of
the brave sons of these counties, to Brunswick, before which town the
Dilligence was anchored, terrified the captain, so that no attempt was
made to land the paper; seized the sloop-of -war's boat, hoisted it on
a cart, fixed a mast in her, mounted a flag and marched in triumph to
Wilmington. The whole town joined in a splendid illumination at
night, and the next day these patriotic citizens went to the Governor's
house, and 'bearded the Douglas in his castle.' They demanded of
Governor Tryon to desist from all attempts to execute the stamp act,
and produce to them James Houston, who was a member of the council,
an inmate of the Governor's house, and who had been appointed by
Tryon Stamp Master for North Carolina. The governor at first
refused a demand so tumultuously made, but the haughty spirit of the
representative of even kingly power, yielding before the power of a
virtuous and incensed people ; for the people prepared to burn up the
palace, and with it the Governor, the Stamp Master, and the menials
of royal power. The Governor then reluctantly produced Houston;
who was seized by the people, carried to the public market house, and
forced to take a solemn oath not to attempt fo execute his office as
Stamp Master. After this he was released. He returned to the palace,
to comfort his dejected and discomfited master. The people gave three
cheers and quietly dispersed. Here is an act of North Carolinians
'worthy of all Grecian or Roman fame.' The famous Tea Party of
Boston, when a number of citizens, disguised as Indians, went on
board of a ship in the harbor, and threw overboard the tea imported
in her, has been celebrated by every writer of our National History and
'Pealed and chimed on every tongue of fame.'
"Our children are taught to read it in their early lessons; it
adorns the picture books of our nurseries, and is known in the remotest
borders of the republic. Here is an act of the sons of the 'Old North
State,' not committed on the harmless carriers of the freight, or crew
of a vessel; not done under any disguise or mask; but on the repre
sentative of royalty itself, occupying a palace, and in open day, by
men of well known person and reputation; much more decided In its

Asheville and Buncombe County 33
character, more daring in its action, more important in its results ; and
yet not one-half of her own sons ever read of this exploit; it is not
even recorded anywhere in the pages of Williamson, who is one of her
historians and who was one of the delegates from North Carolina to
the Convention which formed the Constitution of the United States;
and its story is confined to the limits of 'our own pent up Utica.' "
(Wheeler's History of North Carolina, page 50.)
On May 20, 1775, the people of Mecklenburg County, in North
Carolina, made, at Charlotte, in that county, the first declaration of
independence, as well established as the "Unanimous Declaration of
the Thirteen United States of America," at Philadelphia, on July
4, 1776. The first open and public declaration for independence by any
one colony was that made on April 12, 1776, by the Provincial Con
gress of North Carolina assembled at Halifax, when that memorable
body, on motion of Cornelius Harnett, resolved :
"That the delegates for this colony in the Continental
Congress be impowered to concur with the Delegates of the
other Colonies in declaring Independence and forming
foreign alliances, reserving to this colony the sole and exclu
sive right of forming a constitution and laws for this colony."
In the late war for Southern rights North Carolina entered the
struggle with great deliberation, but having espoused the cause of the
South, she played a most important and honorable part in that tragic
event. It was the North Carolinian Henry Wyatt who fell, the first
soldier to die in defence of the Southern cause. To that cause North
Carolina furnished more troops than any other State, and to her
belongs the honor of having sent to its battle-fields fully one-fifth of
the whole Confederate army. Her troops were the first to repel the
invasion of Southern soil when, on June 10, 1861, they fought and won
the initial battle, which has passed into history as the battle of Big
Bethel. A Virginia writer, the Rev. Wm. Henry Foote, enthusiastically
declared that : "Men will not be fully able to understand Carolina till

34 Asheville and Buncombe County
they have opened the treasures of history and drawn forth some few-
particulars respecting the origin and religious habits of the Scotch-
Irish, and become familiar with their doings previous to the Revolu
tion — during that painful stmggle — and the succeeding years of pros
perity; and Carolina will be respected as she is known." (Foote's
Sketches of North Carolina, page 83.)
The historian, George Bancroft, exclaims: "Are there any who
doubt man's capacity for self-government ? Let them study the history
of North Carolina. Its inhabitants were restless and turbulent in
their imperfect submission to a government imposed from abroad; the
administration of the colony was firm, humane and tranquil when they
were left to take care of themselves. Any government but one of their
own institution was oppressive. North Carolina was settled by the
freest of the free."
When the immortal contest for American freedom which North
Carolina had first inaugurated in her public meetings, legislative
assemblies and her battle-field of Alamance, had waged for years with
varying fortune, it seemed at last that the cause of her choice was about
to be crushed beneath the superior power and resources of her enemies.
Cornwallis had defeated Gates at Camden on August 16, 1780, and
well-nigh destroyed and thoroughly demoralized his army, and two
days later Tarleton had routed Sumter at Fishing Creek, and Georgia
and South Carolina were entirely overrun by the troops of the enemy,
and the American cause seemed about to expire. The British general
had begun his march northward to complete the subjugation of North
Carolina and Virginia, and end the Revolution. This seemed, under
the existing circumstances, an easy task.
At this dark crisis the Western North Carolinians conceived and
organized and, with the aid which they sought and obtained from
Virginia and the Watauga settlement, now in Tennessee, carried to
glorious success at Kings Mountain on October 7, 1780, an expedition
which thwarted all the plans of the British commander, and restored
the almost lost cause of the Americans and rendered possible its final
triumph at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. This expedition was
without reward or hope of reward, undertaken and executed by private

Asheville and Buncombe County 35
individuals, at their own instance, who furnished their own arms, con
veyances and supplies, bore their own expenses, achieved the victory,
and then quietly retired to their homes, leaving the benefit of their
work to all Americans, and the United States their debtors for
independence. From the men who, while others wavered and sought reconciliation
with the mother country, declared independence at Charlotte, and,
when all others despaired, retrieved at Kings Mountain the waning
fortune of the war, came the first settlers of Buncombe County. Some
of her first inhabitants were men who had actually taken part in these
famous acts of patriotic daring and sacrifice.
When the war of the Revolution began, the white occupation of
North Carolina had extended up to the Blue Ridge. Here for a time
it had stopped; and until the close of that great struggle no effort
appears to have been made for a further extension. Elsewhere the war
was raging and across the mountains much of the country was in the
possession of the Cherokee Indians, who, always hostile, were now in
alliance with the British.
"According to Adair, one of the earliest settlers of South Carolina,
and who wrote of the four principal tribes (Cherokees, Shawnees,
Chicasaws and Choctaws) in 1775," says Dr. Hunter in his Sketches
of Western North Carolina, "the Cherokees derive their name from
Cheera, or fire, which is their reputed lower heaven, and hence they
call their magi, Cheera-tah-gee, men possessed of the divine fire."
CHEROKEES
These Cherokees, when they first became known to the whites,
inhabited the western part of North Carolina, the eastern part of
Tennessee, the northwestem part of South Carolina, and the northern
part of Georgia. While none of their towns appear to have been in
the valleys of the Swannanoa and the North Carolina part of the
French Broad, or among the neighboring hills, parties of Cherokees
constantly roamed over that country, and at times encamped there for
no inconsiderable while. This is evident from the great number of
stone arrow heads, many of them defective and unfinished, found at

36 Asheville and Buncombe County
certain spots in these valleys and among these hills. Among the places
of encampment of which these relics bear evidence may be mentioned
the hill on which stands the residence of the late Col. Stephen Lee in
Chunn's Cove, and the little valley at the northeastern corner of the
Riverside Cemetery grounds in Asheville. Nothing but a residence at
such places for some time of a considerable number of Indians would
seem sufficient to account for the great number of these arrow heads at
one place, and the fact that many of these are unfinished and defective
would tend to show that they were made here, since no conceivable
reason could possibly exist for carrying unfinished or broken arrow
heads in quantities about the country.
There have also been found great numbers of Indian relics, con
sisting of stone hatchets and other articles of stone, in the bottoms near
the mouth of the Swannanoa. Here, too, on the southern bank of the
river, just below the last branch above its mouth, once stood an Indian
mound built apparently to correspond with a natural mound at the
base of the hill to the south about two hundred yards distant. This
artificial mound was opened years ago but contained nothing except
some Indian relics of the common type.
There is an old tradition that Asheville stands upon the site
where, years before the white man came, was fought a great battle
between two tribes of the aborigines, probably the Cherokees on one
side and the Shawnees or the Catawbas who were inveterate enemies
and often at war with the Cherokees on the other side. There is also
a tradition that these lands were for a long while neutral hunting
grounds of these two tribes of Cherokees and Catawbas. Probably, in
the absence of something to verify them, not much weight should be
attached to such traditions. Conjecture is always busy in accounting
for physical appearances of a country, and what to one age is surmise
to the next age becomes tradition.
The most that we can know of Buncombe County before its settle
ment by the Caucasians is only what can be derived from an occasional
glimpse here and there into the dark and mysterious past. Here for
many years had roamed these Cherokees, a most savage and powerful
body of Indians.

Chapter II
FRENCH BROAD RIVER AND OTHER STREAMS
THE Indian names for the French Broad probably differed
among the different tribes and possibly even in a single tribe for
different portions of the stream. Indians did not reside on that
river after it became known to white men. One writer, H. E. Colton,
says that it was called by the Indians, Tocheste, or Racer. Another
writer, Dr. J. G. M. Ramsey, says that they called it Agiqua through
out its length. Another writer, C. Lanman, says they called it Pse-li-co.
Two other writers, W. G. Zeigler and B. S. Grosscup, say that the
Erati, or "Over-the-mountain" Cherokees, called it Agiqua, and the
other Cherokees, known as Ottari, called it Tocheeostee below Ashe
ville and Zillicoah above .A.sheville. The best authority on the subject,
J. Mooney, says: "The Cherokees have no name for the river as a
whole, but the district through which it flows about Asheville is called
by them Un-takiyastiyi, 'Where they race.' "
It has been stated that its English name of French Broad is
derived from a hunter named French. This is not true. To the white
men who traded with the Cherokees and passed through the Holston
Valley in what is now East Tennessee, the French Broad River was at
first known as Broad River. There was, however, a river running from
the Blue Ridge to the Atlantic Ocean which rose on the eastern side of
that mountain range nearly opposite the head of the French Broad on
the western side of that range, while the French Broad, through other
streams, ultimately ran into the Mississippi River. The English
owned the land on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge and the French
claimed all the land to the west thereof lying on tributary waters of
the Mississippi. Hence, in order to distinguish from the Broad River
belonging to the English on the east this Broad River claimed by the
French on the west, the latter came soon to be called, French Broad.
In some of the early maps it is named Frank River, referring to the
French. The name of French Broad was given to it before 1763, when
the French formally relinquished all claim to the country through
which it runs. Plainly this name was bestowed by hunters who came
from the east of the mountains where they were acquainted with the

38 Asheville and Buncombe County
Broad River, up which they most probably travelled through the
Hickorynut Gap; and it was about 1760 to 1762 when they made this
addition to the geographical nomenclature of the mountain region.
The Indians had no name for the Swannanoa River. That bj
which it is known is due to white men. Numeorus origins have been
given as those of the word, Swannanoa. Sometimes it is said to be a
Cherokee word meaning "beautiful"; sometimes a Cherokee word
meaning "nymph of beauty"; sometimes a Cherokee attempt to imitate
the sound made by the wings of ravens or vultures flying down the
valley; sometimes a Cherokee attempt to imitate the call of the owls
seated upon trees on the banks of the stream; and one writer,
J. Mooney, says that the word Swaimanoa is derived, by contraction,
from two Cherokee words, Suwali Nun-nahi, meaning "Suwali Trail,"
that, is trail to the country of the Suwali, Suala, or Sara Indians, who
lived in North Carolina at the eastern foot of the Blue Ridge, and that
this trail ran through the Swannanoa Gap. None of these is correct.
"Swannanoa'' does not mean "beautiful" or "nymph of beauty" and
does not resemble the sound made by a raven or vulture in flying or
any call of any North Carolina owl, and is not a Cherokee word and
could not be produced by any contraction of "Suwali' Nun-nahi." It
is merely a form of the word "Shawano,'' itself a common form of
"Shawnee," the name of a well-known tribe of Indians. These
Shawanoes were great wanderers and their villages were scattered
from Florida to Pennsylvania and Ohio, each village usually standing
alone in the country of some other Indian tribe. They had a village
in Florida or Southern Georgia on the Swanee or Suanee River, which
gets its name from them. Another of their towns was in South Caro
lina, a few miles below Augusta, on the Savannah River which
separates South Carolina from Georgia. This was "Savannah Town,"
or, as it was afterwards called, "Savanna Old Town." The name of
"Savannah," given to that river and town, is a form of the word
"Shawano," and those Indians were known to the early white settlers
of South Carolina as "Savannas." The Shawanoes had a settlement
on Cumberland River near the site of the present city of Nashville
Tennessee, when the French first visited that region. From those

Asheville and Buncombe County 39
Indians these French, who were the first white men who went there,
called the Cumberland River the "Chouanon," their form of Shawano.
Sewanee in the same State has the same origin.
These Shawano Indians had a town on the Swannanoa River
about one-half mile above its mouth and on its southern bank, when
the white hunters began to make excursions into those mountain lands.
Between 1700 and 1750 all the Shawanoes in the South removed
to new homes north of the Ohio River where they soon became very-
troublesome to the white people and were answerable for most of the
massacres in that region perpetrated in that day by Indians, especially
in Kentucky, it being their boast that they had killed more white men
than had any other tribe of Indians. Their town at the mouth of the
Swannanoa River had been abandoned before 1776, but its site was
then well known as "Swannano." At that time the river seems not to
have been named ; but ver\' soon afterwards it was called, for the town
and its former inhabitants, Swannano, or later Swannanoa River. One
of the earliest grants for land on its banks and covering both sides
and including the site of the present Biltmore, calls the stream the
"Savanna River."
Other tributaries of the French Broad or streams entering it
through other water courses derived their names in different ways and
at different times.
Davidson's River got its name from Benjamin Davidson, the first
settler on its waters, and was originally called "Ben Davidson's Creek."
Mills River was so named for William Mills, whose residence
was on Green River in Rutherford County, who was born on James
River in Virginia, November 10, 1746, and died at his home in Ruther
ford County, North Carolina, November 10, 1834.
Little River, of course, was named for its size, as was Green River
for the appearance of its waters in the gorges. Muddy Creek, got its
name because its current was sluggish and waters often in contrast to
one of its tributaries. Clear Creek. Muddy Creek at one time was
known as "Little River." Cane Creek was famous for the great
quantity of reeds or canes growing on its borders, but became more
famous because on its waters was discovered, at what is now "The

40 Asheville and Buncombe County
Meadows" or "Blake Place," then owned by William Murray, in 1802,
the celebrated Catawba grape, the only native American wine grape,
a variety of Fox grape {Vitis labrusca).
The very peculiar names of some of the streams which run into
the French Broad from the west and southwest in part of its course
must have caused many persons to inquire as to the origin of those
names. For many years before the Revolutionary War and for some
years thereafter the di\'iding line between the western parts of North
Carolina and South Carolina had not been run or even settled, and the
disputed territory extended from some miles south of Greenville, South
Carolina, northward about to Swannanoa River. South Carolina
people in the northern part of that State hunted much over this dis
puted country, in which no white men then lived. About 1885,
William Camp, a very old and intelligent surveyor of northern
Spartanburg County in South Carolina, told me the following story:
Before the Revolutionary War a party of hunters from northern
South Carolina visited the French Broad on a hunting trip and crossed
to the western side not far above the mouth of Swannanoa River. Pro
ceeding on their hunt, they camped the first night on an unnamed
stream that ran into the French Broad, and there they had hominy for
supper. They called this stream "Hominy." Next night they camped
on the banks of a stream of which none of them had ever heard and
named it "Newfound." Next night they killed some wild turkeys and
had them for supper at their camp on the banks of another stream,
which, for that reason, they named "Turkey Creek." Still further on
they encamped on another stream and cooked mush for supper, but in
dipping water to use in making the mush they unknowingly dipped in
the water some sand which thus got into the mush. They called this
stream "Sandymush."
On the other side of French Broad River going from Swannanoa
River in the direction of Asheville the first stream of considerable, size
is that now crossed three times by Southside Avenue and called some
times "Cripple Creek." It was known as the Big Branch at the time
when Asheville's site was chosen for that of the county town of Bun
combe in 1792. Later a man named Gash owned land on that branch

Asheville and Buncombe County 41
living on that land near the entrance of ^McDowell Street into South
Main Street, where was for many years later the Gash burying-ground.
For a long while the branch was called Gash's Creek. Later it
acquired the name of "Town Branch" and finally the senseless appel
lation of "Cripple Creek."
Through the northern portion of Asheville runs a branch once
known as "Nathan Smith's Creek." About 1902 Mr. H. A. Lindsey
knocked off a piece from an outcropping rock of gneiss on this branch
just below Magnolia Street, and found inside several small nuggets of
coarse gold. I have one of these mounted as a stickpin. Before reach
ing the river this branch unites with another which runs through
Grove Park and was then called "Glenn's Creek," and, under the latter
name, enters the French Broad River just above the "Casket Plant."
Next is "Beaverdam Creek," although no one seems to know
where was the beavers' dam from which it got its name. Then, after
passing "Davis's Branch," named for John Davis who lived on it
opposite Montrealla, is Reems's Creek, so called for a man named
Reems whom the Indians killed on that stream just above the iron
bridge across it south of Weaverville. Then comes "Flat Creek,"
whose name is no doubt derived from the character of the land on its
upper waters. "Ivy River" enters French Broad River about a mile
above Marshall and gets its name undoubtedly from the large quantity
of ivy {Kalmia) which grew on it, as further on "Laurel River" is
named for its laurel {Rhododendron).
Spring Creek was so named from the fact that it enters French
Broad River from the southwest at the Warm Springs. Those cele
brated springs were discovered in 1778 by Henry Reynolds and
Thomas Morgan, sentries on the outposts of Tennessee settlements,
who were in pursuit of stolen horses; and, for a long time after North
Carolina had ceded to the United States the territory which now forms
Tennessee, the people of the ceded lands claimed that these springs
were included in the ceded country. In fact, the first grant for the
land where these springs are was made by the State of Tennessee.
Until 1886 they were known as the "Warm Springs"; but in that year
the Southern Improvement Company bought them and changed the
name to "Hot Springs."

42 Asheville and Buncombe County
Several streams flow into Swannanoa River on its northern
side, eastward from Asheville. These are : first, Ross's Creek,
named for a man called Ross who lived probably near the mouth
of the creek, which was afterwards more generally known as
"Chunn's Cove Creek," because a place on its upper waters, later the
residence of Colonel Stephen Lee and now of Messrs. Armstrong, but
then belonging to Colonel Samuel Chunn, had come prominently into
})ublic notice as the scene of a famous political debate in 1840 between
John M. Morehead and Romulus M. Saunders, then candidates for
Governor of North Carolina; second, "Haw Creek," called originally
"Whitson's Creek" from William Whitson who settled the place at its
mouth, now the home of Mr. Frank Reed, and next called T. T.
Patton's Mill Creek when Mr. T. T., Patton occupied that farm and
built a mill on the stream, and still later known as "Haw Creek," be
cause of the large number of black haw {Viburnum) bushes which
grew on its banks; third, "Grassy Branch," which enters Swannanoa
River at Azalea; fourth, "Bull Creek," named from the fact that on
that creek John Rice, its first settler, killed a buffalo bull, the last wild
buffalo seen in Buncombe County; and last "Bee Tree Creek," at the
mouth of which was made the first permanent settlement of white
people in that part of North Carolina which was afterwards Buncombe
County, although probably no one knows exactly on what spot those
settlers found the bee-tree. The South Fork of Swannanoa River, on
which are now the towns of Black Mountain, Montreat, and Ridgecrest,
is often called Flat Creek.
MOUNTAINS
To one who approaches it from the east the Blue Ridge can be
seen for a great distance and consequently looks blue. Hence its name
must have been given by persons coming to it from that direction.
" 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
.A.nd robes the mountain in its azure hue."
The Asheville plateau lies in that -range of mountains called the
Appalachian Mountains or Alleghany Mountains, of which the Blue

Asheville and Buncombe County 43
Ridge is the eastern portion. This system extends from northern
New York to parts of Alabama, and is sometimes sixty to seventy-five
miles broad. It is a singular fact that in North Carolina, where the
greater part of this table-land lies, the streams which find their ways
into the Mississippi rise in the lower Blue Ridge on the eastern side,
and, after traversing this plateau from east to west, break through the
mountains on the western side, thus making their exit through a range
higher than that in which they have their origin.
The name of Appalachian Mountains or Appalaches is said to
have been given to them by the French in Florida under Laudonniere,
"who first became acquainted with them at the southern extremity,
from the Indian name of a river that flows into the Gulf of Mexico,
in Appalache Bay; but the English, who visited them principally in
their more northern parts, preserved the Indian name there given of
AUaghanies, which is supposed to mean Endless," The Appalachian
Indians lived in Florida, far south of these mountains, and, no doubt,
it was from their account that the French first learned of this mountain
range. The Alleghanies were a geographical group of Indians, com
posed of Delawares and Shawnees, living on Alleghany River in
Pennsylvania and New York.
The name of Pisgah for the most prominent mountain in Western
North Carolina seems to have been given about 1776, but by whom is
not known. No doubt the name was taken from the mountain of that
name east of the Dead Sea from which Moses is said to have viewed
"the Promised Land," and was given to the North Carolina peak
because of its extensive outlook. There was a celebrated South Caro
lina hupter of early days who lived in the northwestern part of that
State whose name was Busby. Probably from him was called the
mountain of that name south of Asheville.
The Bearwallow, Bald Top, Sugar Loaf, Pilot, and Point Look
out, mountains in the Hickorynut Gap region, are said to have been
so named by William Mills.
Its rugged top may account for the name of Craggy and the dark
colors of fir and spruce may account for the name of the Black Moun
tain; but who gave these names is unknown.

Asheville, 1856— Boarding House of Holston Conference Female College (later Asheville Female College). Later
site of Oalcs Hotel, then Cherokee Inn, now Y.W.C.A. Building
Right— School Building of H. C. F. College, site now of Asheville Public School Building
Upper right corner— Beaucatcher Summerhouse which gave peak its name

Asheville and Buncombe County 45
Lane's Pinnacle got its name from its owner, Charles Lane, who
conducted "forges" on Hominy Creek near Luthers and on Reems Creek
near Weaverville, digging much of his iron ore from Mine Hole Gap,
which got its name from the excavation so made by him there. He
was a near relative of General Joseph Lane, candidate for vice-
president of the United States in 1860.
Mr. James W. Patton owned Beaucatcher Mountain, east of
Asheville, and, about 1850, he erected on it a summer-house as a place
of resort. Several young couples did their courting in visiting this
summer-house; and that fact is said to have given rise to its name of
Beaucatcher. During the war on the South it was fortified. After
that war Mr. William Hazard built a residence there and changed the
name to Beaumont. The late A. C. Avery, for many years a Justice of
the Supreme Court of North Carolina, once remarked to me that his
engagement to his first wife had been made on a visit to this summer-
house on Beaucatcher. This lady was a Miss Morrison, a sister of the
wife of Stonewall Jackson and of the wife of the Confederate General
D. H. Hill.
Before elks were driven from these mountains they had a wallow
on a Beaverdam mountain, which, on that account, was known as the
"Elk Wallow" and then as "Elk Mountain." A cheese factory on the
mountain prospered for several years in the seventies of the nineteenth
century, but ceased operations some time later than 1875. The last
elk seen in North Carolina was killed in what is now Mitchell County
by William Davenport, except one killed by William Mills at about the
same time six miles south of Asheville on Six-mile Branch.
Panthers (Puma or Cougar) disappeared entirely about 1835;
Virginia deer about 1855; buffalo about 1786; and black bears and
bay-lynxes (wild cats), like wolves, have become so scarce that it is
now uncertain whether or not any wolves are in the mountains and
certain that a black bear or a bay-lynx cannot be found elsewhere.
Gooch's Peak, commonly called Gouge Mountain, another Beaver
dam peak, was named for a man called Gooch.
In 1,767 Colonel William Tryon, royal governor of North Caro
lina, caused to be run and marked a line between the lands of the

46 Asheville and Buncombe County
white settlers and the lands of the Cherokee Indians, extending from
Reedy River at a point some miles south of the present City of Green
ville in -South Carolina, northward fifty-three miles to a Spanish oak
on what is now Tryon Mountain. This hne now, for most of its length,
divides Greenville and Spartanburg counties, and passes less than a
mile east of the modern City of Tryon. Colonel Tryon himself
attended and directed the early portion of this survey and the mountain
on which it terminated, in the "White Oak Mountains," was called for
him "Tryon" and yet bears his name, and, after the lapse of more than
a century, gave its name to the City of Tryon.
Several Indian names are said to have been used for French
Broad River. Among these may be mentioned Pse-li-co, Tocheste,
Agiqua, Tocheeostee, Zillicoah, Untakiyastiki, Zeehleeka (pronounced
Tsay-lee-katy) and Esseewah; but an Indian name often applied to
only part of a river and this was the case with French Broad River, its
Asheville region being Untakiyastiki, "where they race." Other Indian
names for western North Carolina localities were: Warwasseeta for
Pisgah Ridge or Range, Elseetoss for Pisgah Mountain, Sokassa for
Shaking Bald Mountain, Salola for Sugar-loaf Mountain, Esseedaw
for Broad River, Sunnalee for Craggy Mountain, Seencyahs for Black
Mountain, Osteenoah for Cold Mountain, Judykullas for Balsam
Mountains, Chesseetoahs for Smoky Mountains, and Chewassee for
Newfound Mountains.
On the headwaters of a branch which enters Haw Creek on the
north in the farm of Mr. A. M. Dillingham is a cove known as "Cisco."
When the country about Asheville was first settled a hunter named
Cisco made frequent hunting tours into these mountains, a favorite
hunting-ground with him being this part of the mountain which now
bears the name of Piney Knob, east of Ross's Creek. On one occasion,
after Cisco had been away from home on a hunting trip for more than
a week, his friends became uneasy and went in search of him to the
region of this cove where they found his body. He had died, appar
ently, from some natural cause. The cove received, in consequence of
this, the name of "Cisco," which it yet bears.

Chapter III
WHETHER or not the valley of the French Broad near Ashe
ville was ever, as has been supposed, the head of a mountain
lake, whose lowest or deepest part was above Mountain Island
and Hot Springs, is an unsettled question for the geologists. Certain
it is that the French Broad has cut its way through the mountains at
Mountain Island as is apparent to the most casual observer of the
mountains at that place, not only in the obvious signs that still remain
to indicate the exact spot where it cut through, but also in the unques
tionable beds of that river in the days gone by now on the tops of the
motmtains which lie along its western banks probably 200 feet higher
than its present bed, and only a short distance above the Mountain
Island. These old beds cross the channel of the present stream below
the Palisades at Stackhouse's and above the Mountain Island. They
contain many stones worn smooth and rounded by the abrasions to
which their position in the river bed subjected them. The stones so
common and peculiar which lie near the surface on the Battery Park
hill and appear to be of water formation are also worthy of notice in
this connection. Why may not this be the famous lake mentioned by Lederer in his
account of his exploration into North Carolina westward in 1669-70
which historians have found it so hard to account for. It certainly
fills the description and lies near the place which he describes when he
says in regard to his visit to the Sara :
"This nation is subject to a neighbor king residing upon the bank
of a great lake called L^shery, environed on all sides with mountains
and Wisacky marsh.
"The sixth and twentieth of June, having crossed a fresh river
which runs into the lake of Ushery, I came to the town, which waS
more populous than any I had seen before in my march. The king
dwells some three miles from it, and therefore I had no opportunity of
seeing him the two nights which I stayed there. This prince, though
his dominions are large and populous, is in continual fear of the
Oustack Indians, seated on the opposite side of the lake, a people so

48 Asheville and Buncombe County
addicted to arms that even their women come into the field and shoot
arrows off their husbands' shoulders, who shield them with leathern
targets. "The water of Ushery Lake seemed to my taste a little brackish.
which I rather impute to some mineral waters which flow into it, than
to any saltness it can take from the sea, which we may reasonably sup
pose is a great way from it. Many pleasant rivulets fall into it, and it
is stored with great plenty of excellent fish. I judged it to be about
ten leagues broad, for were not the other shore very high it could not
be discerned from Ushery. How far this lake tends westwardly, or
where it ends, I could neither learn nor guess." (2 Hawks History of
North Carolina, page 49.)
It is impossible to reconcile this description, as has been attempted
to be done, with a flood in the Catawba River. Moreover, Lederer had
already informed us that, "I have heard several Indians testify that
the nation of Rickohockans, who dwelt not far to the westward of the
Apalataean Mountains, are seated upon a land, as they term it, of great
waves — ^by which I suppose they mean the seashore."
Now the Rickohockans were the Cherokees. (Mooney Siouan
Tribes of the East, page 54.)
It is most probable that De Soto, on the great expedition in which
he discovered the Mississippi River, passed through Western North
Carolina in 1540. This famous general and discoverer after he had
commanded a squadron of horse under Pizarro in the conquest of Peru
with which he captured the Inca Atahualpa and put his army to flight,
and after he had acquired large wealth in Peru, was made governor of
Cuba. Having the permission of the great emperor Charles V., he set
out from Havana on May 12 1539, with an army of nearly fifteen
hundred men, on an expedition of conquest and discovery upon the
continent of North America. In fifteen days he landed on the western
coast of Florida at Espiritu Santo Bay. From this place he marched
northward until he came to Cofachiqui, identified as Silver Bluff on
the Savannah River in Barnwell County, South Carolina. From this
place he resumed his march on May 3, 1540, and continuing north
ward for about one hundred and fifty miles, he reached the Indian

Asheville and Buncombe County 49
province of Xuala, or Choualla. This Xuala of the Spaniards is the
Suala of Lederer, Suali of the Cherokees, and Suara and Cheraw of
later writers. "From the narrative of Garcilaso the Sara must then
have lived in the piedmont region about the present line between South
Carolina and North Carolina, southeast of Asheville. On the De I'lsle
map Chouala is marked west of the upper Santee (Catawba).
* * * "Garcilaso in 1540 describes the village of Xuala as situated
on the slope of a ridge in a pleasant hilly region, rich in corn and all
the other vegetables of the country. In front of the village ran a stream
which formed the boundary between the Xuala tribe and that of
Cofachiqui. This may have been either the Broad River or the
Pacolet." (Mooney's Siouan Tribes of the East, page 57.) Xuala
v/as situated upon the skirts of a mountain and the stream which
passed it was a small one. At this place De Soto turned westward,
aiming for the province of Guaxule or Guachule. "The first day's
journey was through a country covered with fields of maize of
luxuriant growth. * * •¦" During the next five days they trav
ersed a chain of easy mountains, covered with oak. and mulberry trees,
with intervening valleys, rich in pasturage and irrigated by clear and
rapid streams. These mountains were twenty leagues across and quite
uninhabited." "The Portuguese Gentleman says the mountains were
very bad. Herrera says that though they were not disagreeable, the
mountains were twent)- leagues across and the army was five days in
passing over them." (Ramsey.) After passing these mountains De
Soto entered the province of Guaxule or Guachule. He was received
with much courtesy and show by the Cacique and conducted to his
village of three hundred houses. This was on several small streams
rising in the adjacent mountains that "soon mingled their waters and
formed a grand and powerful river, along which the army resumed
their journey" until they came to a village at the end of a long island
where the Indians .showed them "how they obtained pearls from the
oysters taken in the river." This was unquestionably the Tennessee
River, which is formed largely by streams taking their rise in these
mountains west of the Board and Pacolet Rivers and the muscles taken
from which still yield pearls of merchantable character in considerable
quantities. The subsequent history of De Soto is well known ; that he

50 Asheville and Buncombe County
proceeded on his journey, discovered the Mississippi River above its
mouth, crossed it, found the Hot Springs in Arkansas, returned south
ward, reached again the Mississippi, died in 1542 on its banks and
was buried in its bed.
Now it would be impossible for an army on the Broad or Pacolet
River within one day's march of the mountains to march westward for
six days, five of which was through mountains, and reach the sources
of the Tennessee or any other river, without passing through Western
North Carolina.

Chapter IV
EXPLORATIONS
IN 1670, John Lederer, a German, under the patronage of Sir
William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia, made his famous
journey into Carolina. He arrived among the Sara or Suala
Indians, and from that place took a southwest course. This probably
carried him into northern South Carolina, but might have carried him
up the Hickorynut Gorge.
In 1673, James Needham and Gabriel Arthur were sent out with
eight Indians and four horses by Colonel Abraham Wood from the
place of the last-named gentleman, a little below the Falls of Appo
mattox River in Virginia, where now stands the City of Petersburg.
The purpose of the expedition was to explore the country of the
Tomahitan Indians, now identified with the Cherokees. Needham and
his party proceeded west and southwest on a nine days' journey to an
Indian town called Sitteree. From that place they entered the moun
tains, and, after passing five rivers running toward the west and travel
ling fifteen days from Sitteree, they reached the Tomahitan town,
situated on the sixth river, which ran more to the west and was almost
certainly the Little Tennessee. From this town it was eight days'
journey to the Spanish settlement in Florida. The expedition started
on May 17, 1673, and James Needham on his return reached Wood's
place September 10, 1673, having left Gabriel Arthur among the
Tomahitans until he could get back, in order to learn the Indian lan
guage. On September 20, 1673, James Needham set out on his return
to the Tomahitan town, but was murdered on the way by an
Occoneechee Indian named John. Gabriel Arthur did not get back to
Wood's place until June 18, 1674.
This seems to have been the first trip of an Englishman to the
Cherokee country. Its ultimate purpose was to establish a trade with
the Indians of that laiid. Such was its result. It is very probable that
in this expedition James Needham and Gabriel Arthur passed from
the country at the foot of the Blue Ridge into the region of the motm
tains where the rivers ran to the west and crossed through the Hickory-

52 Asheville and Buncombe County
nut Gorge or the Swannanoa Gap ; and, since no mention is made of
passing westwardly down a stream as soon as they had passed the crest
of the first high ridge, it is more likely than not that the road lay
through the Hickorynut Gorge, and thstt Sitteree and Sara were the
same place. CHEROKEES
The mouth of the Swannanoa and the country surrounding it ap
pears to have been a well-known spot even before its settlement by the
Europeans. The Cherokees, as has been stated, were always inimical to the
whites, and during their occupation of this country frequently de
scended from their mountain homes upon the settlers in Georgia, Sout,h
Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and what is now the State of
Tennessee. At the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, the British,
through theif agents, the principals of whom were John Stuart and
Alexander Cammeron, succeeded in inducing these Indians to enter
into an alliance with themselves. Emboldened by this alliance and the
unsettled state of affairs among the colonists, the Cherokees became
peculiarly troublesome to the white settlers and their raids were further
and in greater number and more disastrous than ever before. It became
necessary to strike a blow against them which would deter them from
the repetition of these outrages.
In the execution of a plot formed between them and their foreign
allies, the Cherokees, on the very day the British fleet attacked Charles
ton, made a daring incursion upon the frontier settlements of South
Carolina. This gave rise to a concerted attempt, though not executed
entirely in co-operation, on the part of the surrounding States to sub
jugate these troublesome savages. Georgia sent an expedition north
ward against them, which seems to have effected something but not
much. The Virginia expedition under Col. William Christian, which
passed through East Tennessee, was somewhat more successful; but
the principal of these expeditions was led by General Griffith Ruther
ford, of North Carolina, who in September, 1776 (Colonial Records of
North Carolina, vol. 10, p. 788), with an army of 2,400 men, marchecL
across the Blue Ridge at Swannanoa Gap, leaving the head of the

Asheville and Buncombe County S3
Catawba on the first day of September, passed down the Swannanoa
River to within a short .distance of its mouth, and thence up the French
Broad River which he crossed at a ford about two miles above the
Swannanoa, still called in commemoration of that event, the War Ford;
then passed up the valley of the Hominy, crossing that stream twice,
and crossed Pigeon River a little below the mouth of East Fork.
Thence passing through the motmtains to Richland Creek a little above
the present town of Waynesville, he ascended that creek and marched
on to the Tuckaseigee River. Here he crossed at an Indian town. Still
proceeding, he crossed the Cowee Mountain, where he had a slight
skirmish with the Indians, and passed on to within thirty miles of the
middle settlements of the Cherokees on the Tennessee River.
Thence he sent out a detachment of one thousand men to proceed
by forced marches so as to surprise the enemy. On their way this
detachment was attacked by about thirty Indians who fired and imme
diately fled, having wounded one man in the foot. This body then
passed on to the Towns, which had been evacuated before their arrival,
and destroyed them. From here General Rutherford went with nine
himdred men, leaving the main body and taking ten days' provisions,
against the Valley Settlements, or Middle Towns, or Valley Towns.
He was, however, without an intelligent guide and was so much em
barrassed by passing the mountains at an unaccustomed place that he
failed to find five himdred Indians who had been lying in ambush at
the common crossing place for several days. He destroyed the greater
part of the Valley Towns, killed twelve Indians, took nine of them
and made prisoners seven white men from whom he got four negroes,
a considerable quantity of leather, one hundred pounds of gunpowder
and two thousand pounds of lead; estimated to be worth two thousand
five hundred pounds, which they were conveying to Mobile.
In the valley of the Little Tennessee River he burned the Indian
towns of Watauga, Estotoa and Ellojay. Here in the 14th of Septem
ber Colonel Williamson who, in command of -the South Carolina ex
pedition, aided by the Catawba Indians, had crossed the motmtains
near the sources of the Tennessee at the common crossing place two
days after Rutherford and, falling into the ambuscade above mentioned.

54 Asheville and Buncombe County
had been attacked in a narrow pass near the present town of Franklin
by the Indians in ambush who killed twelve of his men and wounded
twenty more, but had put the Indians to flight, joined General Ruther
ford on September 14, 1776, after the latter had partly destroyed the
Valley Towns.
Another expedition penetrated into the present State of Tennessee,
burning Indian villages, destroying their crops and driving them from
their homes, until so effectual a blow had been stricken, and so com
pletely had the Indians been subdued that never afterwards did they
in any considerable numbers or as an organized body venture to give
trouble to the white settlers. This expedition destroyed thirty or forty
Indian towns and in his skirmishes at Valley town, Ellojay and near
Franklin, General Rutherford lost only three men. (See Colonial
Records of North Carolina, vol. 10, p. 860.)
He then returned by the same route, which for many years after
bore the name of "Rutherford's Trace."
The chaplain of this expedition was Rev. James Hall, D.D., a
Presbyterian preacher in charge of the churches of Statesville (then
called Fourth Creek), Concord and Bethany, and whose work extended
from the South Yadkin to the Catawba. Upon Rutherford's call for
troops this gentleman volunteered his services, and acted throughout
the campaign. Capt. Chas. Polk, who commanded a company in this
expedition, says in his diary that:
"On Thursday the 12th September we marched down the river
three miles to Cowee town and encamped. On this day there was a
party of men sent down this river (Nuckessey) ten miles to cut down
the corn; the Indians fired on them as they were cutting the corn, and
killed Hancock Polk, of Col. Beekman's regiment"; and again on
Saturday the 14th, "we marched to Nuckessey town, six miles higher
up the river and encamped. On Sunday the ISth, one of Capt. Irwin's
men was buried in Nuckessey Town. On Monday the 16th, we
marched five miles, this day with a detachment of twelve hundred
men, for the Valley Town, and encamped on the waters of Tennessee
River. Mr. Hall preached a sermon last Sunday; in time of sermon
the Express we sent to the South army returned home. On Tuesday

Asheville and Buncombe County 55
the 17th, we marched six miles, and arrived at a town called Nowee,
about twelve o'clock; three guns were fired and Robert Harris, of
Mecklenburg was killed by the Indians, said Harris being in the rear
of the army. We marched one mile from Nowee, and encamped on
side of a steep motmtain without any fire."
Probably this funeral discourse of the Rev. Mr. Hall was the first
sermon ever preached in the motmtains of Western North Carolina.
For an extended biographical notice of this gentleman see Foote's
Sketches of North Carolina, page 315.
Of General Griffith Rutherford, the commander of this expedi
tion, a few words would not be out of place here. But little is known
of his early history. He was an Irishman by birth, brave and patriotic,
but "uncultivated in mind or manners." At the beginning of the war
he resided in the Locke settlement, west of Salisbury. In 1775 he
represented Rowan Cotmty at Newbern, and in 1776 was a member
from that county of the Provincial Congress which met at Halifax
on the 4th of April, 1776. At this Congress on the 22d day of April,
1776, he was created Brigadier General for the Salisbury District.
After this expedition he commanded a brigade of the American army
in the ill-fated battle of Camden, fought in August, 1780, at which he
was taken prisoner. After his capture his place was taken by General
William Da^ddson, who soon after was killed at Cowan's Ford. When
exchanged General Rutherford again took the field, and commanded
at Wilmington when that town was evacuated by the British. In 1786
he represented Rowan County in the Senate of North Carolina, but
soon afterwards removed to Tennessee. Here, on September 6, 1794,
he was appointed president of the Legislative Council. He died in
Tennessee near the beginning of the last century. Both that State and
North Carolina have commemorated his services by each giving his
name to one of their counties. The following letter from the distin
guished general would seem to verify one of the statements just made
in regard to him :
"North Carolina, Rowan County.
"Whereas, a certan John Auston, Late of Tryon County,
is charged of being an Enomy To Ammerican Liberty & also

56 Asheville and Buncombe County
Refuses to take the oath Proscribed by the Counsel of Safety
of this Provance,
"These are therefore to Command You to Take the sd.
Auston Into youre Possession & him safely keep in youre
Gole Till furder Orders.
"Given Under my hand this 13 Day of July, 1776.
"Griffith Rutherford.
"To the Golor of the Gole of Salisbury District."
Apparently the brave soldier must have been as great a terror to
the school teachers as he was to the Indians, whom in another letter
he characterizes as a "barbarious Nation of Savages," and was no
mean rival of the late Josh Billings. So it was, however, with many
of these heroes of American Independence. ' They were more skilled in
doing great deeds than in telling of them, in execution than narration.
From a report of William Moore, one of the captains of this ex
pedition, to General Rutherford, dated on November 17, 1776, we learn
that his company, which seems to have acted independently and in a
second expedition, started out on October 19, 1776, and marched over
the mountains to Swannanoa, which they passed near the French
Broad River, and then after crossing the latter marched up Hominy
Creek and passed on to Richland Creek, thence to the Tuckaseigee
River, "through a Very Mountainous bad way." This river they
crossed, and coming to "a Very plain path. Very much used by Indians,
Driving in from the Middle Settlement to the Aforesaid Town" (the
Town of Too Cowee), they continued their march along this path about
two miles, when they came to an Indian town which they attacked.
This town is said to have occupied the site of the residence of the late
Colonel William H. Thomas on the western bank of the Tuckaseigee.
The Indians fled. After plundering the town Capt. Moore and his
party set fire to its 25 houses, and marched on further down the river
for a short distance.
On this expedition "between Swannanoa and French Broad
River," they came upon signs of five or six Indians. Thirteen men
set out by moonlight in pursuit of these, and followed them for eight
miles, but were unable to overtake them that night, "Untill Day-light

Asheville and Buncombe County 57
appeared when they Discovered upon the frost that One Indian had
gone Along the Road! they pursued Very Briskly about five miles
further and came up with the sd. Indian, Killed and Scalped him."
At the Indian town which they burned it was discovered that all
but two of the inhabitants had fled. These two endeavored to make
their escape, but, according to Capt. Moore, "we pursued to the Bank
& as they were Rising on the Bank on the Other Side we fired upon
them and Shot one of them Down & the Other getting out of reach of
our shot & making over to the Mountain. Some of our men Crossed
the river on foot & pursued 8z some went to the ford 8z Crossed on
horse & headed him. Killed & Scalped him with other."
At the end of their expedition they took three prisoners and recov
ered some horses belonging to the whites. These horses they returned
to their owners. Here they were forced by lack of provisions to begin
their return, and the captain informs us : "That night we lay upon a
prodigious Mountain where we had a Severe Shock of an Earthquake
which surprised our men very much. Then we steered our course about
East & So. E. two days thru Prodigious Mountains which were almost
Impassable, and struck the road in Richland Creek Mountain. From
thence we marched to Pidgeon river. Where we Vandued off all Our
Plunder. Then there arose a Dispute Between me & the whole Body,
Officers & all, concerning selling off the Prisoners for Slaves. I
allowed that it was our Duty to guard them to prison or some place of
Safe Custody till we got the approbation of the Congress Whether they
should be sold Slaves or not, and the Greater part swore Bloodily that
if they were not sold for Slaves upon the spot they would Kill & Scalp
them Immediately, upon which I was obliged to give way. Then the
3 prisoners was sold for 242 pounds. The Whole plunder we got
including the Prisoners Amoimted Above 1,100 poimds."
The captain concludes his somewhat remarkable report to his
superiors in the following original maimer:
"Dear Sir, I have one thing to remark, which is this,
that where there is separate Companys United into one Body
without a head Commander of the whole I shall never Em-

58 Asheville and Buncombe County
bark in such an Expedition Hereafter; for where every
Officer is a Commander there is no commander. No more
at present, but Wishing you, sir, with all true friends too
Liberty all Happiness, I am, sir, Yours, &c.
"William Moore.
"On the service of the United Colonies."
The prodigious mountain here mentioned was the Balsam
Motmtains. It was while Captain William Moore's company was encamped on
this expedition in a bend of Hominy Creek near the Sulphur Spring
and not far from the southwestern corner of the present City of Ashe
ville and there awaiting the arrival of Captain Harden's troops from
Tryon County, who came through Hickorynut Gap, that, as is said,
some of Moore's men, ignorant of the presence in the neighborhood of
any human being not connected with the expedition, put some poison
into a near-by rivulet tributary to Caney Branch in order to destroy
wolves known to be prowling about the camp, and thus unintentionally
killed a young Cherokee who was lurking there as a spy on the move
ments of the white men and who chanced to drink from the rivulet
where the poison was and who thereafter, in the agonies of death,
pronounced a curse upon the place. Many misfortunes have attended
the owners of that land where the Indian was poisoned and buried in a
grave yet to be seen; and it is a common belief in that vicinity that
these misfortunes are to be attributed to this curse of the young
Cherokee. Ramsey in his Annals of Tennessee, in speaking of an expedition
from the Watauga settlement under Col. John Sevier in 1781 against
the Indians of the town of Tuckasejah on the headwaters of the Little
Tennessee and the adjacent towns, tells us that in this expedition fifty
warriors were slain, fifty women and children taken prisoners, and
fifteen or twenty Indian towns with their granaries of corn were burned
with a loss to the whites of one man killed and one wounded. "The
command," he says, "went up Cane Creek and Crossed Ivy and Swan
nanoa"; and that "This campaign lasted twenty-nine days and was

Asheville and Buncombe County 59
carried on over a mountainous section of country never before traveled
by any of the settlers and scarcely ever passed through even by traders
and hunters." Of an expedition of a later date carried on by Tennesseeans
against the Indians of Western North Carolina, this writer quotes the
pilot of the expedition as saying that: "The next morning we started
and in a few days were at Coosawatee, where an exchange of prisoners
was made instead of at Swannanoa, as at first proposed. This was
about the 20th of April, 1789."
This same writer speaking of an expedition under the command of
General Sevier which set out against the Indians under an order from
Governor Blount of Tennessee (then a territory not so named) , made
on September 27, 17.93, says: "Indians were seen at the Warm
Springs and at the plantation of Charles Robertson on Meadow Creek,
probably watching the motions of the guard who were stationed for the
protection of the frontier on French Broad. These guards were sta-
tined in four blockhouses — at Hough's, at the Burnt Canebrake, at the
Painted Rock and at the Warm Springs, and scouted regularly between
these blockhouses, and up to Big Laurel, where they met the Buncombe
scout." There is a tradition of yet another expedition under the conduct
of Sevier which passed up the French Broad River to the mouth of
New Found Creek, and thence up that creek and on west and returned
down the valley of the Hominy. Probably it was one of the same.
SETTLEMENTS
Shortly after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, in 1784,
or 1785^ settlers from the headwaters of the Catawba and the adjacent
country, whose frontier establishment was the blockhouse at Old Fort,
began to cross the mountains into the Swannanoa valley. Among the
first of these was Samuel Davidson, who came in with his wife and
infant child and one female negro slave and settled upon Christian
Creek of the Swannanoa, a short distance east of Gudger's Ford near
the present railroad station called Azalea. He had been here but a
short while when one morning he went out to find his horse. Soon his

60

Asheville and Buncombe County

wife heard the report of guns, and, knowing too well what had hap
pened, she took her child and the servant and made her way along the
mountains to the Old Fort. An expedition from there at once set out
to avenge the death of Davidson. They found him on the mountain

near his cabin, killed and scalped,

and buried his body on the spot
where it was found and where his
grave may still be seen. It is
further said that they met and
conquered the Indians in a battle
fought near the Swannanoa
River in that neighborhood or
about Biltmore.
Probably it is to this pursu
ing party that the tradition
handed down by John S. Rice
as received by him from John
Rice, David Nelson and William
Rhodes, three hunters and Revo
lutionary soldiers, relates. It is
that, at a time prior to white
settlement of the lower Swan
nanoa Valley,- some Cherokees
were returning from depredations
on the whites and being pursued
by the latter, were overtaken at
about the Cheesborough Place, a mile above Biltmore, where a fight oc
curred between the two parties which continued at the canebrakes there
at intervals for elevent days, in which many Indians were killed, prin
cipally near the ford of Swannanoa River in the neighborhood of the
old John Patton House, later known as the Haunted House, where the
old Buncombe Turnpike crossed that stream, until the Indians
retreated across the French Broad and the fight ended. They crossed
the last-named river at a shoal just below the mouth of Swannanoa.
During most of this fight the whites encamped at a noted spring just
north of Swannanoa River about one hundred yards above the Biltmore

Grave of Samuel Davidson

Asheville and Buncombe County 61
Concrete Bridge where there is now a garage. It was an old Indian
camping place. The early white hunters in this region went chiefly to
the North Fork of Swannanoa.
Soon several white settlements were made on the Swannanoa, the
earliest of them being the "Swannanoa Settlement," made in 1784-
1785 by the Alexanders, Davidson and others about the mouth of Bee
Tree Creek. A little above that place is the old Edmuns or Jordan
Field, the first land cleared by a white man in Buncombe County.
Soon another company passed over the Bull Mountain and settled
upper Reems Creek, while yet another came in by way of what is nqw
Yancey County, and settled on the lower Reems Creek and Flat Creek.
At about the same time, or not long afterward, some of the Watauga
people who had been with Sevier on some one of his expeditions against
the Indians, settled on the French Broad above and below the mouth
of the Swaimanoa, and on Hominy Creek; while still other settle
ments appear to have been effected from upper South Carolina, yet
higher up on the French Broad.
At the treaty of Long Island of Holston, the North Carolina
commissioners entered into certain agreemeiits with the Overhill
Cherokees, but in their report recommended to the State a treaty with
the Cherokees of the Middle Towns and Valley Towns by which might
be secured the intervening territory now constituting the Asheville
Plateau. For such a treaty th'e State began to make arrangements and,
in anticipation of it, provided in 1783 for the granting of land as far
west as Pigeon River. It was under this statute of 1783 that the settle
ments just mentioned were formed.

Chapter V
BUNCOMBE COUNTY
A T this time the Swannanoa River was recognized as the dividing
/\ line between Burke County on the north and Rutherford
¦^ "^ County on the south.
In 1785 Joseph McDowell, Jr., ran this dividing line, "Beginning
at the west point of the line that formerly divided the above said
counties, thence west to the Indian boimdary as in the Act of Assembly
of the seventeenth of May one thousand seven hundred and eighty-
three," that is, to Pigeon River. It crossed Swannanoa River about
half a mile above Biltmore. In 1788 this survey was adopted by the
Legislature. On October 5, 1784, Captain William Moore above mentioned
caused to be surveyed a tract of land containing 450 acres on Hominy
Creek three miles west of French Broad River, later known as the
Captain Charles Moore Place, and recently owned by Dr. David M.
Gudger. On August 7, 1787, he procured a grant for this land lying
on both sides of Hominy Creek. This was probably the first grant for
land now in Buncombe County. The original grant is now owned by
Mr. Owen Gudger, formerly postmaster of Asheville. When Captain
Moore got his grant, as I learn from Mr. Gudger, he put on the land a
negro named Jim and Jim's wife Sue on the southern side of the creek
in a cabin; and there these negroes for many years sold food to
travellers until Captain Moore himself removed to this land, where he
resided and died and was buried.
From portions of Burke and Rutherford counties was subse
quently formed the County of Buncombe, named for Col. Edward
Buncombe, a North Carolina soldier of the Revolution.
In 1729 this territory would have been embraced in the County of
Clarendon. At this time the County of New Hanover, with indefinite
western boundaries which seem to have extended to the Pacific Ocean,
then called the South Seas, was formed, and the name of Clarendon
as a county disappears. From New Hanover County in 1738 was cut

Asheville and Buncombe County 63
off and erected the County of Bladen, whose western limits were left
undefined. Again from the County of Bladen was formed in 1749
the County of Anson, still with undefined western limits. Here Bim-
combe's genealogy divides into two branches, to be united again in her
own creation.

Autograph signature of Colonel Edward Buncombe for whom Buncombe
County was named
That portion of her territory which was taken from Burke may
be traced from this point as follows: In 1758 Rowan County was
fonned from a part of Anson County, and up to the beginning of the
Revolutionary War continued in its entirety. In 1777 was formed
from its western portion a new county called Burke.
That portion of Buncombe County which was taken from Ruther
ford may be traced as follows: In 1762 was formed from the western
part of the County of Anson a new county called in honor of the new
queen of England, Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg, by the name
of Mecklenburg County. In 1768 the western part of Mecklenburg
County was erected into a new county, and named in honor of North
Carolina's notorious colonial governor, Tryon County, but during the
struggle for independence the North Carolinians were but little dis
posed to honor the name of their former oppressor, and when in 1779
this county had become inconveniently large, it was formed into two
new counties, and the name of Tryon dropped, and the eastern part
called Lincoln, while the western portion received the name of Ruther
ford County, in honor of Gen. Griffith Rutherford.
In 1792, while David Vance from the upper Reems Creek settle
ment was a member of the Legislature from Burke County, and Col.

64 Asheville and Buncombe County
William Davidson, who lived on the south side of the Swannanoa,
about two miles from Asheville, represented Rutherford County in the
same body, the County of Buncombe was formed of the western portions
of Burke and Rutherford counties, with its western borders fixed by
the line of the territory which two or three years before North Carolina
had ceded to the United States, and which was afterward created into
the State of Tennessee.
In April, 1792, there was organized at the residence of Col.
William Davidson, which stood on the south bank of the Swannanoa,
about one-half mile above its mouth, at a place subsequently called
the Gum Spring, the County of Buncombe, in accordance with the
provisions of the act creating that county. At this place was transacted
for one year the business of the County of Buncombe, until in April,
1793, the county seat was fixed where it has ever since remained.
Famous as Buncombe County deservedly is, she has acquired some
notoriety that no place less merits. Her name has become synonymous
with empty talk, a lucus a non luce-ndo. In the Sixteenth Congress of
the United States the district of North Carolina which embraced
Buncombe County was represented in the lower house by Felix Walker.
The Missouri question was under discussion and the house, tired by
speeches, wanted to come to a vote. At this time Mr. Walker secured
the floor and was proceeding with his address, at best not very forceful
or entertaining, when some impatient member whispered to him to sit
down and let the vote be taken. This he refused to do, saying that he
must "make a speech for Buncombe,'' that is, for his constituents; or,
as others say, certain members rose ahd left the hall while he was
speaking and when he saw them going, he turned to those who
remained and told them that they might go too, if they wished, as he
was "only speaking for Buncombe." The phrase was at once caught
up and the vocabulary of the English language was enriched by the
addition of a new term.
Felix Walker was born in Hampshire County, Virginia, on July
19, 1775, and began life as a merchant. His grandfather, John
Walker, emigrated in 1720 from Derry, Ireland, to Delaware, where
his father, also named John, was born. The younger Walker after

Asheville and Buncombe County 65
reaching manhood went to Virginia where he married and afterwards
moved to North Carolina. In the last State he settled in Tryon,
afterward Lincoln, County, on Seipe's Creek, but subsequently removed
to Crowder's Creek, about four miles from Kings Mountain. He
was a member of the first convention at Hillsboro in July, 1775, and
also of the Provincial Congress which met there on August 21, 1775.
After serving with the Americans throughout the Revolutionary War,
he died in 1796. Felix Walker, his oldest son, went with Richard
Henderson to Kentucky (then called Louisa), in 1775, on an expedition
-of which Daniel Boone was pilot. Here he was badly wounded by
Indians, and owed his life to the attention of Colonel Boone. After his
return he remained for a while at home and then went to the Watauga
settlement, now in East Tennessee, where he became clerk of the first
court in the new County of Washington. While holding this office
he came to Mecklenburg County in North Carolina and joined the
State troops and was made captain of a company placed at NoUi-
chucky to guard the frontier against Indians. After this he returned
to his duties as clerk. This office he filled for four years in all. Then
he removed to Rutherford County, North Carolina, and was appointed
clerk of the court in that county. He resided on Cane Creek. After
this he was a member of the General Assembly of the State from that
county in 1792, 1793, 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802 and 1806. In 1817
he was elected a member of the Fifteenth Congress of the United States,
and was thereafter re-elcted to the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Con
gresses. He was succeeded in Congress in 1823 by Dr. Robert B.
Vance, an uncle of the late Governor Z. B. Vance. Again in 1827 he
was a candidate for Congress, but withdrew in favor of Samuel P.
Carson, who defeated Vance and James Graham. Soon after leaving
Congress Mr. Walker removed to Mississippi where he died in 1828.
For a more extended but somewhat incorrect sketch of him see
Wheeler's Reminiscences, page 408. This was a period of important
events. In 1827 Vance and Carson again opposed each other for Con
gress. While speaking at Asheville, Vance referred to Carson's father
in disparaging terms. For this Carson challenged him. They fought
on the South Carolina line at Saluda Gap. Vance fell and died in a

66 Asheville and Buncombe County
few hours. Among the friends who accorapanied Carson on this occa
sion was the celebrated Colonel David Crockett, who married a Miss
Patton on Swannanoa, and was killed at the Alamo, fighting for Texas
and her independence. After four terms in Congress, Carson went to
Texas in 1835 and there became Secretary of State. He died at Little
Rock, Arkansas, in November, 1840.
The site of Asheville was once within the borders of a vast and
mighty Indian empire. In 1736 a German Jesuit named Christian
Priber who had been an officer in the French army came to the Cher
okee country and took up his abode among the Cherokees on Big Tellico
River, now in Tennessee but then in North Carolina and still not more
than a dozen miles beyond the North Carolina border. He was a man
of profound and extensive learning, highly polished manners, consum
mate address, and profound sagacity. Although "adorned with every
qualification that constitutes the gentleman," he exchanged his clothes
with the head warriors of Tellico River and ate, drank, slept, danced,
and painted himself with them and took one of their women for a wife.
Already he was master of the Greek, Latin, German, French, Spanish,
and English languages, and he soon became thoroughly acquainted
with the language of the Cherokees. He set to work to persuade the
Indians to form an empire which would be sufficiently powerful to
drive the white men from America. The old Indian archi-magus was
crowned emperor with much ceremony and the other chief men of that
neighborhood were elevated to offices with high-sounding titles in the
new empire, while Priber himself became principal secretary of state
to his majesty the new emperor. The plan was to engage all the
Southern tribes of Indians to become subjects of the empire. He en
couraged the aboriginal vanity of the Cherokees by pointing out their
superior numbers in having about six, thousand warriors and their
bravery and fame in war, and represented the English as a people,
fraudulent, avaricious, encroaching, and inferior in numbers as well as
in warlike spirit to the mighty Cherokees. Soon the British authorities
at Charlestown, South Carolina, heard of what was going on upon
Tellico and sent Colonel Fox to arrest Priber and bring him to Charles
town. Fox seized his man and made a speech to the Indians in ex-
plantation of his action. Before he had concluded, one of the warriors

Asheville and Buncombe County 67
interrupted the speaker and told him that the man whom he wished to
make prisoner was now a Cherokee and a great friend to their nation
who had come a great way to benefit them and preserve their liberties
and must not be interferred with, while Colonel Fox must leave the
country. Fox departed under a passport of safe conduct from Priber
himself, who also furnished to the British agent a bodyguard to con
duct him in safety a considerable distance on the way to Charlestown.
Meanwhile Priber proceeded in the execution of his plans of founding
a vast red empire. He invited criminals of all classes to seek an asylum
in his new government, and urged debtors, felons, servants, and negro
slaves to escape andjoin him, promising them exemption from punish
ment for any crime or licentiousness, except murder and idleness, which
they might commit. This went on for eight years until in 1744, when
he started to Mobile and proceeded to within two days' journey of that
place. Having passed by land to the navigable part of Tallapoosa
River he was spending the night at Tookabatcha, when some traders
recognized him and forcibly carried him a prisoner to Frederica in
Georgia. General Oglethorpe, then governor of Georgia, was amazed
to find that this man dressed in deer-skins and moccasins was a man of
much erudition, polish, and accomplishment. With Priber had been
seized a bunch of his manuscripts, including a Cherokee dictionary
which he had prepared for publication in Paris and his plan of the
government for the new empire. He explained his plans freely, ex
hibited evidence that he might expect aid from France and another un
named European country, and took his imprisonment with great cool
ness. When the difficulties of his enterprise were mentioned, he
answered that by "proceeding properly, many of these evils might be
avoided ; and as to length of time, we have a succession of agents to
take up the work as fast as others leave it. We never lose sight of a
favorite point, nor are we bound by the strict rules of morality in the
means, when the end we pursue is laudable. If we err, our general is
to blame; and we have a merciful God to pardon us. Before the cen
tury is passed the Europeans will have a very small footing on this
continent." A magazine, containng powder and shells, took fire near
his prison and he was warned to escape. Instead, he lay flat on the
floor. When the sentinels returned after the explosion, expecting to

68 Asheville and Buncombe County
find that he was dead, they observed him quietly seated reading a Greek
book. When they reproached him for his rashness, he said that his
experience had shown him that his was the best method to avoid
danger. While thus a prisoner he became sick and soon died. Thus
ended the great empire of the Cherokees in North Carolina and lands
adjoining on the south.

Chapter VI
ASHEVILLE
THE town of Asheville was founded by John Burton.
What street iij Asheville bears his name? What has ever
been done by the town to honor her founder? In fact, how
many of Asheville's people ever heard of John Burton? Is it not high
time that this shameful negligence should cease?
On the 7th day of July, 1794, John Burton obtained from the
State of North Carolina a grant for 200 acres of land in Buncombe
County, having its northern boundary formed by a line extending from
a point in Charlotte Street near the mouth of Clayton Street, west
wardly along Orange Street, and further on to a point in the late
Captain M. J. Fagg's lot east of North Main Street; its southem
boundary formed by a line running from the entrance of the Martin
property at the eastern end of Atkin Street, westwardly along Atkin
Street and further on to a point in the rear of the Ravenscroft property;
while its eastern boundary extended northwardly along the northern
part of Valley Street through the grounds of the College Street public
school, formerly the Asheville College for Young Women, and along
the southem part of Charlotte Street; and its western boundary ex
tended through the lot now occupied by the Asheville postoffice build
ing. This tract was thenceforth known as the Town Tract.
At about the same time John Burton obtained from the State of
North Carolina a grant to another tract of land of the same size and
dimensions, immediately north of the Town Tract. This other tract
became known as the Gillihan Tract.
Before these grants were issued and while his only claim to them
was that .acquired by entry, John Burton had planned and marked
out a town upon that part of the Town Tract which lies along Main
Street southwardly from the present College Street to the bend in
South Main Street where are now the Hilliard residence and the old
car shed. This land was "by private contract laid out for a town
called Morristown, the county town of Buncombe County," into 42 lots

o

A PLAN OF THE TOWN OF ASHEVILLE"

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. Each lot contains one-half acre of ground except the two lots not numbered and Nos. 27 and
28 The half-acre lots are five poles in front and sixteen poles back. The streets are thirty-three
feet wide- the alley is sixteen and one-half feet wide. The street leading from the Court House
southwacdly is south twenty degrees east and that from the Court House westwardly is south seventy
degrees west.
Asheville and Buncombe County 7 1
containing, with the exception of the two at the southem end, one-half
of an acre each, lying on both sides of a street thirty-three feet wide,
which mns where the southern part of North Main Street and the
northern part of South Main Street now are. Each lot had a frontage
on this street of five poles, except the two small ones above mentioned,
and they all extended back from the street sixteen poles.
The town was named by the County Court in April, 1793, Morris
town, although sometimes it was called Morriston, Morris, and once
even, the Town of Morris, and still more generally Buncombe Court
house. It had but one other street, which was of the same width as
Main Street and was planned to extend along the eastern end of Patton
Avenue and straight on across the public square for an equal distance
beyond the square. An alley of fifteen feet in width crossed the
Main Street at the junction of Sycamore and South Main Streets. A
reduced copy of this plan of the town as laid out is here given.
It will be observed that two of these lots were not numbered, and
it is probable that they were intended to be reserved for public build
ings. It will be further observed that the land now constituting the
Public Square was then laid off into private lots except that part of it
included in Main Street. Nobody seems to know why the name of
Morristown was bestowed upon the place, and any conjecture as to the
person or place in whose honor the name was given could amount to
nothing more than a mere guess.
The county court, which, at its first session in April, 1792, and at
all its subsequent sessions up to and including that of April, 1793,
had met at the house of Colonel William Davidson on the southem
side of Swannanoa River at the Gum Spring above mentioned, but
which, according to tradition, was so numerously attended at its first
session as to render it necessary, after organization, to adjourn to
Davidson's barn and complete that meeting there, began its meeting
on the third Monday of July, 1793, to sit "at the court house in Morris
town." At their last preceding meeting on Tuesday of that session,
which began "on third Monday in April, A Domini, 1793," the fol
lowing entry appears upon their minutes:

72 Asheville and Buncombe County
"Ordered by the court that William Davidson be
allowed 25 pounds for the use of house to hold court in.
"Scite for Court house settled and fixed upon.
"State of North Carolina, Buncombe County, s s.
"We the commissioners appointed by Act of 1792 to
settle and place the court house, prison and stocks, do certify
that WE have agreed and hereby do agree that the court
house shall stand as near to the big branch between the
Indian graves, and Swannanoa, not exceeding or extending
more North than the Indian graves and nearest and best
situation to the ford of said Branch, where the present wagon
road crosses the same — the stocks and prison to be convenient
to the court house.
"John Dillard,
"George Baker,
"Austin Chote,
"William Morrison.
"Witness, "Philip Hoodenpile.
"Named, Morristown.
"Ordered by the court that the place fixed upon by the
commissioners, for erecting the court house prison and Stocks
be named Morristown."
"Court adjourned till the third Monday in July, to meet
at Morristown."
The legislature which created the county appointed a committee
to determine the location of the county town. There were two places
thought of for the site. One of these was where until of late years
stood the old brick residence of Dr. J. F. E. Hardy and later of
Mr. R. P. Walker about two miles south of Swannanoa River on the
road from Asheville to Hendersonville and for many years called the
Steam Saw-mill Place, because the first saw mill operated by steam
ever in Western North Carolina had been located on that place and
there sawed the thick planks which were used to build the plank road
between Asheville and Hendersonville. The other place at which it

Asheville and Buncombe County 73
had been suggested to put the county town was on or near the site of
the present city of Asheville and about on its principal or Main Street.
The people from the northern part of the new county favored the
locality on which part of Asheville stands and half of the committee
appointed to decide the matters was of their view. The people from
the southern part of the new county favored the locality south of
Swannanoa River and the other half of the committee was of these
people. The committee could not agree on the site for the town. The
next legislature appointed a new committee, composed equally of men
from the southern end of the county and men from the northern end
of the county. But this time it took the precaution to add to the new
committee William Morrison from Burke County as an impartial odd
member. Again the committee-men from the north end of the county
and the committee-men from the south end of the county failed to agree.
Then the matter was determined by vote of William Morrison, the man
from Burke County. The three members of the new committee who
were from the northern end of the county joined with William Morrison
in the report, which the three members of the committee from the south
end of the county did not sign.
It is probable that the name of Morristown was given to the town
thus located in honor of William Morrison, whose vote on the com
mittee decided the dispute, his name being abbreviated as too long for
convenience when the word "town" was added and as it was not un
common in those days when speaking of men with rather long names
to abbreviate the names by exciding the latter parts. This suggestion
gains weight from the fact that the town's name was soon changed to
Asheville, probably because the giving of the name of the man who
decided the controversy against the southern portion of the county to
the county town was disagreeable to the losers. This suggestion as to
the origin of the name of Morristown given to the new county town is
offered as a conjecture in the total absence of any record or tradition or
other reasonable theory which would tend to explain the name.
The Indian graves here spoken of appear to have been rather un
fortunate as a place for the determination of a controverted matter, as
this was. There was a place known at that time as "the Indian
graves," about a half mile further south. It was on the hill on which

74 Asheville and Buncombe County
stands the residence of the late Dr. J. F. E. Hardy, lately owned by
Mrs. S. E. Buchanan. This place is so called in more than one of the
old deeds. (See Register's Book B, page 40.) There is, however, a
well-supported tradition, handed down by the late E. H. Cunningham
and the late Montraville Patton, that somewhere in the space between
the Public Square and the Battery Park hill, called in the old deeds
invariably by the name of the Stony Hill, were some Indian graves at
the gap between these points where an old Indian trail ran across from
south to north at the lowest spot, now in Patton Avenue (once much
lower than at present) and marked on the south by the building once
occupied in part by the Young Men's Christian Association and op
posite Raysor's Drug Store and on the north by the Raysor's Drug
Store; and that these graves were known as the "Indian Graves," and
this gap as the "Indian Grave Gap." This tradition has been pre
served by the late Mr. R. B. Justice, and was derived by him from the
old men above mentioned, who had spent their lives in the vicinity of
Asheville. The Big Branch mentioned in this report is that which a
short while after became known as Gash's Creek, and in later years
was called Town Branch, and is now commonly known by the mean
ingless name of Cripple Creek. It is the stream which runs by the
passenger station at Asheville. Here it should be remarked that the
place where the Public Square now is has been from time to time very
much lowered by grading and that at one time there was here the very
sharp top of a hill, so sharp, in fact, that old men have told me they
remembered distinctly that, at one time, a man standing at the south
western corner of the Public Square could not see the top of a high
covered wagon standing on Main Street where College Street crosses it.
This last mentioned site of Indian graves is certainly so situated as
to make it most probable in view of the report of the commissioners
locating the town that this tradition is correct. The Indian graves on
the Hardy hill could not have been those referred to in the report since
there is no big branch between that place and Swannanoa, and since
the town was actually placed "exceeding or extending more north than"
that place. Charles II. , King of Great Britain and Ireland, granted, in 1663
a large quantity of land stretching across the continent of North

Asheville and Buncombe County 75
America to eight men under the name of Carolina. On June 30, 1665,
he confirmed this with boundaries enlarged on the northern and
southem sides. This included North Carolina. The grantees were
called Lords Proprietors. After sixty-four and sixty-six years the
successors of these Lords Proprietors, except John, Lord Carteret
afterwards Earl of Granyille, who owned one-eighth, conveyed the
land to George II., King of Great Britain and Ireland. Lord
Carteret's share was laid off to him in severalty on September 7, 1744,
in the iiorthem part of North Carolina and its southern border was
run part of the way from the Atlantic Ocean west, but the line was not
surveyed across the mountains. If extended it would run through
Buncombe County, passing near Buena Vista, and leaving Asheville
and all the northern part of that county within the Granville Land.
When the treaty at Paris of 1783 between the King of Great Britain
and Ireland, of the one part, and the thirteen American States, of the
other part, ended the Revolutionary War, North Carolina claimed this
Granville Land as having passed to her from the heirs of the Earl of
Granville, who were alien enemies, and granted it to various persons.
These heirs claimed that under the provisions of that treaty their title
was not divested, and brought suit in the United States Court at
Raleigh to test the matter. This suit caused great anxiety in North
Carolina. The Governor, in a message to the legislature, urged prompt
and active attention to it. On a trial at Raleigh in 1806 the decision
was against the Granville heirs who carried the case to the Supreme
Court of the United States, where it was dismissed for want of proper
prosecution. Had the Granville heirs won, every title to land in
Asheville and in northern Buncombe County would have been invalid,
except in cases where a title had matured by adverse holding.
John Carteret was the grandson of George Carteret, one of the
eight original Lords Proprietors of Carolina. He was the son of
George Carteret, first baron Carteret, and was bom April 22, 1690.
When, on September 22, 1695, his father died, John Carteret, as oldest
surviving son, became, at five years of age, Baron Carteret. He was
educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, and made
D.C.L., July 12, 1756. Dean Swift said of him that "with a singu
larity scarce to be justified, he carried away more Greek, Latin, and

76 Asheville and Buncombe County
philosophy than properly became a person of his rank; indeed, much
more of each than most of those who are forced to live by their learning
will be at the unnecessary pains to load their heads with." On May
25, 1711, Lord John Carteret took his seat in the House of Lords.
During the reign of George I., Lord Carteret held various public ap
pointments, and was particularly successful in two or three diplomatic
missions in which he brought about peace between Sweden, Prussia,
Denmark and Hanover, and became Lord-lieutenant of Ireland in
1724. When George II. came to the throne in 1727 Lord^ Carteret
received, from time to time, numerous appointments to important posi
tions; and in 1743 he was present at the battle of Dettingen. He
became president of the council in 1751, having by the death of his
mother. Countess of Granville, on October 18, 1744, become Earl of
Granville. After a life spent principally in the public service, he died
at Bath on January 2, 1763, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
He was a man of great learning, being eminent as a classical scholar
and "master of all the modem languages." "Lord Granville," said
Lord Chesterfield, "had great parts, and a most uncommon share of
learning for a man of quality. He was one of the best speakers in the
House of Lords, both in the declamatory and the argumentative way.
He had a wonderful quickness and precision in seizing the stress of a
question, which no art, no sophistry, could disguise to him. In busi
ness he was bold, enterprising, and overbearing. * * * He was
neither ill-natured nor vindictive, and had a great contempt for money;
his ideas were all above it. In social life he was an agreeable, good-
humored, and instructive companion, a great but entertaining talker.
* * * His political knowledge of the interest of princes and of
commerce was extensive, and his notions were just and great. His
character may be summed up in nice precision, quick decision, and un
bounded presumption." Horace Walpole said that of the five great
men who had lived in his time, "Lord Granville was most a genius of
the five; he conceived, knew, expressed what he pleased." William
Pitt, Earl of Chatham, said of Lord Granville that "in the upper de
partment of government he had not his equal, and I feel a pride in
declaring that to his patronage, to his friendship, and instruction, I
owe whatever I am."

Asheville and Buncombe County 77
This was the man who once owned the territory on which Ashe
ville stands and of which, except a small strip on the south. Buncombe
County is composed, John Carteret, Earl of Granville.
The act establishing the County of Buncombe was ratified on the
14th day of January, 1792, and, by the terms of that act, certain com
missioners therein named were directed to determine the place where
the county town and the county's public buildings should be.
This act creating Buncombe County reads, in its early portions,
as follows: "An act forming the western parts of Burke and Rutherford
counties into a separate and distinct county.
"Whereas the western parts of Burke and Rutherford counties are
very inconvenient to the court-houses in the said counties, which
renders the attendance of jurors and witnesses very burthensome and
expensive, and almost impossible in the winter season; and in order
to remedy the same,
"1. Be it enacted, &c. That all that part of the counties of
Burke and Rutherford, circumscribed by the following lines, viz. :
Beginning on the extreme height of the Apalachian mountain, where
the southern boundary of this state crosses the same, thence along the
extreme height of said mountain to where the road from the head of
Catawba river to Swannanoe crosses, then along the main ridge divid
ing the waters of South-Toe from those of Swannanoe unto the Great
Black mountain, then along said mountain to the northeast end, then
along the main ridge between South-Toe and Little-Crabtree to the
mouth of said Crabtree Creek, then down Toe river aforesaid to where
the same empties into Nollichucky river, then down the said river to
the extreme height of the Iron mountain and cession line, then along
said cession line to the southern boundary, then along the said
boundary to the beginning, is hereby erected into a separate and distinct
county by the name of Buncombe."
Although this act was passed at the session of the legislature for
1791, commencing in that year on December 5th, it was not ratified
until January 14, 1792, the session for 1792 not beginning until
November 15, 1792.

78 Asheville and Buncombe County
On December 1, 1792, another act amendatory of that abovemen-
tioned was passed, and in this it was recited that "the commissioners
appointed to fix the center and agree where the public buildings in the
County of Buncombe should be erected have failed to comply with the
above recited Act, and the inhabitants of said county much injured
thereby," and it was accordingly enacted "for remedy" thereof "that
Joshua Inglish, Archibald Neill, James Wilson, Augustin Shote,
George Baker and John Dillard in the county aforesaid and William
IMorrison of Burke County be appointed commissioners in the room
and stead of Philip Hoodenpile, William Britain, William Whetson,
James Brittain and Lemuel Clayton, and they are hereby vested with
the same powers and authorities as the former commissioners were
vested with, and they or a majority of them shall agree on some con
venient spot as nearly central as may be for convenience to the in
habitants of said county, whereon the public buildings shall be erected,
any Law, usage or custom to the contrary notwithstanding."
Probably this change of commissioners, made because of the
failure of those first appointed to agree on some spot for the county seat,
should not be attributed to an unwillingness on the part of those first
appointed to act, but rather to their inability to agree as to where this
county seat should be. It is certain that much controversy arose at
that time in regard to the site of the court house between the advocates
of the place where it was at last fixed and certain persons who strenu
ously contended that its location should be at the old Steam Saw Mill
Place, on the road afterwards known as the Buncombe Turnpike Road,
about three miles south of Asheville, where Dr. J. F. E. Hardy above
mentioned resided at the time of his death, and Mr. R. P. Walker later
lived. The man from Burke was probably chosen as being disinter
ested and able to decide in case of a difference between the Buncombe
men who, of course, were interested. It is a noteworthy fact that only
half of the Buncombe commissioners signed the report and all of them
were from the northern end of the county, as noted above.
This would seem to justify the precaution of adding to the com
mission a man from Burke County to decide in case of a disagreement
among the others of the commissioners, all of whom were from Bun-

Asheville and Buncombe County 79
combe. One of these, Archibald Neill, had died since his appointment.
The second county officer elected on the first day of the first
session of Buncombe County Court was "John Davidson (son of
James)," register of deeds, or, as it was called in the minutes,
"register." On the same day Thomas Davidson was elected entry-
taker, or, as it was called in the minutes, "entry officer of claims for
lands." Next day John Dillard was elected "Stray master or Ranger."
It was on this last-mentioned day that Reuben Wood was elected
county solicitor, or, as the minutes called it, "attorney for the State in
Buncombe County."
At this time the Superior courts did not meet in Buncombe County,
but were held for what was then called the District of Morgan at
Morganton in Burke County, and were known as Morgan Superior
Court. To constitute part of the jury at that court five Buncombe men
were required by law to be chosen regularly by the County Court of
Buncombe County. The first of these jurors from Buncombe so chosen
were selected at the July term 1792, of the last mentioned court and
ordered to "serve at Morgan Supr. Court, Septr. Term as the Venire
from Buncombe." They consisted of Matthew Patton, William
Davidson, David Vance, Lambert Clayton and James Brittain.
Immediately upon obtaining his grant John Burton began to sell
off his tawsx lots as they had been laid out. His first sale was of lot
No. 4 to Thomas Burton for "twenty shillings" on July 28, 1794.
This sale was made in the same month in which the grant was issued,
and was for the land now occupied by the southem portion of the
Swannanoa-Berkeley hotel building. Town lots do not appear to have
been much in demand at this time, for it was not until the 15th day
of October following that another sale was made. Then John Burton
sold to Ann Gash for five pounds lot No. 2, describing it as the lot that
"Joins John Patons, Nomber First on the west side of the street" and
"the lot whereon Ann Gash's house now stands." This lot was very
near what was then the most improved part of the town. The first
court house, if we may credit tradition, was a log structure one story
high, and containing a single room, and was covered with boards held
to their places by the weight of large pieces of timber laid horizontally
across them. It is said to have stood one hundred feet south of

80 Asheville and Buncombe County
Sycamore Street and on the eastern side of South Main Street, as this
lot seems to have been left vacant for the purpose; but more probably
it stood on the Public Square in the centre of Main Street. Apparently
the lot opposite the vacant lot just mentioned was intended for "the
Stocks and prison to be convenient to the court house." This court
house appears to have been used as such for many years.
The next lot sold was lot No. 7. This was bought on October 21,
1794, by Thomas Foster for "twenty shillings" and is the land on
which stands the old brick building on the western side of South Main
Street long known as the old Rankin & Pulliam store. Five dollars
was not a high price for a half-acre lot near the centre of the town and
fronting 82^ feet on the main street, although we are so of ten. assured
that real estate has always been ridiculously high in Asheville.
John Burton continued to sell town lots until he had disposed of
or contracted to dispose of thirty-one or thirty-two of them. Then,
seemingly, he grew tired of the business of building a town, and on
April 20, 1795, sold to Zebulon and Bedent Baird for two hundred
pounds all his tracts of land "including the Town all except what lots
is sold and maid over." Many of the deeds made by him for lots
which he had theretofore contracted to sell were not, however, executed
until after this conveyance to the Bairds.
A list of thse sales made by John Burton, interesting as showing
the order in which the town grew and who were its first inhabitants, is
here given:
Thomas Burton, lot 4, for 20 shillings, July 28, 1794, record book
2, page 53.
Ann Gash, half of lot 2, for 5 pounds, October IS, 1794, record
book 2, page 82.
Thomas Foster, lot 7, for 20 shillings, October 21, 1794, record
book 2, page 56.
Thomas Foster, lot 11, for 4 pounds, October 21, 1794, record
book 2, page 107.
Sarah Hamilton, lot 5, for "10 silver dollars," October 22, 1794,
record book 2, page 59.

Asheville and Buncombe County 81
William Wilson, lots 24 and 25, for 10 pounds, October 22, 1794,
record book 2, page 58.
Thomas Foster, lot 3, for 25 pounds, October 24, 1794, record
book 2, page 56.
Zebulon & Bendent Baird, lot — , for 4 pounds, October 24, 1794,
record book 2, page 99.
John Hawkins, lot 20, for 4 pounds, January 19, 1795, record
book 2, page 55.
Harris Hutchison, lot 9, for 4 pounds, January 21, 1795, record
book 2, page 100.
John Street, lot 6, for 5 pounds, January 22, 1795, record book 2,
page 51.
John Street, back lots, for 4 pounds, April 20, 1795, record book
2, page 230.
James Hughey, lot 18, for 4 pounds, April 22, 1795, record book
2, page 236.
John Craig, lot 20, for 4 pounds, April 22, 1795, record book 3,
page 11.
Joseph Hughey, lot 5, two for 4 pounds, April 22, 1795, record
book 4, page 176.
Joseph Hughey, lots 29 and 30, for 4 pounds, April 22; 1795,
record book 3, page 17.
William Forster, lot 12, for 4 pounds, April 22, 1795, record
book 3, page 45.
Ephriam D. Harris, lot 17, for 4 pounds, if\.pril 23, 1795, record
book 2, page 174.
Samuel Lusk, lot 13, for 2 pounds, April 23, 1795, record book 2,
page 231.
Edward McFarling, half of lot 27, for 2 pounds, April 23, 1795,
record book 2, page 237.
William Wilson, lot south of town for 10 pounds, April 23, 1795,
record book 3, page 27.
Robert Branks, lot 39, for 4 pounds, April 23, 1795, record book
3, page 67.
William Lax, 8li acres, for 40 pounds, April 23, 1795, record
book 3, page 92.

82 Asheville and Buncombe County
James Brittain, lot 14, for 100 pounds, April 23, 1795, record
book 3, page 144.
Col. William Davidson, lot 21, for — pounds, April 24, 1795,
record book 2, page 169.
Johhn Patton, lots 16, 2, and 10, for 20 pounds, October 15, 1795,
record book 2, page 84.
James Davidson, lot 26, for 6 pounds, April 21, 1796, record book
2, page 381.
Benjamin Hall, lot 23, for 4 pounds, April 24, 1796, record book
3, page 142.
James Chambers, lot 19, for $100, July 20, 1797, record book 2,
page 480.
Hugh Tate, half of lote 13, for $50, July 18, 1798, record book 4,
page 160.
Patton & Erwin, lot 4, for $40, March 15, 1805, record book 10,
page 239.
The lots are described as being, sometimes in Morriston, some
times in Morristown, sometimes in Morris Town and once in the Town
of Morris, except the last two, which are stated to be in the town of
Asheville. MliN OF THOSE DAYS
Many of these men whose names are given in this list as pur
chasers of lots were men of prominence in the affairs of the county, or
afterwards became such.
Thomas Foster did not live in the town, but on the southern side
of the Swannanoa River, and on the old Rutherfordton road, about 2^
miles south of Asheville, on the farm on which in later years was made
the junction of the Western North Carolina Railroad with the Asheville
& Spartanburg Railroad and where is Biltmore. He was bom in Vir
ginia, on October 14, 1774. In 1786 his father, William Forster, came
with his family to North Carolina, and settled at the foot of the hill on
the northern side of the Swannanoa River, about midway between the
Hendersonville road and the road leading to the Swannanoa by way
of Femihurst at a place where a small branch comes through a hollow
and crosses the valley into the Swannanoa River. Here Thomas lived

Asheville and Buncombe County 83
until he grew to manhood. Then he married Orra Sams, whose father,
Edmund Sams, was one of the settlers from Watauga, and lived on
the western side of the French Broad River, later the site of Smith's
Bridge, until he removed higher up that river on the same side to a
place about a mile above the mouth of the Swannanoa at the old
Gaston place, near the place which has since been called the race track.
After his marriage Thomas Foster settled upon the farm where he
spent the remainder of his life on the banks of Sweeten's Creek, after
wards called Foster's Mill Creek, the first which enters Swannanoa
from the southern side above the concrete bridge on the Hendersonville
road. Here he built the first bridge across the Swannanoa. Its loca
tion was about one hundred yards above the present bridge. He was a
member of the House of Commons in the General Assembly of North
Carolina from Buncombe County in 1809, 1812, 1813 and 1814, and
represented that county in the Senate of the State in 1817 and 1819.
After a long and prosperous life he died on December 24 (incorrectly
on tombstone Dec. 14), 1858, and is buried at the Newton Academy
graveyard. He was a farmer, and accumulated a considerable
property. A large family of children survived him. Two of these were
living in 1898, but have. died, Thomas Foster of Weakley County,
Tennesse, and Mrs. Rachel R. Garner, of Winchester, Ky. Many of
his descendants reside in Buncombe. County. His wife died before him
on August 27, 1853, and he was buried by her side. Frequent men
tion of him will be found in Wheeler's History of North Carolina,
Bennett's Chronology of North Carolina, and Bishop Asbury's Journal.
He was known as Captain Thomas Foster. But as his uncle of the
same name was then living in Buncombe County it may be that the
latter was the purchaser of that name to whom some of the lots men
tioned above were conve)'ed. This Thomas Forster was usually desig
nated as Thomas Foster, Sr., and, after a short while, removed to
Abbeville, South Carolina, but later returned to Buncombe and died
here in the early fall of 1839.
Zebulon and Bedent Baird were brothers who came from New
Jersey to North Carolina in the latter part of the eighteenth century'.
They were Scotchmen by birth. After their removal to North Carolina
they were the first merchants in Buncombe County. Both settled on

84 Asheville and Buncombe County
farms between Asheville and Reems Creek. Here they died, and
numerous descendants of both yet live in this county. Zebulon Baird
represented Buncombe County in the House of Commons in 1800,
1801, 1802 and 1803, and in the Senate of the State in 1806, 1809,
1818, 1821 and 1822. He was efficient in procuring the enactment
of the law under which the Buncombe Turnpike was constructed, and
is said to have found difficulty in reconciling his friends to his action
in this matter; but declared that he hoped to live long enough to see
the day when a stage coach and four horses would gallop through the
country driven by a man armed with a whip and a tin bugle. This
vision was destined to a gorgeous realization but he never lived to see it.
Nor was such an argument to be despised. Such a sight would indicate
a highway of commerce while it gratified the highest local pride then
conceivable. No more exhilarating scene was ever witnessed than a
handsome newly-painted stage coach drawn by four fine horses as if
bursts upon us around some bend in the mountain dashing at full
gallop along a road winding its way through the mountain defiles.
No more inspiring sound ever greeted human ears than that of the
horn of the stage coach rushing up to some mountain station while its
reverberations penetrate the deep recesses and are tossed from hill to
hill in wild and wierd musical cadences. The late Zebulon Baird
Vance was Zebulon Baird's namesake and one of his grandsons. In
1793 Zebulon and Bedent Baird carried up the first four-wheel wagon
ever seen in Buncombe County, all transportation theretofore having
been by horseback or on sleds or trucks. This wagon they brought
across the South Carolina or Saluda Gap. Zebulon Baird died in
March, 1827. Before his death the Town and Gillihan tracts above
mentioned, together with the Baird 400 acres, a tract adjoining these on
the west and granted by the State to both in 1799, were sold under
execution issued from Morganton on a judgment obtained against
them by a third brother, Andrew Baird, and were bought at this sale
by Zachariah Candler, who undoubtedly purchased in behalf of
Zebulon Baird, to whom he conveyed the land by deed made eight days
later than that to him from the sheriff. After the death of Zebulon
Baird, his brother Bedent, or Beadon, or Beden, as it is sometime.s
spelled, conceived that in this transaction there had been somethinf

Asheville and Buncombe County 85
unfair to himself, and sued the widow and children and administrator
of his deceased brother for an equal share in the land. This famous
suit, at first decided in favor of Bedent, was carried by his opponents
to the Supreme Court of North Carolina, where at June term, 1837,
nearly 10 years after its beginning, it was decided in favor of the heirs
of Zebulon. A possession at the northwest corner of the Town Tract
in a field on the premises of the late M. J. Fagg was an important
element in turning the decision for Zebulon's children. The late
Governor D. L. Swain was the administrator of Zebulon Baird and
took great interest in this case. He is said to have openly announced
to the judge who tried the case below that he would procure a reversal
in the court above and to have added, "I will make Mr. Badger tear
your opinion to pieces."
Zebulon Baird was attacked by his fatal sickness while riding
along the road between Reems Creek and his home and fell from his
horse. His residence was the old house (now gone) on the eastern
side of the old Buncombe Turnpike road, about two and one-half
miles north of Asheville and one-fourth of a mile south of the entrance
of the Burnsville Road and later owned by Capt. J. E. Ray, and near
the Casket Plant. This house was partly a log structure and is said
to have been constructed with loop holes in order to be used as a block
house in case of need against Indians.
John Street was afterwards the sheriff of Buncombe County, but
mysteriously disappeared after the expiration of his terms of office.
He was believed to have gone to Tennessee. (Record book 11, page
521.) Joseph Hughey was the first sheriff of Buncombe County, having
been elected to that office on April 16, 1792. He was re-elected to it
for several following terms successively, and was a large land owner
in the vicinity of Asheville.
At a later date James Hughey, whose name is above mentioned,
was also a sheriff of Buncombe County. He it was who as such
sheriff made in 1798 the celebrated sale for taxes of the John Gray
Blount lands, themselves embracing whole counties and amounting to
one million seventy-four thousand acres. (Record book 4, page 230,
and Love v. Wilbourn, 5 Ired. N. C, Rep. 344.)

86 Asheville and Buncombe County
John Craig was Buncombe County's first treasurer, an office then
Tsnowir^s County Tmstee. He was the grantee from the State in 1798
-efX'Body of land in the northern part of the town of Asheville later
traversed by Sunset Drive. In the latter part of his life he resided in
the eastern part of the county, where he was shot from ambush and
killed. Henry West was convicted of the murder but was pardoned,
the pardon arriving while he stood on the scaffold with the sheriff
ready to execute him. He was a most eccentric character of much
intelligence and considerable property and was said to have been a
sailor and served under Paul Jones in the Revolutionary War; but
prided himself upon being discourteous in manner and brutal in
disposition. William Forster, the father of Captain Thomas Foster, above
mentioned, was the son of William Forster and Mary Forster, his wife.
He belonged to that large class of people called Scotch-Irish, who have
played so prominent and honorable a part in the history of the United
States. Born in Ireland on March 31, 1748, he emigrated to Virginia
while yet a young man. After the close of the Revolutionary War he
removed with his family to Western North Carolina, and settled on the
Swannanoa, at the place described as his residence in the above sketch
of Captain Thomas Foster. Here he lived for many years, and here
he died on April 2, 1830. In early life he married a Scotch woman by
the name of Elizabeth Heath. She died October 8, 1827.
Both William Forster and his wife were buried at the Newton
Academy graveyard, the first persbns buried there.
Ephraim Drake Harris was another of the early purchasers of
lots in Morristown. He soon removed, however, and probably returned
to Cabarrus County, North Carolina. To him was granted by the
State, on February 19, 1794, a body of land which now constitutes the
most eastern part of .AsheviUe, extending eastward from Valley Street.
Samuel Lu.sk was for some while coroner of Buncombe County.
In April, 1799, he resigned that office and was elected sheriff. To this
last place he was annually re-elected until April, 1803.
James Brittain was the representative of Buncombe County in the
State Senate in 1796, 1797, 1802, 1804, 1805 and 1807.

Asheville and Buncombe County 87
Colonel William. Davidson was the man at whose house the county
was organized as above stated. He was a relative of Gen. William
Davidson, who succeeded Griffith Rutherford in the generalship when
the latter was captured at Camden and who was killed on Febmary
1, 1781, at Cowan's Ford of the Catawba River in attempting to
prevent Lord Cornwallis from crossing with his army. Colonel
William Davidson was also a relative of the Samuel Davidson who was
killed by the Indians as above stated, and of Major William Davidson,
a brother of Samuel and who with his brother-in-law, John Alexander,
and his nephew, James Alexander, son of his sister Rachel, and with
Daniel Smith, a son-in-law, became among the first settlers in Bun
combe County. The portion of it where Major Davidson settled was
then in Burke County at the mouth of Bee Tree.
Major William Davidson is sometimes confounded with Colonel
William Davidson, who was the first representative of Buncombe
County in the State Senate to which he was sent in 1792, and removed
to Tennessee where he was prominent in public affairs and where he
died. It was at the house of Colonel William Davidson that Buncombe
County was organized. Colonel William Davidson was born in Vir
ginia and served in the American cause through the Revolutionary
War. Major William Davidson took a prominent part in the prepara
tions made by the North Carolinians for the battle of Kings Mountain.
These thwarted Ferguson in his raid which ended in that battle. Dur
ing the Revolutionary War Major William Davidson lived in what
became Burke County on Catawba River near the town now called
Greenlee. His place was named The Glades. Colonel Ferguson
visited his home there on the raid into North Carolina by Ferguson,
which resulted in the Battle of Kings Mountain and in the defeat and
death of that distinguished British officer. After that war. Major
William Davidson removed with some relatives and friends to the
mouth of Bee Tree Creek of Swannanoa River, then in Burke County,
but now in Buncombe County, where, in 1784t1785, they formed the
famous "Swannanoa Settlement" and where he resided for the re
mainder of his life and died and is buried.

88 Asheville and Buncombe County
In 1792 Gabriel Ragsdale and Wm. Brittain were Buncombe's
first representatives in the North Carolina House of Commons and
they continued to hold those places in 1793, 1794, and 1795, by
re-elections. Colonel John Patton was born April 4, 1765, and was one of
Buncombe's first settlers. He removed to that county while it was yet
.Burke and Rutherford and settled first where Femihurst now stands.
From here he removed to the Whitson place, on Swannanoa above the
eld water works. After residing here for some while he returned to the
vicinity of his former home, and bought and fixed his residence upon
the Colonel William Davidson place, where the first County Court was
held. At this place he continued to reside until his death on March 17,
1831. He it was who formally opened on April 16, 1792, the first
County Court. On the minutes of that court, immediately after the
justices were sworn and took their seats, appears this entry:
"Silence being commanded and proclamation being made the court
was opened in due and solemn form of law by John Patton specialy
appointed for that purpose."
At that term, on the same day, he was duly elected to the then very
important office of county surveyor. Near his new residence he built,
many years ago, a bridge across the Swannanoa River, which remained
until about the beginning of the war against the Southern States. His
house was for many years famous as a stopping place, being upon the
Buncombe Turnpike road, and he raised here a large family of
children, many of whose descendants are yet living in Asheville. One
of his sons, the late Montraville Patton, represented Buncombe County
in the House of Commons in 1836, 1838 and 1840, and subsequently
in 1874-1875, and after being for many years a citizen and prominent
merchant of Asheville, and in later life the clerk of the Inferior Court
of Buncombe County, died in 1896, highly respected by every one who
knew him as a kind hearted but determined man of unswerving
integrity and unpretentious usefulness. The late residence of Colonel
John Patton stood on the southern side of the Swannanoa, at the ford
about half a mile above its mouth, until within the last thirty years,
when, after bearing for some time the name of the Haunted House, it
was removed as being no longer tenantable. His wife, who was, before

Asheville and Buncombe County 89
her marriage. Miss Ann Mallory, a Virginian, was born February 12,
1768, and died on August 31, 1855. She, with her husband, are buried
at Newton Academy graveyard.
Probably others of these first settlers of Morristown attained
prominence in the affairs of that town and of the County of Buncombe,
and some of them, as we know, soon removed to distant places.
Here begins a new chapter in the history of Asheville. In 1795,
Samuel Ashe of New Hanover County, a brother of the John Ashe
who played so important a part in resisting the Stamp Act, was elected
governor of North Carolina. In his honor the name of Morristown
was changed to Asheville. This new name became common some time
before any legal action upon the subject was had. In fact, it had
become so common by October, 1795, that the clerk of the County
Court, forgetting for the moment that in law the town was still Morris
town, began in the opening statement of his minutes of that term, when
giving the place where that session was held, to write the word
Asheville, but before completing it he recollected himself and finished
it out as Morristown. Subsequently, in beginning his minutes of the
April term, 1796, he wrote as the place of the court's session, the full
name of Asheville, but then again recollecting his error, and before
he had written another word, he passed his pen through the word
Asheville, and wrote the word Morristown. Finally, in July, 1796,
or October, 1796, or in January, April or July, 1797, the name of the
town Was duly changed from Morristown to Asheville. This latter
name it has ever since borne.
Samuel Ashe, for whom Asheville was named, was born in North
Carolina in 1725; educated at Harvard; became a lawyer; was one
of thirteen members of the council which governed North Carolina
after the commencement of the Revolution and prior to the adoption
of her first Constitution, and part of that time president of that
Council of Thirteen; was a member of the convention which adopted
that Constitution; was speaker of the Senate in the first legislature
which assembled under that Constitution; was by that legislature
elected presiding judge of the Supreme Court of the State, which court
was composed of three judges; and continued in that office until 1795
when he became and was, for three years, governor of the State. He

90 Asheville and Buncombe County
was a member of that court when it decided, in the celebrated case of
Bayard v. Singleton, that an act of the legislature wis void because
contrary to the Constitution; and he was governor when the land
frauds of John Glasgow, Secretary of State, were discovered and
created such a great excitement in North Carolina. At his plantation
on Rocky Point he died in 1813.
Colonel David Vance was born at or near Winchester, Virginia,
about 1745. He was the oldest son of Samuel Vance and was
descended on the paternal side from the DeVaux family of Normandy,
the name DeVaux being corrupted into Vance. About 1774 David
Vance came to North Carolina and settled in what was then Rowan
County, on Catawba River, later Burke County, where he married
Priscilla Brank. In the progress of the Revolutionary War, David
Vance served in the American army in the north and rose to the rank
of ensign and was at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown and
at Valley Forge. Later, in the South, he saw service in the same cause
at the battles of Musgrove Mill and Kings Mountain and became a
captain. After that war ended he removed to what is now Buncombe
County, but was then Burke County, and settled at what was later
Vanceville on upper Reems Creek. In 1786 and 1791 he was a mem
ber of the North Carolina House of Commons from Burke County and
in 1791 introduced in that body a bill to create the County of Bun
combe. In 1792 he became and for years continued to be the clerk of
the County Court of that new county, on whose records his most
beautiful penmanship appears. He and General Joseph McDowell
and Mussendine Matthews as commissioners for North Carolina,
superintended in 1799 the running of the line between North Carolina
and Tennessee from the southern border of Virginia southward across
Pigeon River. It was in consequence of some conversations while
engaged in that work that he wrote recollections of the Baittle of Kings
Mountain, published many years after his death. He became a colonel
of militia. He died in 1813 and was buried on his farm in Reems
Creek. Doctor Robert B. Vance, once a representative in Congress
from Western North Carolina, who was killed in a duel with Hon.
Samuel P. Carson, was a son of Colonel David Vance, and the late
Zebulon B. Vance, governor of North Carolina and United States

Asheville and Buncombe County 91
senator, the late General Robert B. Vance, Congressman from Western
North Carolina, and the late Colonel Allen T. Davidson, member from
Western North Carolina in the Congress of the Confederate States, were
grandsons of Colonel David Vance.
A small party of Cherokees set out from the more western parts of
North Carolina, in the summer of 1793, to attack the white settlements
on Swannanoa River. It seems that the settlers had received some
warning of this and were on the lookout. At any rate, the attack was
not made. Simultaneously, but without concert with the North Caro
linians, Colonel Doherty and Colonel McFarland had led an invasion
from East Tennessee of a part of the Cherokee country which had
escaped incursions from the whites. With one hundred and eighty
mounted riflemen they entered the mountains at Unaka Pass and
turned eastwardly, destroying six Cherokee towns, and killing fifteen
Indians and taking captive sixteen Indian women and children. They
were gone four weeks; and, by returning in another way from that by
which they had entered the country, escaped an ambuscade of three
hundred Cherokees which was awaiting their return at Unaka Pass,
expected to be by that same way of entrance into the mountains. The
expedition had one man mortally wounded and three others less seri
ously hurt in the two or three night attacks made upon it by the
Indians. It was contrary to the orders of the Tennessee territorial gov
ernment, but probably prevented the contemplated attack on the Swan
nanoa settlements and saved from destruction the village of Morristovra.
now the City of Asheville.

I

Chapter VII
N November, 1797, the village of Asheville was incorporated by
the legislature of the State of North Carolina as "a town by the
name of Ashville," in an act of which the following is a copy:

"Session of November, 1797, Ch. 54.
"An Act establishing a town at the court house in the county of
Buncomb. "Whereas, It is represented to this General Assembly that the
establishing a town at the court house in Buncomb county would be bf
great utility and accord with the desire of the inhabitants of said
county, and there being a number of lots already laid off at the said
court house, and Zebulon Baird, Esq., the proprietor of lands adjoin
ing the same, having signified his consent to lay off as much more land
as will amount to sixty-three acres, including said lots for the purpose
aforesaid. "1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North
Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, that
the aforesaid sixty-three acres of land be and the same is hereby con
stituted and established, a town by the name of Ashville, and that
John Jarrett, Samuel Chunn, William Welch, George Swain and
Zebulon Baird, Esq., be and they are hereby appointed, commissioners
for the purpose of carrying into effect the plan of said town and dis
posing of the lots in such a manner as they or a majority of them shall
think advisable; Provided, nevertheless, that nothing in this act shall
be construed so as to prevent Zebulon Baird from having the power
and right of executing titles of such lots as are yet not disposed of.
"2. And be it further enacted that, in all matters and things
relative to said town a majority of the commissioners shall constitute a
quorum, and in case of death, refusal to act, incapacity or removal of
any of them, the remaining commissioners shall fill up such vacancies;
and that their first meeting shall be held on the fourth Saturday in
January, next, when they shall proceed to appoint a treasurer, who
shall be of their own body, and when chosen shall be considered as

Asheville and Buncombe County 93
chairman, and into whose hands all monies collected for the use of said
town shall be paid; and he shall give bond with sufficient security,
payable to the remaining commissioners for the due application and
accounting for all monies by him received ; and it shall be considered
his duty to cause all the laws, rules and regulations made for the order
and government of the said town to be carried into effect.
"3. And be it further enacted that the said commissioners or a
majority of them shall have full power and authority to make such
bye-laws and regulations as they may think necessary for the good
government of said town and shall have and possess the same powers
and authorities usually given to like commissioners, and such rules and
regulations as they may make shall be carried into effect by such
penalties as they may deem necessary.
"4. And be it further enacted that the commissioners aforesaid
shall be empowered to lay a tax annually not exceeding the demands
necessary for said town, either on the poll or the value of town
property, or both if necessary, which tax shall be levied and collected
in such manner as the said commissioners may direct."
The lots added by Zebulon Baird, and referred to in this statute,
are represented by a plat then prepared, a copy of which, preserved
by the late Nehemiah Blackstock of Buncombe County, and by him
given to the late Capt. R. B. Johnston, is here shown.
Plainly, it was not the purpose of Zebulon Baird to give to the
public that additional land mentioned in this act, which he "signified
his consent to lay off," nor does it seem to have been so understood at
the time. In fact, at that time, this land was not entirely his own.
It belonged equally to him and his brother Bedent Baird. However,
the lots were laid off as contemplated, and were subsequently sold by
the heirs of Zebulon Baird as town lots.
Thus on January 27, 1798, the village of Asheville became the
town of "Ashville," and as such began its existence as a municipal
corporation. It was still, however, a mountain settlement, without
roads, unless the rude trails constructed and maintained by the
inhabitants of the adjacent territory under the public road law, could
be termed such, and well-nigh inaccessible to the outside world. Of
the character of these roads we shall say something further on.

-i^A../J

-1:=.

A PLAN OF ASHEVILLE
AS FIRST INCORPORATED

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Asheville and Buncombe County 95
Before passing to the consideration of other matters a few words
in relation to the commissioners appointed to launch this new munici
pality may be not inappropriate.
John Jarrett was for many years a resident of Buncombe County.
In later life he lived on the western bank of the French Broad River,
at the place where once the old Smith Bridge and now a concrete bridge
at Asheville crosses. There had never been a bridge across that river
near Asheville at that time, however. Many years before a ferry had
been established at that point by Edmund Sams.
Edmund Sams was one of the settlers who came from Watauga.
He lived first at the Smith Bridge place just mentioned and later, on
the western side of the French Broad River, on that place later known
as the Gaston place, about one mile, or maybe not so far, above the
mouth of Swannanoa. He had been, in early life, an Indian fighter.
On one occasion, when, in search of some Indian depredators, he was
passing through the woods with a single companion, his friend and
fellow soldier, he heard a gun fire very near, and turning saw that his
friend had received a death wound. Supposing this to have been done
by some Indian behind a tree, he quickly placed his gun to his shoulder
and called out to his dying companion, "Where is he?" The friend
replied, "Why, Edmund, it was your gun." This proved to be correct.
His gun carried on his shoulder had been discharged by accident, and
had killed his friend behind him. This event saddened the entire after
life of Mr. Sams.
Later he was engaged as a soldier on the American side in the
Revolutionary War and was a captain. When the County of Bun
combe was organized he was elected its first coroner. Afterwards he
served as a member of the County Court. He was for many years a
trustee of Newton .Academy. During the latter part of his life he
resided upon the farm of his son-in-law, Thomas Foster, about a fourth
of a mile above the latter's residence. He was an eccentric and highly
excitable old man. Exceedingly fond of music, especially of a martial
character, he used to explain to one of his little granddaughters the
emotions which he betrayed when listening to some lively tune by say
ing, "I tell you what, my little daughter, it just puts me on top of Bun-

Asheville, 1883— Iron Bridge looking west—Railroad Bridge higher in picture— Site of Sams's Ferry over French
Broad, later Jarrett's^ Ferry, later Smith's Bridge, now Concrete Bridge

Asheville and Buncombe County 97
combe." As he grew older he became very fond of feeding his son-in-
law's cattle, and would indulge this propensity to such an extent that
many times the cattle were in danger of being foundered. Captain
Foster gently remonstrated with the old gentleman on this subject, but
without effect. Some mornings when out a little earlier than usual in
the vicinity of his father-in-law's house, the son-in-law would hear the
old gentleman talking in reference to this to a pet cow while giving her
an unreasonable quantity of food, and saying: "Hurry up, old lady,
Tommie's coming." In 1824 his son Benoni Sams was one of Bun
combe's representatives in the House of Commons, having for his
colleague D. L. Swain.
Edmund Sams married Nancy Young near Wytheville, Virginia.
Her sister, Martha Young, married William Gudger, Senior, who also
removed to what became Buncombe County and settled on Swannanoa
River just below the Old Water Works on land now belonging to Mr.
M. L. Reed. These Gudgers became progenitors of the large family of
Gudgers and their descendants now living in Western North Carolina.
Although James M. Smith was the first white child bom in what after
wards became Buncombe County, having been born June 14, 1787,
)'et James Gudger, son of William and Martha Gudger, was a little
older than Mr. Smith, and was the first white citizen of that same
territory who was born as such. On account of danger from maraud
ing Cherokee Indians, Mrs. Martha Gudger at the time of the birth of
her oldest son James Gudger, was on a visit to her parents in Virginia.
This Mr. James Gudger married a daughter of Colonel Robert Love,
of Haywood County, and lived in the northwestern part of the County
of Buncombe, which he represented in the State Senate of North Caro
lina in 1830 and 1836.
As has been remarked above, Edmund Sams was remarkably fond
of military music. He was also fond of church music, which, in his
day, was usually sung in a drawling time "in linked sweetness long
drawn out." Once a singing master visited his neighborhood and
taught a singing school. The choir of young people trained at this
school sang a "voluntary" at a church service which Captain Sams
attended accompanied by a little great-granddaughter. The singing
master led in singing this "voluntary" and sang in better time than

98 Asheville and Buncombe County
was common in the church gatherings, but not without consternation
on the part of most of the congregation. Captain Sams listened in
amazement. When the song had been finished he turned to his little
girl companion and exclaimed: "Well, upon my soul, my little
daughter, that was a merry little jig!"
When John Jarrett bought the Sams ferry he kept it for many years
as a toll ferry, and it became known as Jarrett's Ferry. Subsequently
he sold it with the adjoining land to the late James M. Smith, who
built a bridge at the place, which was known for many years, and up
till a very late period, as Smith's Bridge. This he continued to keep up
as a toll bridge until the latter part of his life, when he sold the bridge
to the county, by which it was made a public or county bridge. The
eastern end of the bridge was somewhat higher up the river than the
eastern end of the iron bridge which succeeded it, but the western ends
of the two were at the same place. In 1881 this bridge was removed to
make room for an iron structure, which was destroyed by a flood in
1916, but its old foundations were yet plainly to be seen for many
years. Samuel Chunn was for many years a resident of Asheville. Here
he kept a hotel at the southwestern corner of the public square, where
afterwards stood the building occupied for many years by Asheville's
first bank, the Asheville Branch of the Bank of Cape Fear, and still
later by the Bank of Asheville, and afterward by the Western Hotel,
and yet more recently by the First National Bank of Asheville. This
building was removed by its owner. Captain Thos. D. Johnston, in
1885, in order to give place to his corner brick store and office building
now standing there. Samuel Chunn also engaged for many years at
Asheville in the business of tanning leather. His tanyard was on
Glenn's Creek at the place where Merrimon Avenue, for many years
called Beaverdam Road and until lately Beaverdam Street, crosses it,
about one hundred yards from the junction of that street with North
Main Street. In October, 1806, he was made the chairman of Bun
combe County Court, and in January, 1807, was appointed jailer at
Asheville. He was the original grantee from the State of the greater
part of what is now called Sunset or Town Mountain, and owned
land on both side of that mountain. From him as the owner of the

Asheville and Buncombe County 99
upper part of the valley of Ross's Creek next beyond the mountain
east of .'\sheville, Chunn's Cove took its name. In later life, Samuel
Chunn lived on the bank of the French Broad River at the Chunn
place in Madison County. His wife was Mrs. Hannah Chunn. He
accumulated a large estate, which he left to his children at his death
in November, 1855. His descendants now reside in Buncombe County,
in the State of Georgia, and at other places in the United States. In
1846 one of his sons, the late A. B. Chunn, was a member of the House
of Commons from Buncombe County.
William Welch, or William Welsh as he wrote it, was at one time
a member of Buncombe County Court, and in January, 1805, was
elected and qualified as coroner of that county. He was at one time
interested in lands lying in Asheville, and on what are now known as
Haywood and Depot Streets.
George Swain was bom at Roxborough, Massachusetts, on June
17, 1763. He was a hatter. On September 1, 1784, he invested what
property he had been able to accumulate in provisions and set out with
his merchandise from Providence, Rhode Island, for Charleston, South
Carolina. On the voyage a storm arose, and it became necessary to
throw overboard most of the cargo. He landed at Charleston with
nothing, and walked from there to Augusta, Georgia. Here he lived
for a year. Then he moved to Wilkes, after Oglethorpe, County, in
that State, where he engaged in his business of hat making. He served
as a member of the Legislature of that State for five years, and was a
member of the Constitutional Convention held at Louisville about
1795. In the latter year he removed to Buncombe County, and settled
in or near Asheville. Soon afterwards he married Caroline Lowrie, a
widow whose husband had been killed by the Indians, and who was a
sister of Joel Lane, the founder of the city of Raleigh, and of Jesse
Lane, the father of Gen. Joe Lane, late United States Senator from
Oregon and governor thereof, and Democratic candidate for vice-
president on the ticket with General John C. Breckenridge in 1860.
General Joseph Lane himself was born in Buncombe County near
Asheville, on December 14, 1801.
In the early part of his residence in Buncombe, George Swain lived
at the head of Beaverdam, on the place where the late Thomas Stradley

100 Asheville and Buncombe County
resided and died. Here was born, on January 4, 1801, his second son,
David Lowrie Swain, afterwards famous as judge, governor and Uni
versity president in North Carolina. Here the future governor saw the
first wagon which he had ever beheld, being the first ever in Buncombe
County. It was brought to the house of his father, up the washed out
channel of the creek, for there was then no road in Buncombe County
large enough for a wagon to travel. Of this event the late Governor
Vance says: "The future governor of North Carolina stood in the
orchard waiting its approach with wonder and awe, and finally, as its
thunder reverberated in his ears as it rolled over the rocky channel of
the creek, he incontinently took to his heels, and only rallied when
safely entrenched behind his father's house. He enjoyed the relation
of this to me exquisitely."
The residence of George Swain at this place was a log double
cabin. About 1805 a post route was established on the recently con
structed road through Buncombe County, which soon became the thor
oughfare for travel from the Carolinas and Georgia to the western
States. In 1806, the postoffice at Asheville was made the distributing
office for Georgia, Tennessee and the two Carolinas. George Swain
became in 1806, the postmaster at Asheville, although his commission
did not issue until January, 1807. This office he continued to hold for
twenty years or more. In all that time he was never absent at the
arrival of a mail, and ^.Iways distributed the letters with his own hands.
He was a large man with no claim to good looks, but possessed a most
remarkable memory. It is said that, "he could repeat the entire book
of Genesis, and was so familiar with the sacred volume that on the
first verse of any chapter being read he was ordinarily able to repeat
the second, and if he failed to do so would turn to it in a minute." For
many years he was a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church. Gov
ernor Swain said that his father was a Presbyterian and an Arminian
and his mother was a Methodist and a Calvinist.
George Swain was a trustee of the Newton Academy. While post
master he resided at Asheville. After his removal to that place he was
engaged for a while in his old business of making hats, which he
conducted at a place just beyond the corporate limits of the city, on
the eastern side of Charlotte Street, known for many years by reason

Asheville and Buncombe County 101
of the business there carried on by him and afterwards by his son-in-
law, the late William Coleman, as the Hatter-shop, and which was
occupied for many years by the late Baccus J. Smith, and now in Grove
Park. Mr. Swain owned much land adjoining this place, and also
several town lots. During his residence in Asheville he lived on the
eastern side of South Main Street, where now stand the business build
ings from that once occupied as Grant's Pharmacy southward to the
former Racket Store, inclusive. The old brick store house, years ago
removed from the site of what was once Stoner's Racket Store, belonged
to him, and is said to have been the oldest brick building in Asheville.
In its construction were used, besides the bricks of ordinary size,
many bricks twice as large. George Swain lived long enough to witness
the beginning of his famous son's career, but died before it reached
its zenith, on December 24, 1829, at Asheville, and is buried in the
Newton Academy graveyard. For some time before his death he was
insane. Of Zebulon Baird we have already spoken.
ROADS
Most of the work done at the earlier sessions of the County Court
of Buncombe related to laying out and working roads. These roads or
trails, rude and rough, narrow and steep as they were, constituted the
only means of communication between the scattered settlers of this
new county, and were matters of first importance to its people. They
were located by unlettered hunters and farmers, who knew nothing of
civil engineering, and were opened by men who received no conpensa-
tion for their labor, and could ill afford to spare time from the support
and protection of their families. Roving bands of Indians constantly
gave annoyance to the white settlers, and frequently when they found
the master of the house absent they would frighten the women and
children into taking refuge in the woods, and then bum the furniture
and destroy the bedding which they found in the house. Many were
the privations incident to a life in a new country suffered by these
early settlers, and many were the hardships which they underwent at
the hands of these predatory savages. We can scarcely wonder that

102 Asheville and Buncombe County^
they saw in the red man none of the romantic features of character
which their descendants are so fond of attributing to him. This state
of affairs continued even up into the last century.
On the second day of its first session the County Court
ordered a jury to lay off a road from Colonel William David
son's on Swannanoa to Benjamin Davidson's Creek (Davidson's
River), which crossed French Broad a little below the mouth of
Avery's Creek, passed Mills River, and went up Boydsteens (now in
correctly called Boilston) Creek; and another jury "to lay off a road
from the wagon ford of Rims Creek to Join the road from the Turkey
Cove, Catawba, to Robert Henton's on Lindsey's Creek Cane River,"
and appointed an "overseer of the road from the mouth of Swannanoa
to Rims Creek." This last mentioned road passed through Asheville.
It ran from the Gum Spring place across Swannanoa northwardly by
way of William Forster's and in rear of the Middleton place, now
St. Dunstan's Road and once owned by James M. Campbell, passed
through the front yard of the Perry residence, and joined the present
road at the top of the hill east of the Normal and Collegiate Institute.
Thence it followed the line of South Main Street, with slight diver
gencies to the left at places, until it reached the Public Square. Here,
turning in the direction of Battery Park, it passed down Patton Avenue
until near the Temple Court building, then through the site of this
building directly to the top of the hill at the southern end of Battery
Park hotel. From this point it turned north again, and, crossing
Montford Avenue at the public school building, ran west of it until it
came to Pearson's Drive, which it followed with one divergence to the
west, until it reached the place where now stands the residence of
Mr. Theodore S. Morrison. Passing through his yard to the east of
his house it went on down the ridge which hes to the west and across
the ridge from the residence of Mr. J. E. Rumbough until it reached the
present road at the northern end of Riverside Drive at Glenn's Creek.
This road it followed for a short distance, when it turned to the east
and joined the Burnsville Road about halfway up the Burnsville Hill.
Thence it kept with the Burnsville Road, with some deviations to the
east at the old Reynolds place, until near Reem's Creek it left this

Asheville and Buncombe County 103
road and crossed the creek at the ford spoken of above, about midway
between the iron bridge and Coleman's Mill.
Thus from time to time roads were established in early days. In
July, 1793, the Court directed a road to be laid off "from Buncombe
Courthouse to the Bull Mountain Road near Robt. Love's." This road
left the road which we have just described at the top of the hill near
the Normal and Collegiate Institute, and followed for some distance
the road which now turns off at that point to go to Kenilworth. It
passed around the southem side of the mountain, and crossed the road
through Beaucatcher Gap to the Swannanoa, near the entrance of the
Haw Creek Road. Thence following this last road to the creek, it
passed up the creek and partly in it and across "Bull's Gap." In
April, 1795, a road was ordered by the Court "from the courthouse to
Jonathan McPeter's on Hominy Creek." This road left the road first
described on top of Battery Park hill, and passing southward through
the Thomas property, now Grove Street lying immediately west of
Bailey Street, now Ashland Avenue, it crossed Grove Street and French
Broad Avenue to the old Judge Bailey place, now Aston Park, thence
to the Melke house, above French Broad River, and down the hill to
the present bridge.
At a later period the road from Asheville northward was changed
so as to run down North Main Street nearly and through the property
of the late Captain M. J. Fagg crossing Cheslnut Street about 200
yards east of North Main Street, until it ran into East Street a little
south of the crossing of Seney Street. Thence it went with East Street
to Hillside Street, passed through the Witchwood house site, and down
the ridge within a few feet west of Vivian Avenue, till it crossed Glenn's
Creek, where its sign is still to be seen. Thence it passed up the hill
beyond, and turning a little to the left ran down a hollow east of the
fortified hill, where the battle was fought in the late war, until it
joined the present road down the French Broad at the first hollow
below the mouth of Glenn's Creek, now at the Casket Plant.
The Beaverdam Road ran along Charlotte Street, or very near it,
until it reached the northern end of the Kimberly place, whence turn
ing westward it passed north of the Kimberly Mountain and so on by
Grace to Beaverdam Creek.

104 Asheville and Buncombe County
From a place near Grace a branch road from this Beaverdam
Road passed down Beaverdam Creek to the old Wilson place on the
northern side of the creek, just above the old Wilson, or more lately
Howell, mill pond, and passed possibly across the hills to the old
Warm Springs Road at or near the old Daniel Reynolds house, by
which the last mentioned road then ran, although that road has
been since changed so as to pass down Beaverdam Creek to the mouth
of Park's Branch and thus leave this old house to the east. This road
which so branches off from the Beaverdam Road was at one time called
the Warm Springs Road, and may have been travelled in going to the
Warm Springs before the older road over Battery Park hill was
travelled in going to that place. This is, however, not probable. Both
ways united near the present ford of Beaverdam Creek in the vicinity
of the old house just mentioned, and passed by it and joined the
present Weaverville Road about a half mile beyond. Then the old
Warm Springs Road ran with this last road to the top of the hill at
the residence of Zebulon Baird. At this place it passed to the west of
his residence, crossed Reems Creek at the old Wagoner Ford, ran by
the house of the late John Weaver and through the rear of the old
Alexander Farm, crossed Flat Creek and ran to the farm of Bedent
Smith near the Madison County line. Here it again turned to the
west and ran to the mouth of Ivy. From this place it ran on to
Marshall and about fine-half mile below that town turned to the east
and ran with the old Hopewell Turnpike built by Philip Hoodenpile.
later known as the Jewel Hill Road, to Warm Springs, now Hot
Springs. At the place where it left the Weaverville road at Zebulon
Baird's was the residence of Bedent Baird before mentioned. At this
old house, just behind the present or recent residence of Zebulon Baird,
Bedent Baird lived and there his brother Zebulon Baird fell from his
horse and died.
On July 8, 1795, Governor Blount of the Territory south of the
River Ohio, now called Tennessee, submitted to the Council of that
territory "several papers respecting the opening of a wagon road from
Buncombe Courthouse in North Carolina to this Territory." The
Council appointed Messrs. Sevier and Taylor, with whom the House
associated Messrs. Wear, Cocke, Doherty and Taylor, to consider and

Asheville and Buncombe County 105
report upon this question. The committee reported recommending the
appointment of three Commissioners "to meet three Commissioners
from the State of South Carolina to deliberate and consult on measures
for the purpose of cutting and opening a road through the eastern
mountains, and report unto our next General Assembly the result of
their conference; and also the practicability and probable expense of
cutting and opening the said road the nearest and best route through
the mountains." The Warm Springs on the French Broad had been
discovered in 1778 by Henry Reynolds and Thomas Morgan, two men
kept out in advance of the settlement to watch the movements of the
Indians. They had followed some stolen horses to the point opposite,
and leaving their own horses on the north bank, waded across the river.
On the southern shore in passing through a little branch they were
surprised to find the water warm. "The next year," says Ramsey, "the
Warm Springs were resorted to by invalids."
James M. Edney, in his Sketches of Buncombe Men in Bennett's
Chronology of North Carolina, written in 1855, says: "Col. J. Barnett
settled on the French Broad seventy years ago and was the first man to
pilot or navigate wagons through Buncombe by putting the two big
wheels on the lower side, sometimes pulling, sometimes pushing, and
sometimes carrying the wagon at a charge of five dollars for work and
labor done."
The Bairds had carried up their four-wheel wagon across the
Saluda Gap in 1793. This Saluda Gap Road was opened by Colonel
Earle for the State of South Carolina, at the sum of four thousand
dollars. This is in all probability the old road from Columbia, South
Carolina, which passed through Newberry and Greenville districts,
crossing the Air Line at Greer's Station, as the place is now called, and
extending across the Saluda Gap by Asheville, down the French Broad
River into the State of Tennessee, and is yet known in northern South
Carolina as the old State Road or more commonly the old Buncombe
Road. There was already a road or trail coming from the direction of
South Carolina to Asheville, which passed the Swaimanoa at the Gum
Spring heretofore mentioned, and was known as the "road from
Augusta in Georgia to Knoxville." (Record Book 62, page 361.)
Wheeler says that "the first wagon passed from North Carolina
to Tennesse by the Warm Springs in 1795."

Chapter VIII
ASBURY'S VISITS
THIS was the situation of the town of Asheville when it became
a municipality in its relation to the outside world, and such
were its means of communication with other parts inhabited by
civilized man. In the year 1800, Bishop Francis Asbury began to
include the French Broad Valley in his annual visits throughout the
eastern part of the United States, which extended as far west as Ken
tucky and Tennessee. The following extracts from his "Journal" will
not be out of place just here :
On Thursday, November 6, 1800, and the following days, we find
this entry: "Thursday 6. Crossed Nolachucky at Querton's Ferry,
and came to Major Craggs, 18 miles. I next day pursued my joumey
and arrived at the Warm Springs, not however without an ugly
accident. After we had crossed the Small and Great Paint mountain,
and had passed about thirty yards beyond the Paint Rock, my roan
horse, lead by Mr. O'Haven, reeled and fell over, taking the chaise
with him; I was called back, when I beheld the poor beast and the
carriage bottottt up, lodged and wedged against a sapling, which alone
prevented them both being precipitated into the river. After a pretty
heavy lift all was righted again, and we were pleased to find there
was little damage done. Our feelings were excited more for others
than ourselves. Not far off we saw clothing spread out, part of the
loading of household furniture of a wagon which had overset and was
thrown into the stream, and bed clothes, bedding, &c., were so wet that
the poor people found it necessary to dry them on the spot. We
passed the side fords of French-Broad, and came to Mr. Nelson's;
our mountain march of twelve miles calmed us down for this day. My
company was not agreeable here — there were too many subjects of the
two great potentates of this western world — ^whisky, brandy. My mind
was greatly distressed.
"North Carolina. — Saturday 8, 1800. We started away. The
cold was severe upon the fingers. We crossed the ferry, curiously

Asheville and Buncombe County 107
contrived with a rope and poles, for half a mile along the banks of the
river, to guide the boat by. And O the rocks ! the rocks ! Coming to
Laurel-River, we followed the wagon ahead of us — the wagon stuck
fast. Brother O'H. mounted old grey — the horse fell about midway,
I'Ut recovered, rose, and went safely through with his burden. We
pursued our way rapidly to Ivey Creek, suffering much from heat and
the roughness of the roads, and stopped at William Hunter's.
"Sabbath day, 9. We came to Thomas Foster's and held a small
meeting at his house. We must bid farewell to the chaise ; this mode
of conveyance by no means suits the roads of this wilderness ; we were
obliged to keep one behind the carriage with a strap to hold by, and
prevent accidents almost continually. I have health and hard labor,
and a constant sense of the favor of God.
"Tobias Gibson had given notice to some of my being at Bun
comb courthouse, and the society at Killyon's, in consequence of this,
made an appointment for me on Tuesday, 11. We were strong])'
importuned to stay, which Brother Whatcoat felt inclined to do. In
the meantime we had our horses shod by Philip Smith ; this man, as is
not infrequently the case in this country, makes wagons and works at
carpentry, makes shoes for men and for horses; to which he adds, occa
sionally, the manufacture of saddles and hats.
"Monday, 10. Visited Squire Swains's agreeable family. On
Tuesday we attended our appointment. My foundation for a sermon
was Hebr. ii, 1 . We had about eighty hearers ; among them was Mr.
Newton, a Presbyterian minister, who made tlje concluding prayer.
We took up our joumey and came to Foster's upon Swansico
[Swannanoa] — company enough, and horses in a drove of thirty-three.
Here we met Francis Poythress — sick of Carolina, and in the clouds.
I, too, was sick. Next morning we rode to Fletcher's, on Mud Creek.
The people being unexpectedly gathered together, we gave them a
sermon and an exhortation. We lodged at Fletcher's.
"Thursday, 13. We crossed French Broad at Kim's Ferry, forded
Mills River, and made upwards through the barrens of Broad to David
son's, whose name names the stream. The aged mother and daughter
insisted upon giving notice for a meeting; in consequence thereof
Mr. Davis, the Presbyterian minister, and several others, came together.

108 Asheville and Buncombe County
Brother Whatcoat was taken with a bleeding at the nose, so that neces
sity was laid upon me to lecture: my subject was Luke xi, 13.
"Friday, 14. We took our leave of French Broad — the lands flat
and good, bu,t rather cold. I have had an opportunity of making a
tolerably correct survey of this river. It rises in the southwest, and
winds along in many meanders, fifty miles notheast, receiving a
number of tributary streams in its course; it then inclines westward,
passing through Buncomb in North Carolina, and Green and
Dandridge counties in Tennessee, in which last it is augmented by the
waters of Nolachucky. Four miles above Knoxville it forms a junction
with the Holston, and their united waters flow along under the name
of Tennessee, giving a name to the State. We had no small labor in-
getting down Saleuda mountain."
In October, 1801, we find this entry:
"Monday, October 5. We parted in great love; our company
made twelve miles to Isaiah Harrison's, and next day reached the
Warm Springs upon French Broad-River.
"Wednesday, 7. We made a push from Buncomb courthouse;
man and beast felt the mighty hills. I shall calculate from Baker's to
this place one hundred and twenty miles; from Philadelphia, eight
hundred and twenty miles.
"Friday, 9. Yesterday and today we rest at George Swain's.
"Sabbath day, 11. Yesterday and today held quarterly meeting
at Daniel Killions's, near Buncomb courthouse. I spoke from Isai.
vii, 6, 7 and I Cor. vii, 1. We had some quickenings.
"Monday, 12. We came to Murroughs, upon Mud Creek; here
we had a sermon from N. Snethen on Acts xiv, IS. Myself and James
Douthat gave an exhortation. We had very warm weather and a long
ride. At Major Britain's, near the mouth of Mills River, we found a
lodging. "Tuesday, 13. We came in haste up to elder Davidson's, re
freshed man and beast, commended the family to God, and then struck
into the mountain. The want of sleep, and other inconveniences, made
me unwell. We came down Seleuda River, near Seleuda Mountain;
it tried my lame feet and old feeble joints, French Broad, in its

Asheville and Buncombe County 109
meanderings, is nearly two hundred miles long; the line of its course
is semi-circular; its waters are pure, rapid, and its bed generally rocky;
except the Blue Ridge; it passes through all the western mountains."
Again in November, 1802, we find this entry:
"Wednesday, 3. We labored over the Ridge and the Paint Moun
tain; I held on awhile, but grew afraid and dismounted, and with the
help of a pine sapling, worked my way down the steepest and roughest
part. I could bless God for life and limbs. Eighteen miles this day
contented us; and we stopped at William Nelson's, Warm Springs.
About thirty travellers having dropped in I expounded the Scriptures
to them, as found in the third chapter of Romans, as equally applicable
to nominal Christians, Indians, Jews and Gentiles.
"Thursday, 4. We came off about the rising of the sun — cold
enough. There were six or seven heights to pass over, at the rate of
five, two or one mile an hour — as this ascent or descent would permit;
four hours brought us to the end of twelve miles to dinner, at Bamett's
station; whence we pushed on to John [Thomas] Foster's, and after
making twenty miles more, came in about the going down of the sun.
On Friday and Saturday we visited from house to house.
"Sunday, 7. We had preaching at Killon's. William and
M'Kendree went forward upon 'As many as are lead by the Spirit of
God, they are the sons of God'; my subject was Hebr. iii, 12, 13. On
Monday I parted from dear William M'Kendree. I made for Mr.
Fletcher's, upon Mud Creek; he received me with great attention, and
the kind offer of everything in the house necessary for the comfort of
man and beast. We could not be prevailed on to tarry for the night,
so we set off after dinner and he accompanied us several miles We
housed for the night at the widow Johnson's. I was happy to find that
in the space of two years, God had manifested his goodness and his
power in the hearts of many upon the solitary banks and isolated
glades of French Broad; some subjects of grace there were before,
amongst Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists. On Tuesday I dined
at Benjamin Davidson's, a house I had lodged and preached at two
years ago. We labored along eighteen mountain miles; eight ascent,
on the west side, and as many on the east side of the mountain. The

110 Asheville and Buncombe County
descent of Seleuda exceeds all I know, from the Province of Maine to
Kentucky and Cumberland; I had dreaded it, fearing I should not
be able to walk or ride such steeps; nevertheless, with time, patience,
labor, two sticks and, above all, a good Providence, I came in about
five o'clock to ancient father John Douthat's, Greenville County, South
Carolina." On October, 1803, we meet with this entry:
"North Carolina. On Monday, we came off in earnest; refreshed
at Isaiah Harrison's, and continued on to the Paint mountain, passing
the gap newly made, which makes the road down to Paint Creek much
better. I lodged with Mr. Nelson, who treated me like a minister, a
Christian, and a gentleman.
"Tuesday, 25. We reached Buncombe. The road is greatly
mended by changing the direction, and throwing a bridge over Ivy.
"Wednesday, 26. We called a meeting at Killion's, and a
gracious season it was: my subject was I Cor. xv, 38. Sister Killion
and Sister Smith, sisters in the flesh, and kindred spirits in holiness
and humble obedience, are both gone to their reward in glory. On
Thursday we came away in haste, crossing Swamoat [Swannanoa] at
T. Foster's, the French Broad at the High [Long] Shoals, and after
ward again at Beard's Bridge, and put up for the night at Andrew
Mitchell's; in our route we passed two large encamping places of the
Methodists and Presbyterians : it made the country look like the Holy
Land. "Friday, 28. We came up Little River, a sister stream of French
Broad: it offered some beautiful flats of land. We found a new road,
lately cut, which brought us in at the head of Little River at the old
fording place, and within hearing of the falls, a few miles off of the
head of Matthews Creek, a branch of the Seleuda The waters foaming
down the rocks with a descent of half a mile, make themselves heard
at a great distance. I walked down the mountain after riding sixteen
or eighteen miles, before breakfast, and came in about twelve o'clock to
father John Douthat's; once more I have escaped from filth, fleas,
rattlesnakes, hills, mountains, rocks, and rivers; farewell, western
world — for a while!"

Asheville and Buncombe County 111
Again in October, 1805, we find the following entry:
"North Carolina. We came into North Carolina, and lodged with
William Nelson, at the Hot Springs. Next day we stopped with
Wilson in Buncombe. On Wednesday I breakfasted with Mr. Newton,
Presbyterian minister, a man after my own mind: we took sweet
counsel together. We lodged this evening at Mr. Fletcher's, Mud
Creek. At Colonel Thomas's, on Thursday, we were kindly received
and hospitably entertained."
Again in September, 1806, we find the following entry:
"Wednesday, 23 (24). We came to Buncombe; we were lost
within a mile of M'Killon's [Killians] , and were happy to get a school
house to shelter us for the night. I had no fire, but a bed wherever
I could find a bench; my aid, Moses Lawrence, had a bear skin, and
a dirt floor to spread it on.
"Friday, 25 (26). My affliction returned: — considering the food,
the labor, the lodging, the hardships I meet with and endure, it is not
wonderful. Thanks be to God! we had a generous rain — may it be
general through the continent !
"Saturday, 27. I rode twelve miles to Turkey Creek, to a kind
of camp meeting. On the Sabbath I preached to about five hundred
souls; it was an open season, and a few souls professed converting
grace. "Monday, 27 (29). Raining. We had dry weather during the
ineeting. There were eleven sermons, and many exhortations. At noon
it cleared up, and gave us an opportunity of riding home: my mind
enjoyed peace, but my body felt the effect of riding. On Tuesday I
went to a school house to preach : I rode through Swanino River, and
Cane and Hoppers [Hooper's] Creeks.
"North Carolina, Wednesday, Oct. 1. I preached at Samuel
Edney's. Next day we had to cope with Little and Great Hunger
mountain. Now I know what Mills Gap is, between Buncombe and
Rutherford : one of the descents is like the roof of a house, for nearly
a mile: I rode, I walked, I sweat, I trembled, and my old knees

112 Asheville and Buncombe County
failed; here are gullies and rocks, and precipices; nevertheless the
way is as good as the path over the Table Mountain — bad is the best.
We came upon Green River."
Again on October, 1807, we find the following entry:
"Friday, 15 (16). We reached Wampings [Warm Springs]. I
suffered much today; but an hour's warm bath for my feet relieved me
considerably. On Saturday we rode to Killon's.
"North Carolina — Sabbath, 18. At Buncombe courthouse I spoke
from 2 Kings vii, 13, 14, 15. The people were all attention. I spent
a night under the roof of my very dear brother in Christ, George
Newton, a Presbyterian minister, an Israelite indeed. On Monday
we made Fletcher's; next day dined at Terry's, and lodged at
Edwards's. Saluda ferry brought us up on Wednesday evening."
Again on October, 1808, we find the following entry:
"On Tuesday we rode twenty miles to the Warm Springs; and
next day reached Buncombe, thirty-two miles. The right way to im
prove a short day is to stop only to feed the horses, and let the riders
meanwhile take a bite of what they have been provident enough to put
into their pocket. It has been a serious October to me. I have labored
and suffered; but I have lived hear to God.
"North Carolina — Saturday, 29. We rested for three days past.
We fell in with Jesse Richardson : he could not bear to see the fields
of Buncombe deserted by militia men, who fire a shot and fly, and
wheel and fire, and run again; he is a veteran who has learned to
'endure hardness like a good soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ.' On
the Sunday I preached in Buncombe courthouse upon I Thess. i, 7-10,
1 lodged with a chief man, a Mr. Irwin. Henry Boehm went to
Pigeon-Creek to preach to the Dutch."
In October, 1809, we find:
"We crossed the French Broad and fed our horses at the gate of
Mr. Wootenpile [Hoodenpile] ; he would accept no pay but prayer;
as I had never called before he may have thought me too proud to
stop. Our way now lay over dreadful roads. I found old Mr. Barnett
sick: the case was a desperate one, and I gave him a grain of tartar

Asheville and Buncombe County 113
and a few composing drops, which procured him a sound sleep. The
patient was very thankful, and would charge us nothing. Here are
martyrs to whiskey. I delivered my own soul.- Saturday brought us to
Killion's. Eight times within nine years I have crossed these Alps. If
my journal is transcribed it will be as well to give the subject as the
chapter and verse of the text I preached from. Nothing like a sermon
can I record. Here now am I, and have been for twenty nights,
crowded by people ; and the whole family striving to get round me.
"Sabbath, 20 (29). At Buncombe I spoke on Luke xiv, 10. It
was a season of attention and feeling. We dined with Mr. Erwine and
lodged with James Patton; how rich, how plain, how humble, and how
kind! There was a sudden change in the weather on Monday; we
went as far as D. Jay's. Tuesday, we moved in haste to Mud Creek,
Green River Cove, on the other side of Saluda."
Again in December, 1810, we find the following entry:
"At Catahouche [Catalouche], I walked over a log. But O, the
mountain — height after height, and five miles over! After crossing
other streams, and losing ourselves in the woods, we came in, about
nine o'clock at night, to Vater Shuck's. What an awful day! Satur
day, December 1. Last night I was strongly afflicted with pain. We
rode twenty-five miles to Buncombe.
"North Carolina — Sabbath, 2. Bishop M'Kendree and John
M'Gee rose at five o'clock and left us to fill an appointment about
twenty-five miles off. Myself and Henry Boehm went to Newton's
Academy, where I preached. Brother Boehm spoke after me; and
Mr. Newton, in exhortation confirmed what was said. Had I known
and studied my congregation for a year, I could not have spoken more
appropriately to their particular cases ; this I learned from those who
knew them well. We dined with Mr. Newton : he is almost a Metho
dist, and reminds me of dear Whatcoat — the same placidness and
solemnity. We visited James Patton ; this is, perhaps, the last visit to
Buncombe. "Monday. It was my province today to speak faithfully to a cer
tain person. May she feel the force of, and profit by the truth."

114 Asheville and Buncombe County
Again in December, 1812, we meet with the following entry:
"Monday, December 1 (November 30). We stopped at Michael
Bollen's on our route, where I gave them a discourse on Luke xi, 11,
12, 13. Why should we climb over the desperate Spring and Paint
Mountains when there is such a fine new road? We came on Tuesday
a straight course to Barret's [Bamett's] , dining in the woods on our
way. "North Carolina — Wednesday, December 3 (2). We went over
the mountain, 22 miles, to Killon's.
"Thursday, 4 (3). Came on through Buncombe to Samuel
Edney's: I preached in the evening. We have had plenty of rain
lately. Friday, I rest. Occupied in reading and writing. I have
great communion with God. I preached at Father Mills's."
Again in October, 1813, we meet with this entry:
"Sabbath, 24. I preached in great weakness. I am at Killion's
once more. Our ride of ninety miles to Staunton bridge on Saluda
river was severely felt, and the necessity of lodging at taverns made it
no better. Friday, 29. On the peaceful banks of the Saluda I write my
valedictory address to the presiding elders."
Killian's, so often mentioned with different spellings in fhe fore
going extracts, was the residence of late Capt. I. V. Baird on
Beaverdam. The side-fords of the river, talked of above, were places where in
the construction of the road down the river bank the builders en
countered places at which the stream washes the foot of large
precipices, usually the ends of mountain spurs. In order to pass such
places the road was made to pass in the bed of the river until the
precipice no longer obstructed the way. Rarely were such places of the
road running in the water longer than an eighth of a mile. They were
called side-fords and the road was, of course, impassable when there
was a flood in the stream. Afterwards, when the recourses of the road
builders were greater, a stone wall was extended in the river distant the
width of the road from the precipice and the space between the wall
and the precipice filled with stone and covered with earth. Later still

Asheville and Buncombe County 115
a way was dug and blasted through the precipice. Side-fords were
very poor expedients for passing bluffs, but better than none and in
some regions have been used until within the last quarter of a century.
The Thomas Foster mentioned several times by Bishop Asbury
was the Captain Thomas Foster spoken of above. He was not a
Methodist but a Universalist.
Francis Asbury, just quoted, was the son of some of the earliest
followers of John Wesley and was born in Handsworth, Staffordshire,
England, August 20, 1745. He became a Methodist at thirteen, a local
preacher at sixteen, and a regular preacher at twenty-two in 1767.
In 1771 John Wesley sent him to America. On October 27, 1771, he
landed at Philadelphia. Next year he was made "general assistant
in America" and in 1784 bishop. He began then his annual journev?
of about 6000 miles each from Maine to South Carolina. He died in
Spottsylvania, Virginia, March 21, 1816. His Journals were pub
lished in 1821 and again in 1852.
At the close of the Revolutionary War some of the States owned
large portions of unoccupied territory extending westward to the
Mississippi River. Those States who owned no such territory were
exceedingly insistent that this wild territory should be given to the
general government and sold to defray unpaid expenses incurred by
that government during the war. Most of the States owning such
territory made such gifts. The gift of South Carolina was of the land
to the westward of her present borders unto the Mississippi River and
lying between Georgia and the thirty-fifth parallel of northern latitude
which was, by common recognition, the southem boundary in that
region of North Carolina; and the gift was made in 1787. Georgia
refused to donate her western lands, which now constitute the States
of Alabama and Mississippi. A controversy arose out of this, which
was finally adjusted in 1802 when Georgia ceded these lands on certain
terms, one of which was that the United States convey to her so much
of. this South Carolina cession as lay between her northern border
and this thirty-fifth parallel of latitude. After this conveyance from
the United States, Georgia established on this newly acquired territory
a county called Walton and began a settlement there. She had sent an
engineer to locate there the parallel of latitude mentioned and he had

1 1 6 Asheville and Buncombe County
reported that it would cross the French Broad River north of Mills's
River somewhere. On much of this land North Carolina had issued
grants to people who had settled there. As it was known that North
Carolina claimed that the thirty-fifth parallel lay further south.
Georgia, in her act creating Walton County, appointed three commis
sioners to meet a like number from North Carolina and determine the
position of the parallel. North Carolina, having received official
notice of Georgia's action, appointed a like number of commissioners.
The two sets of commissioners, each accompanied by a mathematician,
met at Asheville on or about June 20, 1807, and entered upon a pre
liminary agreement in writing. Then they proceeded up French Broad
River on their task. Observations where the Georgia engineer had
located the parallel showed him to have been too far north. Another
observation fifteen miles further south, where South Carolina had sup
posed the line to cross, between the mouths of Little River and David
son's River, proved to be still too far north. Then the commissioners
went to Caesar's Head and made further observations. They were
still too far north. Further work was unnecessary. South Carolina
had never owned one inch of the territory which she had ceded to the
United States and Georgia had no land for her County of Walton.
The commissioners agreed in writng on their reports. North Carolina
adopted the report and it was spread upon the minutes of Buncombe
County Court. Georgia rejected the report and boldly demanded of
North Carolina the appointment of a new set of commissioners. To
this the answer of the latter was that the matter was settled and if
Georgia violated her faith in regard to one commission she might do so
equally in regard to another. Then Georgia carried the matter to the
Congress of the United States where, after three years, it died. Finally
Georgia, having ascertained that the report of the commissioners was
correct, repealed her act creating the County of Walton, and amnesty
was extended for all offences committed in this dispute by settlers, of
which there had been riots and some bloodshed, especially on the
French Broad River, a mile or two below the present Brevard, where
a Georgia settlement had been made and the North Carolina militia
had arrested the settlers and carried them to Morganton. The
"Georgia War" was over.

Chapter IX
ROADS AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS
IN 1824 Asheville received her greatest impetus. In that year the
Legislature of North Carolina incorporated the now famous but
abandoned Buncombe Turnpike road, directing James Patton,
Samuel Chunn and George Swain to receive subscriptions "for the
purpose of laying out and making a turnpike road from the Saluda
Gap, in the County of Buncombe, by way of Smith's, Murrayville,
Asheville and the Warm Springs, to the Tennessee line.'' (2 Rev. Stat.
of N. C, page 418.) This great thoroughfare was completed in 1828,
and brought a stream of travel through Western North Carolina. All
the attacks upon the legality of the act establishing it were overruled by
the Supreme Court of the State, and Western North Carolina entered
through it upon a career of marvellous prosperity, which continued for
many years.
In 1851, January ISth, the Legislature of the State of North
Carolina incorporated the "Asheville & Greenville Plank Road Com
pany" with authority to that company to occupy and use this turnpike
road south of Asheville upon certain prescribed terms. A plank road
was constructed over the southern portion of it, or the greater part of it
south of Asheville, and contributed yet more to Asheville's prosperity.
By the conclusion of the late war, however, this plank road had gone
down, and in 1866 the charter of the plank road company was
repealed, while the old Buncombe turnpike was suffered to fall into
neglect. When Thomas Foster built his bridge across the Swannanoa early
in the last century, he constructed a road from a point on the hill about
opposite to the Newton Academy near the entrance to the Perry place
to his bridge, and thence by his house and up to the southwest so as to
join the old road that ran from the Gum Spring at or near the Steam
Saw Mill place above mentioned. By this time large numbers of hogs,
cattle and horses had begun to be driven from Kentucky and Tennessee
by way of Asheville into South Carolina and Georgia, and there was

118 Asheville and Buncombe County
great profit in buying up the large quantities of corn, then raised in
this county, and feeding it to this stock. Col. John Patton soon after
opened a road from the southern limits of Asheville through the
grounds of the Normal and Collegiate Institute, to the west of that
building, and immediately in front of the Oakland Heights building,
and on by way of the entrance of Femihurst to his place beyond the
Swannanoa, and thence to the old road which ran by the Gum Spring,
at a point about a mile further on. The rivalry between him and
Thomas Foster in the business of feeding stock upon their two several
roads now became fierce, though not unfriendly. When the Buncombe
Turnpike road was built, the route adopted was the road by Col. John
Patton's, but when afterward the Plank Road took its place it was
constructed so as to pass Swannanoa between these two roads at the
site of the present Biltmore concrete bridge two miles beyond Asheville.
At this point a wooden bridge was built which was removed, in 1883,
to give way to an iron structure, and later a concrete bridge was built
there. From the time of the building of the Buncombe Turnpike road,
Asheville began to be a health resort and summering place for the
South Carolinians, who have ever since patronized it as such.
THE COURT HOUSES
When the court ceased to meet at Colonel William Davidson's; it
adjourned to meet at Morristown at its next session. Here, accord
ingly, on the third Monday of July, 1793, it met "at the court house."
Where this court house stood cannot now be positively determined.
It is almost certain, however, that it was in the centre of Main Street
upon he Public Square, at the head of Patton Avenue. On the old plat
first hereinbefore shown, which was also preserved by the late
Nehemiah Blackstock and by him given to the late Capt. R. B.
Johnston, and which shows upon its face that it was made before the
sale of the additional lots by Zebulon Baird, contemplated in the first
act of the incorporation of the town, the court house is so placed, and
there is no record of it ever having been elsewhere, and we know it
stood there in 1802. As the adjoining lots were then unimproved, the

Asheville and Buncombe County 119
position of this court house in the middle of the street was in no way
inconvenient to travel, since one might ride or drive around it at
pleasure. In January, 1796, it was
"Ordered by the court that Lambert Clayton, John Hawkins and
Richard Williamson be appointed commissioners to lay off the plan of
the public buildings."
This, however, most probably had reference to the jail and build
ings other than the court house.
In April, 1802, the following action was taken by the court:
"Ordered by Court that all the lot holders near or adjoining the
Court house, be requested to meet the court on Wednesday of July
session next, in pursuance of the following presentment of the grand
jury, to-wit:
"The grand Jury for the County of Buncombe at April Session,
1802, present as a public grievance the situation of the public build
ings, to-wit, the Court house and Jail, the former of which being 35 feet
long, stands partly on the Town street, and partly on the lot of Samuel
Chunn and Zebulon Baird, and the latter on the lots of James Brittain
and Andrew Erwin, so that the County, after expending a very con
siderable sum of money in executing said Buildings, have not the
slightest title to the ground on which they stand.
"The jury therefore recommend that the Court take measures to
secure the aforesaid titles, and procure as (a) square of land around
those buildings sufficient to preserve them from the fire of adjacent
Buildings or remove them to some more eligible spot.
"(Signed) William Whitson, Foreman."
The land of Samuel Chunn and Zebulon Baird here referred to
was that part of the Public Square immediately in front of the Thomas
building on the western side of the Public Square and southern side of
Patton Avenue at the comer, and the land of James Brittain and
Andrew Erwin spoken of was that part of the Public Square in front
of the First National Bank, now Asheville Library, building, and a
little to the north.

120 Asheville and Buncombe County
In April, 1805, the county court took further action on this subject
as follows: "Ordered by court John Strother, John Stephenson, Samuel
Murray, senr., Joseph Henry & Thomas Foster, senr. be appointed
commissioners for the purpose of procuring a public square, from the
lot, or land holders, in the town of Asheville, most convenient and
interesting to the public, and least injurious to individuals, that the
nature of the Case will admit of.
"Who are to meet the 2d Saturday of July."
On January 23, 1807, deeds were made to "the Commissioners
Samuel Murray, senr., Thomas Foster, Jacob Byler, Thomas Love and
James Brittain appointed by the General Assembly of the State afore
said, to purchase or receive by donation lands sufficient for a Public
Square in the Town of Asheville, in the County and State aforesaid,"
as follows: By D. Vance, for $10, part of lot 30, Rec. Book A, page 231.
By John Patton, for $20, part of lot 13, Rec. Book A, page 233.
By Zebulon and Bedent Baird, for $60, parts of lots 13 & 40,
Rec. Book A, page 234.
By Samuel Chunn, for $35, part of lots 13 & 39, Rec. Book A,
page 237.
By Andrew Erwin (Assignee of Jeremiah Cleveland), for 1 cent,
part of lot 12, Rec. Book A, page 239.
By J. Patton, Jr., for Patton and Erwin part of lot 14, 15 & 29,
Rec. Book A, page 523.
This last deed is made "for the good will and respect we bear
towards the county of Buncombe, the town of Asheville aforesaid and
the public in general."
The situations of these lots can readily be determined by reference
to the map of the town heretofore given.
In April, 1807, it was
"Ordered by Court that the County Trustee pay Robt. Love the
sum of one pound for Registering five deeds made by individuals for
the use of the public square in Asheville."
What is here said about the court house renders it exceedingly
probable that it was not the original log structure but a more com-

'''.^^v rsi^ " v^^*'':^^

Asheville, 1854— Drawn by C. H. G. F. Loehr, published as lithograph by Tames M. Edney and later as steel
engraving in H. Colton's Mountain Scenery. Court House, 1850-1865. First Methodist Church, First Pres-
¦ byterian Church and First Episcopal Church on Church Street

122 Asheville and Buncombe County
modious building. Later it was itself supplanted by a brick house
built between 1825 and 1833 and situated a little further east on the
Public Square. On the erection of this John Woodfin, once chairman
of the County Court at a later day, had control, and his son, the late
N. W. Woodfin, then a boy, carried bricks and mortar for it. This
court house gave way to a handsome building which was erected in
1850 by E. Clayton and destroyed by fire on the 26th day of January,
1865. Some years later a small one-story brick structure was erected
as a court house upon the rear portion of the site of the present PubUc
Square. The contractor for this work was the late B. H. Merrimon.
In 1876 this temporary structure gave way to another court house
which stood for years on that Square. The architect of this building
was J. A. Tennent and the contractor H. W. Scott, and the bricks were
made at the eastern end of the present Clayton Street. Then Mr.
George W. Pack gave the county upon certain conditions a site for a
court house not on the Public Square but on the south side of College
Street, and on this site the county, about 1903, placed the present brick
court house.
The jail mentioned above was succeeded by a brick building
which now constitutes a part of the Asheville Library and the First
National Bank building. Afterward a new jail was erected upon the
site of the present City Hall, but when the present jail on Eagle Street
was built, this old jail became the property of the city of Asheville.
The first jail was a very poor structure. From 1799 to 1811,
inclusive, every sheriff of the county annually entered his protest to the
court against its insufficiency.
In 1867 the county began to sell off portions of its Public Square
on the north and south sides, and reduceH the Public Square to its
present dimensions.
LAWYERS
At its first session in April, 1792, the 'County Court elected Reuben
Wood, Esq. "attorney for the State." He is the first lawyer whose
name appears as practising in Buncombe County. Waighstill Avery,
the first Attorney General of North Carolina, attended the next session
of the court and made therein his first motion, which "was overruled

Asheville and Buncombe County

U3

124 Asheville and Buncombe County
by the court." At this term Wallace Alexander also became a member
of the Buncombe bar. Joseph McDowell appeared at October term,
1793, presented his license, took "the oath of an attorney, and was
admitted to the bar in said county.'' On the next day James Holland
"came into court, made it appear (by) Mr. Avery and Mr. Wood, that
he has a license to practise as an attorney — but had forgot them." He,
too, was admitted as an attorney of the court. At January court, 1794,
Joseph Spencer proved to the court that he had license to practise,
and was likewise admitted as an attorney of the court, and at April,
1795, upon the resignation of Reuben Wood, he was elected solicitor
of the county. The next attorney admitted was Bennett Smith. Upon
motion of Wallace .Alexander in April, 1802, Robert Williamson was
admitted to the practice. Then in July, 1802, on motion of Joseph
Spencer, and the production of his county court license, Robert Henry,
Esq., became an attorney of the court. This singular, versatile and
able man has left his impress upon Buncombe County and Western
North Carolina. Born in Tryon (afterward Lincoln) County, North
Carolina, on February 10, 1765, in a rail pen, he was the son of
Thomas Henry, an emigrant from the north of Ireland. When Robert
was a school boy he fought on the American side at Kings Mountain,
and was badly wounded in the hand by a bayonet thrust. Later he
was in the heat of the fight at Cowan's Ford, and was very near
General William Davidson when the latter was killed. After the war
he removed to Buncombe County and on the Swannanoa taught the
first school ever held in that county. He then became a surveyor, and
after a long and extensive experience, in which he surveyed many of
the large grants in all the counties of Western North Carolina, and
even in Middle Tennesse, and participated in 1799, as such, in locating
and marking the line between the State of North Carolina and the State
of Tennessee, he turned his jittention to the study of law. In January,
1806, he was made solicitor of Buncombe County. He it was who
opened up and for years conducted as a public resort the Sulphur
Springs, near Asheville, later known as Deaver's Spring and still more
recently as Carriers' Springs. On January 6, 1863, he died in Clay
County, North Carolina, at the age of 98 years, and was "undoubtedly
the last of the heroes of King's Mountain." To him we are indebted

Asheville and Buncombe County 125
for the preservation and, in part, authorship of the most graphic and
detailed accounts of the fights at Kings Mountain and Cowan's Ford
which now exist. He was the first resident lawyer of Buncombe
County. The late John P. Arthur, author of the History of Western North
Carolina and the History of Watauga County, was a grandson of
Robert Henry.
The next lawyers admitted in that county were, in the order
in which their names are given, Thomas Barren, Israel Pickens,
Joseph Wilson, Joseph Carson, Robert H. Burton, Henry Harrison,
Saunders Donoho, John C. Elliott, Henry Y. Webb, Tench Cox, Jr.,
A. R. Ruffin and John Paxton. These were admitted between January,
1804, and October, 1812, from time to time. Probably the most dis
tinguished of them were Israel Pickens, representative of the Buncombe
District in the lower house of the Congress of the United States from
1811 to 1817, inclusive, and afterwards governor of Alabama and
United States Senator from that State; Joseph Wilson, afterward
famous as a solicitor in convicting Abe Collins, Sr., and other counter
feiters who carried on in Rutherford County in the first quarter of the
last century extensive operations in the manufacture and circulation of
counterfeit money; and Robert H. Burton and John Paxton, who
became judges of the Superior Court of North Carolina in 1818.
The first lawyer of Buncombe County who was a native thereof
was the late Governor D. L. Swain. Born, as has been already stated,
at the head of Beaverdam, on January 4, 1801, he was educated under
George Newton and Mr. Porter at Newton Academy, where he had for
classmates B. F. Perry, afterward governor of South Carolina ; Waddy
Thompson, of South Carolina, distinguished as congressman and
minister to Mexico; and M. Patton, R. B. Vance and James W. Patton
of Buncombe County. In 1821 he was for a short while at the Uni
versity of North Carolina. In December, 1823, he was licensed to
practise law and was elected to the North Carolina House of Commons
in 1824, 1825 and 1826, and in 1827 was made solicitor of the
Edenton Circuit, but resigned this latter office after going aroimd one
circuit. In 1828 and 1829 he was again in the House of Commons

126 Asheville and Buncombe County
from Buncombe County; in 1830 he became a judge of the Superior
Court of North Carolina; and resigned that office in 1832 on being
elected governor of that State.
After the expiration of three successive terms as governor, he
became president of the University of North Carolina in 1835, and con
tinued in that place until August 27, 1868, the time of his death. He
was largely instrumental in securing the passage of the act incor
porating the Buncombe Turnpike company, and to him more than any
other man North Carolina is indebted for the preservation of parts of
her history and the defence of her fame. His early practice as a lawyer
was begun in Asheville. For further details than are given here in
regard to the life of this truly great man, the reader is referred to
Wheeler's History of North Carolina, and his Reminiscences, and to
the more accurate lecture of the late Governor Z. B. Vance on the
Life and Character of Hon. David L. Swain.
Governor Swain was tall and ungainly in figure and awkward in
manner. When he was elected judge the candidate of the opposing
party was Judge Seawell, a very popular man, whom up to that time
his opponents, after repeated efforts with different aspirants, had
found it impossible to defeat. "Then," said a member of the Legis
lature from Iredell County, "we took up old warping bars from
Buncombe and warped him out." From this remark Mr. Swain ac-
C|uired the nickname of "Old Warping Bars," a not inapt appellation,
which stuck to him until he became president of the University when
the students bestowed upon him the name of "Old Bunk." He con
tinued to be "Old Bunk" all the rest of his life. While he was prac
tising at the bar the lawyers rode the circuits. Beginning at the first
term of the court in which they practised, they followed the courts
through all the counties of that circuit. Among Swain's fellow lawyers
on the Western Circuit were James R. Dodge, afterwards clerk of the
Supreme Court of the State and a nephew of Washington Irving,
Samuel Hillman and Thomas Dewes. On one occasion these were all
present at the court in one of the western counties and Dodge was
making a speech to the jury. Swain had somewhere seen a punning
epitaph on a man whose name was Dodge. This he wrote off on a

Asheville and Buncombe County 127
piece of paper and it passed around among the lawyers, creating mach
merriment at Dodge's expense. After the latter took his seat some one
handed it to him. It read :
"Epitaph on James R. Dodge, Attorney at Law
Here lies a Dodge who dodged all good,
And dodged a deal of evil ;
But after dodging all he could.
He could not dodge the devil."
Mr. Dodge perceived immediately that it was Swain's writing,
and supposed that Hillman and Dewes had had something to do with
it. He at once wrote on the back of the piece of paper this impromptu
reply: "Another Epitaph on Three Attorneys
Here lie a Hillman and a Swain,
Their lot no man choose;
They lived in sin and died in pain,
And the devil got his Dewes."
While Mr. Swain was Governor, Mrs. Silvers of Burke County,
a white woman, was hanged for the murder of her husband. She was
the only white woman, and, with the exception of one negro, the only
woman ever hanged in North Carolina after it became a State.
David L. Swain, as Governor of the State, laid, in 1833, the
corner stone of the State capitol.
Joshua Roberts was of Welsh extraction and was the son of John
and Sarah Roberts. He was born February 5, 1795, near Shelby in
Cleveland County, North Carolina. He was for a time a clerk in a
store and while so acting studied law. On November 18, 1822, having
commenced to practise law at Asheville, North Carolina, he married
Lucinda Patton, daughter of Colonel John Patton, and, soon after,
settled at Franklin in Macon County of that State where for some
years he practised law. In 1830 he returned to Asheville and built a
home near the Indian graves on Buchanan Hill. Later he took up his
residence on a farm where is now the passenger station of the Southem
Railway Company. His house there is still standing. There he died

128 Asheville and Buncombe County
on November 21, 1865. He was for three terms clerk of the Superior
Court of Buncombe County and for one term that county's register of
deeds. In company with John Christy he established the Highland
Messenger, the first newspaper in Western North Carolina and the
ancestor of The Asheville Citizen. For some of these facts of his life
I am indebted to his grandson, Mr. William R. Whitson, of Asheville.
Joshua Roberts caused to be built as his residence the first house
erected in the town of Franklin, Macon County, North Carolina.
Thomas Lanier Clingman was partly of Indian descent. He was
born at Huntsville, North Carolina, July 27_, 1812. Graduating at
the University of North Carolina in 1832, he began to practise law in
Surry County of this State which in 1835 he represented in the House
of Commons. In 1836 he removed to Asheville and there practised
law, serving several times in the legislature from Buncombe County
and becoming in 1843 and, except in the 29th congress, continuing
until June 4, 1858, the member from that district of the United States
House of Representatives. In 1858 he became a United States Senator
from North Carolina and held that place until January 21, 1861, when
he resigned on the secession of his State. He joined the Confederate
army and became a colonel and, on May 17, 1862, a brigadier-general,
being wounded at the second battle of Cold Harbor and more seriously
near Petersburg, Virginia. While a member of the United States House
of Representatives he fought in Maryland near Washington City, in
1845, a duel with Hon. William L. Yancey of Alabama but neither
was injured. In 1855 he measured the altitude of a peak of the Black
Mountains in Yancey County which is now known as Mitchell's Peak,
the highest land in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains.
Dr. Elisha Mitchell claimed to have measured that peak in 1844. A
controversy between them on the subject caused Dr. Mitchell's attempt
to prove the measurement which he claimed and in attempting to secure
the proof of his claim he lost his life by falling into a stream on the
Black Mountain, June 27, 1857. Clingman measured, in 1858, the
highest peak of the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina, which is
called in honor of him, Clingman's Dome.
Zebulon B. Vance was the son of David Vance and Mira (Baird)
Vance and was born at Vanceville on Reems Creek in Buncombe

Asheville and Buncombe County 129
County, North Carolina, May 13, 1830. He attended school at Newton
Academy and at the University of North Carolina and, in May, 1852,
began the practice of law in Asheville. He was in 1854 a member of
the North Carolina House of Commons and in 1856 and 1860 he
became the representative of Western North Carolina in the United
States House of Representatives. He joined the Confederate army.
In 1862 he became Governor of North Carolina and continued to be
such until the end of the war. In 1876 he again was made Governor
of that State and in 1879 became United States Senator from North
Carolina. This position he held until his death on April 14, 1894.
He was buried in Asheville. Two monuments in North Carolina have
been erected to his memory, a granite shaft on the Public Square in
Asheville and a bronze statue on the Capitol Square in Raleigh.
Robert Brank Vance, a brother of Zebulon B. Vance and son of
David Vance and Mira M. (Baird) Vance, was born at Vanceville,
Reems Creek, Buncombe County, April 24, 1828, and attended school
at Newton Academy. He joined the Confederate army and became
a captain, then a colonel and finally a brigadier-general. In 1872 he
became a member from the Western North Carolina district of the
United States House of Representatives and continued to hold that
place until in 1884. Later he was a member from Buncombe County
of the North Carolina House of Representatives. He died at
Alexander in Buncombe County, on November 28, 1899.
Allen Turner Davidson, another grandson of Colonel David
Vance, and a grandson of Major William Davidson, who was one of
the first settlers in Buncombe County and lived at the mouth of Bee
Tree Creek, was the son of William Mitchell Davidson and was born
on Jonathan's Creek in Haywood County, North Carolina, May 9,
1819. Clerking for a time at the store of his father in Wa3mesville,
in 1843 he became Clerk and Master in Equity of Haywood County
and began the practice of law on January 1, 1845. He removed to
Murphy in Cherokee County of the same State where for about twelve
years he engaged in an extensive practice as a lawyer and was par
ticularly distinguished as an advocate in criminal law. He was
solicitor of that county and in April, 1860, was made president of the
Miners and Planters Bank of Murphy. In 1861 he was a member

130 Asheville and Buncombe County
of the North Carolina Secession Convention and a delegate therefrom
to the Confederate Provisional Government. And in 1862 he became
a member of the House of Representatives of the Confederate States.
He removed to Franklin, Macon County, in 1865, and to Asheville in
1869, where he died. Before he was twenty-one years old he was a
colonel in the militia of Haywood County. His death was on January
24, 1905. Augustus S. Merrimon was bom in Transylvania County, North
Carolina, September 15, 1830, the son of B. H. Merrimon. In 1855
he began to practise law at Asheville and later was elected a member
of the North Carolina House of Commons. And in 1865 he became
a judge of the Superior Court. He was made, in 1873, United States
Senator from North Carolina, serving as such for one term, and, on
September 29, 1883, an associate justice of the Supreme Court of
North Carolina, and, on November 14, 1889, chief justice of that court.
The last position he continued to hold until his death on November
14, 1892. John L. Bailey was born in Pasquotank County, North Carolina,
August 13, 1795. Having been licensed to practise law, he began that
work in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. In 1824 he represented
Pasquotank County in the House of Commons and in 1827 and 1828
and 1832 in the State Senate, and in 1835 in the North Carolina Con
stitutional Convention. Becoming a judge of the Superior Court in
1837 he continued to hold that position until his resignation in 1863.
He taught a law school in Elizabeth City and when later he removed
to Hillsboro, North Carolina, he was associated in a law school as
teacher with Judge F. N. Nash of the North Carolina Supreme Court.
When Judge Nash died Judge Bailey removed to Buncombe County
and took up his residence on the North Fork of Swannanoa River at
the foot of Black Mountain and continued there his law school until
1861 when it was interrupted by the war on the South. Then in 1865
he removed, house and all, to Asheville and erected a home where is
now Aston Park. Then he entered on the practice of law and con
tinued his school until 1877. On June 30, 1877, he died in Asheville.
David Coleman was born in Buncombe County, February 5,
1824. His mother was a sister of Governor David L. Swain. After

Asheville and Buncombe County 131
attending school at the Newton Academy and at the University of
North Carolina he went to the United States Naval Academy at
Annapolis, Maryland. In 1850 he resigned from the navy and began
to practise law at Asheville. In 1854 and again in 1856 he repre
sented Buncombe County in the State Senate. He joined the army of
the Confederacy and became a colonel. After the war he resumed the
practice of law in Asheville and in 1875 was a member from Buncombe
County of the North Carolina Constitutional Convention; He died in
Asheville, March 5, 1883. His eccentricity was a matter of common
notice. Often he would walk for hours about the country with his
hands crossed behind him and not unfrequently with his hat in his
hands. Such was the ardor of his devotion to the cause of the South
that never after the war would he wear other suits of clothes than those
manufactured from home-made cloth and always of a gray color.
Soon after Governor Swain began the practice, Nicholas W.
Woodfin became a lawyer, and served as the connecting link between
the old times and the modern bar for many years. He was bom in
Buncombe County on the upper French Broad River, and began life
under most unfavorable circumstances, and for a while labored under
the greatest disadvantages. He became, however, one of North Caro
lina's most famous and astute lawyers. But few men have ever met
with such distinguished success at the bar as he. He was Buncombe's
representative in the State Senate in 1844, 1846, 1848 and 1850. In
the course of his career he acquired a large fortune, and owned great
quantities of land in. Asheville and its neighborhood. With the
practice of law he carried on an extensive business as a farmer, and in
the last business was famous for the introduction of many useful im
provements in agriculture. He it was who first introduced orchard
grass in Buncombe County, and turned the attention of her farmers to
the raising of cattle on a large scale and the cultivation of sorghum.
Soon after the conclusion of the late war Mr. Woodfin organized
a company, and established on Elk Mountain a cheese factory. This
was followed by a factory established by the late William R. Baird,
on the waters of Beaverdam. These factories, however, proved un
successful, and the business was not kept up in the county. Mr.
Woodfin died on May 23, 1876, at the handsome residence which he

132 Asheville and Buncombe County
erected and for many years occupied on North Main Street in Ashe
ville where Dr. J. A. Burroughs once lived. It is now occupied by the
Young Men's Christian Association. Woodfin Street was named for
him. Mr. N. W. Woodfin was born January 29, 1810, and the part of
Buncombe in which he was bom is now in Henderson County. He
began to practise law in 1831. And in 1861 he represented Buncombe
County in the convention at which North Carolina seceded from the
United States.
Marcus Erwin, son of Leander A. Erwin, was born in Burke
County, North Carolina, June 28, 1826. Soon after, his father
removed to New Orleans, Louisiana. Marcus was sent to Transylvania
University, where he graduated with high honors. He studied law in
New Orleans. When the Mexican War commenced, he joined the
Texas Mounted Rifles and was in the military service for six months,
in which time he participated in several fights in Mexico. Returning
to North Carolina, he was, in 1848-1849, licensed to practise law and
settled at Asheville, where, for a time, he also edited the Asheville
News, He was elected solicitor of the Seventh Circuit of North Caro
lina, extending from Cherokee to Cleveland County, both inclusive, and
acquired much additional reputation in the discharge of the duties of
that office. A member of the State legislature, in the House of Com
mons in 1850 and 1856 and in the Senate in 1860, from Buncombe
County, he made still greater reputation, and especially in the latter,
in a discussion on secession with John M. Morehead, who had been
governor of the State. Mr. Erwin was an early and ardent secession-
ist; and when war on the South commenced he enlisted in the Southern
army and fought as long as it continued except while a prisoner. He
became a major in the service; and was engaged in North Carolina
and Virginia. After the close of that war he became United States
Assistant District Attorney. As a lawyer, writer, and speaker Major
Erwin attained great fame and he was known throughout the State and
adjoining States for his ability and brilliancy. He died at Morganton,
North Carolina, July 9, 1881. To his son. Honorable Marcus Erwin,
present State Senator from Buncombe County I am indebted for some
of the facts of Major Erwin's life.

Chapter X
BUNCOMBE'S FIRST COURT
THE first County Court of Buncombe County, which organized
the County of Buncombe, was composed of seven justices of the
peace appointed by the legislature which created the county
and by that legislature directed to organize that county. They were
"James Davidson, David Vance, William Whitson, William Davidson,
James Alexander, James Brittain, Philip Hoodenpile." The first
action was to swear in these justices of the peace. Then, "Silence being
commanded and proclamation being made the court was opened in due
and solemn form of law by John Patton specially appointed for that
purpose." All this was on April 16, 1792. Then on the same day
"Lambert Claytor & William Brittain being duly commissioned as
Justices of said County appeared and were qualified as such, by taking
the oaths for the qualification of public officers and the oath of Office
as Justices of the peace for said county and took their seats." The
court now having nine justices of the peace, next proceeded to the
election of other county officers. Later on they came at the next term,
in July, 1792, to the trial of the first cases tried in the new county.
The first case tried in Buncombe County was that of the State
against Richard Yardly, in July, 1792. He was indicted for petit
larceny, was convicted, and appealed to Morgan Superior Court. The
first civil suit was that of W. Avery against William Fletcher, which
was tried by order of the court on the premises on the third Monday
in April, 1795, by a jury summoned for that purpose. The first
pauper provided for by the court was Susannah Baker with her child.
The first processioning proceeding was in April, 1796, when William
Whitson, the processioner thereof, returned into the court "the pro
cessioning of a tract of two hundred acres of land, on the East side of
French Broad River about one mile and a quarter from Morristown,
the place where James Henderson now lives," dated April 20, 1796.
This embraces the property lying on Park Avenue and in that vicinity.
Its eastem boundary line is formed in part of the Lineing Branch, the
small branch immediately eastward thereof, and for some distance

1.34 Asheville and Buncombe County
parallel with Depot Street. The first will admitted to probate therein
was that of Jonas Gooch in July, 1792, but the first now on record is
that of Colonel John Patton in 1831. The first dower assigned was to
Demey Gash, widow of Joseph Gash, April, 1805. At the October
Term of 1800 we meet with the following entry on the country court
minutes :
"The following petition was presented and read in court by the
Rev. George Newton, and ordered to be recorded at length on the
Minute docket of said Court, to-wit:
"circular
"To the worshipful Court of Buncombe, the petition of the Pres-
bytry of Concord humbly showeth that whereas many gross im
moralities, daily abound among the citizens of our state, of which
intemperance in the use of ardent spirits, profane swearing, breach of
the holy sabbath are none of the least, as those crimes with many
others strike against our political happiness, as well as incurs the
displeasure of God.
"And as our legislature have been careful to enact a sufficient
number of wholesome and salutary laws for the suppression of such
crimes & have appointed you the executors of those and other Laws
which are necessary for political existence as a civil government. We
offer this our earnest and humble petition that those with other useful
and necessary Laws be carried into vigorous execution: We are the
more encouraged to offer this request, as we are well assured many
¦within our bounds who hold commissions in the peace would be happy
to see an effectual check given to the above enormities, and we flatter
ourselves that many of our private members will be cordial in
strengthening the hands of the civil magistracy in supporting that good
order, which is essential to the happiness both of civil and religious
societies. "On a due attention to the above, your humble petitioners as in
duty bound, shall ever pray. "Geo. Newton, Modr.
"Unity Church, Sept. 30, 1800. "^""- ^- ^^^^'' P"^"" ^^^-
"And signed by a number of church members."

Asheville and Buncombe County 135
At January Term, 1801 :
"On motion of the Rev. George Newton, the Court took up the
consideration of a petition from the Presbytry of Comcord & present
and read last Court by said Newton, praying the executive officers to
exert their lawful authority in suppressing vice and immorality, by
carrying the law into vigorous execution.
"The court upon full consideration are fully persuaded that the
suppression of drunkenness, profane swearing, sabbath breaking and
vice of every kind will have great tendency to promote the happiness
both of civil and religious society :
"Therefore unanimous resolved, that each of us in our public
Capacity, as well as in private life, agreeably to the power and
authority vested in us by the Laws of our Country, will exert ourselves
in suppressing such enormous practices, and carrying the laws into
vigorous execution, against every offender."
Per contra take the foUowing entry in January, 1810:
"The managers of the Ne'wton Academy lottery come into open
court and enter into Bond for the discharge of office & took the oath of
office." At January Court, 1799, occurs the following entry:
"The jury find the defendant Edward Williams, guilty of the petit
larceny, in manner and form as charged in bill of indictment.
"The Court adjudge that the prisoner receive 25 lashes on his bare
back, well laid on, at the public whipping post and that the sheriff of
the county carry the judgment into execution. Appeal prayed."
This is the first infliction of this barbarous punishment adjudged
in the county. The last occurred in 1865.
The punishments of public whipping, branding, the stocks, and
the pillory continued to be inflicted in North Carolina until 1868. Up
to that time eighteen separate offences were punishable in that State
with death, except as some of them relating to slavery had necessarily
been done away with in the recent abolition of that institution. Under
the new Constitution then adopted there are only five capital felonies
in the State. That "cropping" once was a punishment known in Bun
combe County is shown by the allowance of a certificate made to

136 Asheville and Buncombe County
Thomas Hopper by the County Court at its October Term, 1793, show
ing that Hopper had lost his right ear in a fight with Philip Williams,
although it seems not a little strange for a court to be issuing certifi
cates about what occurred in an unlawful breach of the peace. In
July, 1838, Buncombe County Court provided for repairs to be made
on its "jail, stocks and pillery."
Imprisonment for debt where there was no fraud had been
abolished by North Carolina in her first Constitution adopted Decem
ber 18, 1776; so that Buncombe never had a debtor's prison. But, in
her early history a debtor was required to surrender all his property,
except a few articles as the tools used in his trade and similar things,
and was not permitted to enjoy exemptions from his debt in large
amounts of land and personal property as now he can do under the
Constitution of 1868, exemptions which, as to the land the Supreme
Court of the United States once intimated, in a case from this State,
were void as being excessive.
Per contra again :
"On motion of Joseph Spencer on the petition of Thomas Foster,
to this court, to have his negro man slave Jerry Smith emancipated and
set free, for his meritorious services : The Court proceeded to take the
petition under consideration and do adjudge and decree, that the said
Jerry Smith, is a fit person to be set free, and emancipated: There
fore ordered by the court, that the said Jerry Smith be emancipated and
set free, for his meritorious services, with all the advantages and
emoluments which it is in the power of this Court to grant, during his
the said Jerry's natural life ; and that the Clerk of this Court do issue
a license or Certificate to the said Jerry Smith for his freedom
accordingly." At July Term, 1799, it was
"Ordered by court that two fairs be established in the county of
Buncombe in Asheville, to-wit, to commence the first Thursday &
Friday in June following, and to continue on said days annually,
without said court should find it more convenient to make other
alterations." At July Term, 1802, it was

Asheville and Buncombe County 137
"Ordered by Court that the following instmment of writing be
recorded at length as follows to-wit :
"The deposition of Caty Troxell, being of lawful age and first
sworn on the Holy Evangelists, deposeth and saith that on the nine
teenth and twentieth day of May one thousand seven hundred and
ninety six, a certain John Morrice legally intermarried with her
daughter Judith Troxell, & continued to live with said wife for the
space of two years in all possible connuptial Love and friendship, that
without any cause assigned or any application for a divorce, said John
Morrice, has absconded and has never been heard of by said wife or
and other person to the said deponent's knowledge : — and for a descrip
tion of the said John Morrice this deponant saith as follow to-wit.
He appeared to be upwards of twenty large odd years of age, appeared
to be about five feet eight inches high, with dark Brown hair, with blue
eyes his speech rather on the shrill key. And further this deponant
saith not. "Caty Troxell.
"Subscribed and sworn to by the said deponant this 23d day of
July, 1800, in the County of Pulaski, and State of Kentucky.
"Sworn to before us Samuel Gilmore and Robert Modrell, Justices
of the peace for said county.
"As witness our hands and seals the above date said.
"Samuel Gilmore (seal).
"Robt. Modrell (seal)."
The first suit tried in Asheville (then Morristown) was at July
Court, 1793, before Esquires "Will Willson, Lambert Clayton, Wm.
Brittain" and a jury, and was a "Caveat" in regard to an entry of land.
It was the case of "Waightstill Avery vs. William Fletcher." Fletcher
won; Avery gave notice "that he will move for a Certiorari to bring the
proceedings of this court Supr. Court, September Term, on the first
five days of the Term."
This Waightstill Avery was the gentleman who was North Caro
lina's first Attorney General.
All the elections to county offices at this time from sheriff to
clerk, register of deeds, coroner, entry taker, surveyor and treasurer.

138 Asheville and Buncombe County
down to treasurer of public buildings and standard keeper, were made
by the County Court.
It will be remembered, too, that at the beginning the Superior
Courts were held at Morganton. In 1806, the legislature of the State,
after reciting that "the delays and expenses inseparable from the
present constitution of the courts of this State do often amount to a
denial of justice, the ruin of suitors, and render a change in the same
indespensibly necessary," enacted "that a Superior Court shall be held
at the court house in each county in the State twice every year," and
divided the State into six circuits, of which the last comprised the
counties of Surry, Wilkes, Ashe, Buncombe, Rutherford, Burke,
Lincoln, Iredell, Cabarrus and Mecklenburg, and directed the courts
to be held in Buncombe the first Monday after the fourth Monday in
March and September.
Thus in 1807 was held Buncombe's first Superior court, in the
spring of that year. The first trial for a capital offence in Buncombe
County was that of Randal Delk. This trial occurred in 1807 or 1808.
Pelk had fled after the commission of the offence to the Indian Nation,
but he was followed, brought back, tried, condemned and hung. This
was the first execution in Buncombe County, and took place just south
of Patton Avenue opposite to the postoffice. It is said that soon after
a negro named Christopher was for. barn burning executed in the
county, but the third capital execution in Buncombe is the most cele-
brated in her annals. Subsequent to the execution of Delk and between
the years 1832 and 1835, inclusive, Sneed and Henry, two Tennes
seeans, were charged with highway robbery committed upon one
Holcombe. The alleged robbery is said to have taken place on the old Bun
combe Turnpike Road about a mile south of Swannanoa River and
between the Old Patton Ford and the present road from Asheville to
Hendersonville. Highway robbery was then a capital offence. They
strenuously insisted that they had won from Holcombe, in gambling,
the horse and other articles of which he claimed that they had robbed
him. They were convicted, however, and hanged in the immediate
vicinity of the crossing of East and Seney streets. The field here was
until recently known as the Gallows* Field. The trial created intense

Asheville and Buncombe County 139
public excitement, and it has always been the popular opinion that it
was a judicial murder. It is said that after their conviction they sent
for Holcombe, who shrank from facing them, and that the subsequent
life of this man was one of continued misfortune and suffering.
A Yankee negro garrison was placed in Asheville in 1865 and
kept there for a short while. Within this time and in that year some
of the members of that garrison committed a most serious outrage in
the northern part of the county, for which they were tried by a court
martial and eight or ten of them condemned to be shot. This sentence
was promptly executed in the same year at the place on North Main
Street where East Street joins that street and Chestnut Street. The
negroes were buried where they were shot. Thirty-five or more years
later when East Street work was in progress the workmen dug into the
graves of these negroes.
One of the entries at April Term, 1796, of the County Court is as
follows: "On motion of Reuben Wood, Esq., Ordered by Court that
wherever the parties lived out of the State, a notice on the adverse
parties council shall be considered sufficient notice." From this it
would seem that the County Court in its early career some times
assumed legislative functions.
Another attempt of the same sort of more immediate interest to the
people of Asheville is the following order made at July court, 1799, by
that body, namely:
"The Court further appoint the following commissioners to make
such laws and regulations as will be found necessary for the advantage
and order of said Town (Asheville), to-wit: Zebulon Baird, Daniel
Jarrett, WiUiam Brittain, Sam'l Chunn, WilUam Welshe, George
Swain and John Patton."
It would be a matter of no small interest if we were allowed to
examine a copy of these ordinances.
The lottery mentioned above as "the Newton Academy lottery"
was advertised but enough tickets were not sold to warrant the drawing
and the money already collected was returned to those who had sub
scribed and paid.

140 Asheville and Buncombe County
The "processioning" spoken of was a simple method of deciding
disputes as to the dividing line between adjoining tracts of land. It
grew out of a custom in England of walking annually around the
bounds of the parish in procession so that the young people might learn
from the older ones where the bounds were. This "processioning,"
based on such a custom, became a law under certain regulations at an
early day in the English settlements of eastern North Carolina. Long
ago the law fell into disuse. It had some grave disadvantages.
The next capital execution after that of Sneed and Henry was of
a man named Mason, who was charged with having murdered his wife,
and was convicted and hung where now College Street turns to the
southeast and begins to ascend the mountain to Beaucatcher Gap.

Chapter XI
EARLY CUSTOMS IN BUNCOMBE
FROM necessity the early settlers of Buncombe County manu
factured almost everything which they used. This prevailed to
even a greater extent than at first we would be led to suppose.
They not only raised sheep and from the wool manufactured the cloth
for their garments, but also cultivated flax and from it produced a good
quality of linen. They made felt hats, straw hats, and every other
article of domestic consumption; manufactured their own furniture
and ropes, ground their own grain, and sawed their own lumber. They
made their own leather and with it their own shoes, harness and
saddles. They even made their own cow bells and, by boring steel
bars, made their own guns. They burned their own pottery and delft
ware. They built their own mills and manufactured and prepared
everything used in erecting their houses. Their meats were easily ob
tained. Game was abundant. Old Captain Thomas Foster used to
say that when he began housekeeping he would at night turn out his
horse to graze about the canebrakes at the mouth of Swannanoa and
when morning came would start to bring him home before breakfast,
carrying his gun with him. On the way he would kill a deer, leave it
until he caught his horse and return with his horse and deer in time for
breakfast. Fish thronged the Swannanoa and French Broad rivers.
A good site for a fish trap was the greatest recommendation which a
piece of land could have. These places were always the first entered
and granted. In them fish by the barrel full would sometimes be
caught in a single night where the trap was well situated and strongly
built. Fishing at night in canoes by torchlight with a gig was a
favorite sport as well as profitable practice and it was much
indulged in.
Ardent spirits were then in almost universal use and nearly every
prosperous man had his whiskey or brandy still. Even preachers in
some instances have made and sold liquor. A barroom was a place
shunned bv none. The court records show license to retail issued to

142 Asheville and Buncombe County
men who stood high as exemplary members of churches. On Novem
ber 2, 1800, Bishop Asbury chronicles that "Francis Alexander
Ramsey pursued us to the ferry, franked us over and took us to his
excellent mansion, a stone house ; it may not be amiss to mention that
our host has buUt his house, and takes in his harvest without the aid
of whiskey." This was in Tennessee near the North Carolina line.
In 1796 Governor Ashe issued a proclamation announcing "that
in pursuance of an Act to provide for the public safety by granting
encouragement to certain manufacturers, that Jacob Byler, of the
county of Buncombe, has exhibited to him a sample of gunpowder
manufactured by him in the year 1795, and also a certificate proving
that he had made six hundred and sixty-three pounds of good, mer
chantable rifle gunpowder ; and therefore, he was entitled to the bounty
under that Act." (2 Wheeler's History of North Carolina, page; 52.)
This Jacob Byler, or rather Boyler, was afterward a member of Bun
combe County Court, and in the inventory of his property returned by
his administrator after his death in October, 1804, is mentioned
"Powder mill Irons."
Naturally these people needed iron, and the State of North Caro
lina at an early day encouraged its manufacture by granting bounties
therefor. Three forges where it was made grew up in Buncombe
County, one on Hominy Creek upon the old Solomon Luther place
which belonged to Charles Lane; another on Reems Creek at the
Coleman Mill place, which belonged to the same man, but was sold
by him in 1803 to Andrew Baird; the third was on Mills River, now
in Henderson County, on what has ever since been called the Forge
Mountain. On this mountain are the Boilston Gold Mines. The iron
ore for this purpose was procured at different places in Buncombe
County. The first consideration, however, to these primitive inhabitants
was tlie matter of grist mills. Hence at the first session of the county
court we find it "Ordered that WiUiam Davidson have liberty to buUd
a Grist mill on Swannanoa, near his saw MiU, Provided he buUds
said miU on his own land." This was in AprU, 1792. In January,
1793, it was "Ordered that John Burton have liberty to build a Grist
miU, on his own land, on a branch of French Broad River, near

Asheville and Buncombe County 143
Nathan Smith's, below the mouth of Swannanoa." Apparently David
son's mill was not built, but John Burton's was on Glenn's Creek a
short distance above its mouth. The late James Gudger, who was
brought in his early infancy to his father's residence on Swannanoa,
just settled, and who, in 1830 and 1835, represented Buncombe
County in the North Carolina Senate, told his grandson. Captain J. M.
Gudger, that when he was a very small boy it was the custom to send
a number of boys with bags of grain to this mill to be ground, and
leave it there until a month later, when the boys would return with
other grain and carry back the meal ground from the first. He further
said that usually a man accompanied the party to put on the sacks
when they fell from the horses, but that on one occasion as he, then
a very small boy, was returning from the mill, with his companions
of about the same age, the man for some reason was not along, and one
of the sacks fell off on the Battery Park hill over which they had to
pass; that while here endeavoring in vain to replace the sack a party
of Indians came upon them and from pure mischief threatened and
actually began to hang them; that the boys were badly frightened, but
finally the Indians left them unharmed, and they went on their way,
and that the hill was afterwards known through the country as the hill
where the boys were hung. He still further said that the miller in
charge of this mill, whose name was Handlen, undertook to cultivate
a crop on the mountain on the western side of the French Broad, but
as he did not return to the settlement for a long while his friends
became frightened, and in a party went to his clearing, where they
found him killed and scalped, and his crop destroyed, and that from
this incident that mountain took its name of Handlen Mountain.
This miU John Burton afterwards sold with the fifty acres of
land on which it stood, to Zebulon and Bedent Baird. It was un
doubtedly the first grist mill in Buncombe County, all the grinding
of the settlers having been done previous to its erection at the Old Fort.
After this sale John Burton moved to Gap Creek on the road from
Asheville to Fairview, where he met with business misfortune and lost
all his property. His wife, Jean or Aunt Jean Burton, was a sister of
William Forster mentioned above, and an aunt to Captain Thomas
Foster. She was born April 13, 1746, and died January 28, 1824.

144 Asheville and Buncombe County
We have noted above that one of the last of his town lots sold by
John Burton was to Patton and Erwin, after the town had become
Asheville. Patton and Erwin was a firm of merchants composed of James
Patton and his brother-in-law Andrew Erwin. James Patton was born
in Ireland on February 13, 1756, and emigrated to America in 1783.
He was a weaver by trade, but soon became a prosperous merchant.
After his arrival in America he labored for several years at mining,
well-digging, working on the canals, grubbing, etc. After this he set
out from Philadelphia where he had landed, and with. a small pack
of goods went south as a peddler. He made his way into North Caro
lina and for several years traded in Wilkes, Burke and Buncombe
counties, getting his supplies from the north. In 1791 he met Andrew
Erwin, who afterwards married his sister, and went into business with
him. This partnership continued for twenty years, and was settled up
in one day, James Patton taking the North Carolina lands belonging
to the firm and .Andrew Erwin taking those in Tennessee.
In 1807 these gentlemen moved to Swannanoa, and settled on the
farm where Mr. Frank Reed now lives. They they lived until 1814,
when they removed to Asheville. Mr. Patton opened a store and hotel
and engaged at the same time in tanning leather and farming. His
hotel was the Eagle Hotel on South Main Street, about midway between
Sycamore and Eagle streets. In 1831 he bought out and improved the
Warm Springs. After a long and prosperous life he died at Asheville
on September 9, 1846. His tanyard stood on the west side of where
Valley Street now runs at a big poplar near where that street enters
South Main Street. An autobiography of him is yet in existence. The
partnership between him and Andrew Erwin was dissolved on March
11, 1814. Andrew Erwin is the man to whom Bishop Asbury refers as "a
chief man." He was born in Virginia about 1773, and died at his
residence near the War Trace in Bedford County, Tennessee, in 1833.
When seventeen years of age he entered the employment of James
Patton, with whom he soon afterwards went into partnership as inn
keeper and merchant at Wilkesborough, North Carolina. In 1800 and
1801 he was a member of the House of Commons of North Carolina

Asheville and Buncombe County 145
from Wilkes County. He was Asheville's first postmaster. In 1814
he removed to Augusta, Georgia, and afterward carried on an extensive
mercantile establishment as the leading partner in various firms in
Savannah, Charleston, Nashville, New Orleans and elsewhere, but his
business was unsuccessful and ended in disaster.
James W. Patton, the oldest son of James Patton above men
tioned, was born February 13, 1803. He became a merchant and
hotel keeper in Asheville and conducted there a large tanyard and
several other business undertakings. For many years he was chairman
of the County Court of Buncombe and one of that couuty's most
prominent men. He died in December, 1861.
A granddaughter of this same James Patton mentioned above.
Miss S. Rose Morrison, became the wife of Albert T. Summey, whose
long life in Buncombe County as one of its most worthy and best-
known inhabitants reached down to a time comparatively recent. He
was bom in that part of Lincoln County which is now Catawba
County, September 1, 1823. Removing with his father, George
Summey, to Flat Rock now in Henderson County, North Carolina, he
was in business there until 1842, when he came to Asheville and was
employed for six years in a mercantile house into which, at the end of
that time, he bought an interest. In that business, through various
changes, he continued up to 1873. For sixteen years he was treasurer
of the county, an office then known as County Trustee, and for several
years treasurer of the Buncombe Turnpike Company. For thirty-six
years he was a justice of the peace, for twenty years a United States
Commissioner, for the period from 1876 to 1881 Mayor of Asheville,
and for many years held other places of trust in the community. He
died in Asheville, April 16, 1906.
In 1808 the County of Haywood was created out of Buncombe's
territory, and included all of Western North Carolina beyond Bun
combe County. The description of the part of Buncombe County
taken to make the County of Haywood is as follows:
"That all that part of the county of Buncombe, to wit: beginning
where the southem boundary line of this state crosses the highest part
of the ridge dividing the waters of the French Broad from those of the
Tucky Siegy River, then along the said ridge to the ridge dividing the

146 Asheville and Buncombe County
waters of Pigeon and the French Broad River, then with said ridge
to the top of Mount Pisgah, thence a direct line to the mounth of the
first branch emptying into Hominy Creek on the north side above
Jesse Belieu's, thence with said branch to the source, and thence
along the top of the ridge, dividing the waters of French Broad and
those of Pigeon River, to the northern boundary of this state, and with
the state line to the line which shall divide this state from the state of
Georgia, and with that line to the beginning, shall be and is hereby
erected into a separate and distinct county, by the name of Haywood,
in honor of the present treasurer of this state."
The eastern part of North Carolina, having been the first settled
by white people, controlled, of course, the government of the State.
The creation of every new county in the western part of the State gave
to that part at least one additional member of the State legislature.
Soon the eastern part of the State grew exceedingly apprehensive that
its control of the State government would be destroyed by the creation
of new counties in the west. Hence they refused to consent to the
foundation of a new western county unless, at the same time, a new
eastern county was formed. This explains the fact that the same act
which created the western County of Haywood created also the eastern
County of Columbus.
In 1833 another part of Buncombe's territory was taken to help
make the County of Yancey. In 1838 still more of Buncombe's terri
tory was taken away to form the County of Henderson, and in 1850
she lost more of her territory when the new County of Madison was
made; then, in 1851, some more to the County of Henderson.
The first settlers of Buncombe County were chiefly Presbyterians,
Methodists and Baptists. For some time the only preaching which
they had was by travelling preachers. Soon, however, churches began
to be established, and houses of worship built. The earliest Presby
terian congregations were at Swannanoa (afterward called Piney
Grove) , Reems Creek, Asheville, and Cane Creek. The earliest Metho
dist congregations were at Beaverdam (KiUian's), Salem Camp
ground (WeaverviUe), AshevUle, and Turkey Creek Camp-ground;
and the earliest Baptist at Asheville, Green River, and Ivy.
The first church building in AshevUle appears to have been wherfe

Asheville and Buncombe County 147
the Newton Academy now is. For some time there had been a small
combined church and school house there, when on July 11, 1803,
William Foster, Jr., conveyed the land on which it stood "including
an old school house with a new one, and a frame Dwelling house, a
spring, &c," containing eight acres, to "Andrew Erwin, Daniel Smith,
John Patton, Edmond Sams, James Blakely, William Foster, Senr.,
Thomas Foster, Jur., William Whitson, William Gudger, Samuel
Murray, Joseph Henry, David Vance, William Brittain, George
Davidson, John Davidson of Hominy, and the Reverend George New
ton," as a gift "for the Further Maintenance and support of the gospel,
and teaching a Latin and English school or either, as may be thought
most proper, from time to time, by the above named Trustees or a
majority of them, or their successors in office, he the said William
Foster reserving to himself an Equal Interest and privilege with the
above named trustees and to be considered as one of them in all future
proceedings so long as he continues to act as trustee. . . . for a
place of residence, for a preacher of the Gospel, teacher of Latin and
English School or Either as may be thought the most proper," with a
provision for substitution of trustees in case of death, refusal or in
ability to act, and with further provision that "there shall at all times
be eleven trustees in the neighborhood of said institution who live
convenient enough to send their Children to said school or schools from
them their Own Dwelling houses and two from the Reverend George
Newton's present congregation on Cain Creek, and two from his
present congregation on the waters of Rims creek, and One from his
present Congregation in the neighborhood of Robert Patton's meeting
house, and one from the neighborhood of the mouth of Hominy who
shall be so appointed and approved of from time to time." (Record
Book 4, page 678.)
"Robert Patton's meeting house" was the predecessor of Piney
Grove near the present town of Swannanoa, and was on the side of the
mountain about three-fourths of a mile east of Piney Grove to which
it gave way.
Again on November 15, 1809, said William Forster, Jr., conveyed
three and one-fourth acres of land adjoining this on the south "includ
ing the brick house now building to Andrew Erwin, Daniel Smith,

148 Asheville and Buncombe County
John Patton, Edmond Sams, George Swain, WiUiam Forster, Sr.,
Benjm. Hawkins, Thomas Foster, Jr., James Patton, WiUiam
Gudger, Sr., David Vance, WiUiam Brittain, Samuel Murray, Sr.,
John McLane, William McLane, William Moore, Sr., Samuel David
son, and the Rev. George Newton, Trustees of the Union Hill
Academy," "established by an act of assembly a seminary of learning
in chapter 43 in the year 1805." This WiUiam Forster, Jr., was a
brother of Captain Thomas Foster above mentioned and a son of
William Forster, Sr., above spoken of. Union HiU Academy was a
log house, which was removed in 1809, and a brick house took its place.
In the same year its name was changed by an act of the legislature to
Newton Academy. Here for many years the people attending preach
ing, sent their children to school and buried their dead. In 1857
or 1858 the brick building between the present academy and the grave
yard was removed and the brick academy now there was erected. (See
Clayton vs. Trustees, 95 N. C. Reports, 298.)
From 1797 to 1814 this George Newton taught a classical school
at this place, which was famous throughout several States. Mr. Newton
was a Presbyterian preacher and reported to the synod at Bethel
Church, South Carolina, October 18, 1798, as having been received by
ordination by the Presbytery of Concord. (Foote's Sketches of North
Carolina, page 297.) He lived on Swannanoa until 1814, when he
removed to Bedford County, Tennessee. There for many years he was
principal of Dickson Academy and pastor of the Presbyterian Church
at Shelbyville, and there died about 1841.
The first church building in AsheviUe appears to have been the
old log church used by the Baptists, which stood at the Melke place.
It was probably built about 1829, and it remained standing until about
1842. They never owned the land on which it was built. Their next
church was at the corner of Spruce and Woodfin streets on land con
veyed August 21, 1863, by Herman Franze to David Garren, C. C.
Matthews, G. N. Alexander, J. F. Sullivan and G. W. Shackelford,
trustees of the Baptist Church in the town of Asheville. (Record
Book 27, page 387.)
This structure still stands, although on July 11, 1890, the con
gregation bought a lot at the corner of Spruce and College streets, and

Asheville and Buncombe County

149

after erecting on it a very handsome church edifice, removed to it, and
have ever since occupied it. The old church is now a Jewish
Synagogue. Apparently the next church after that at the Melke place built in
Asheville was an inferior frame structure of the Methodists. On July
20, 1839, James M. Alexander gave and conveyed the land on which
this building had been put "including the building erected for a female
academv and Methodist E. church, and the Sunday School house," to

Asheville-Central (Church Street) M. E. Church, South, 1857-190.1

150 Asheville and Buncombe County
"William Coleman, Israel Baird, Wilie Jones, J. F. E. Hardy, N. W.
Woodfin, James M. Alexander, Geo. W. Jones, James M. Smith and
Joshua Roberts, Trustees," as a gift "for the use of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, and when the same is not in the occupancy of the
said M. E. Church, ministers of any other regular orthodox denomi
nation of Christians who shall come duly authorized by their respective
churches and whose moral and religious character and habits are
unexceptionable, may be authorized to occupy the same as triinsient
visitors." About 1857 this old building was replaced by a brick
structure which, after being remodelled several times was replaced by
the stone edifice which is known as Central Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, erected in 1903. It stands on the western side of
Church Street. (Record Book 22, page 359.)
On October 8, 1842, James Patton conveyed to Charles Moore,
James W. Patton, Samuel Chunn, John Hawkins and John B. White
side, trustees of the Presbyterian Church in the town of Asheville, a
portion of the land on which the Church Street Presbyterian Church
now stands. The remainder of this is said to have been given by
Samuel Chunn for the same purpose and at about the same time. The
church erected here was a brick structure facing to the east. This was
afterwards rebuilt and then remodelled and afterwards removed to give
way to the present church building at the same place. (Record Book
22, page 507.)
On April 30, 1859, James W. Patton gave the site of the Episcopal
Church on Church Street by conveying it to "Nicholas W. Woodfin,
Lester Chapman and Hatfield Ogden, of the Vestry and Tmstees of
Trinity Church, AsheviUe, and members of the said congregation"
"to and for the use and benefit of the congregation of said Trinity
Church AsheviUe worshiping according to the forms of the Protestant
Episcopal Church, as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer and
for no other purpose whatsoever."
A brick church-house was erected in this lot. Later about 1880
a more commodious edifice succeeded that; aud, when the later
structure burned, the present church was built there.
James Mitchell Alexander was born at the Alexander Place on
Bee Tree, May 22, 1793. His grandfather John Alexander, of Scotch-

Asheville and Buncombe County 151
Irish descent, was a native of Pennsylvania. The latter married Rachel
Davidson, sister td Major William Davidson and Samuel Davidson
above mentioned; lived in Rowan County, North Carolina, but
removed to Lincoln County, North Carolina; and resided there during
the Revolutionary War. Afterward he came with the very first settlers
to Buncombe County, and, after a few years, moved to Tennessee, and
settled on Harpeth River, where he and his wife died. His son, James
Alexander, was born in Rowan County, North Carolina, December
23, 1756, on Buffalo Creek. He removed with his father to Lincoln
County, where they settled on Crowder's Creek, near Kings Mountain.
While living here he fought on the American side at Musgrove's Mill
and Kings Mountain, and a camp chest, said to have belonged to Lord
Comwallis, was captured by him in that last fight and is still in Bun
combe County. On March 19, 1782, he married in York District,
South Carolina, Rhoda Cimningham, who was bom October 15, 1763,
in Maryland, and removed to South . Carolina before her marriage.
James Alexander after his marriage removed to Buncombe County
with his father and uncle, and settled on Bee Tree, the old Alexander
Place. They came over the Swannanoa Gap. The old road through
this gap did not cross, as it has often been stated to have done, at the
place where the Long or Swannanoa Tunnel is. In later years the
stage road did cross at that place. But the old road crossed a half a
mile further south. To travel it one would not, as in the case of the
later road, leave Old Fort and pass up Mill Creek three miles to where
Henry Station, so long the head of the railroad, stood. He would leave
Old Fort and go across the creek directly west for about a mile before
going into the mountains. Then he would turn to the right, ascend the
raountain, cross it at about one-half mile south of Swannanoa Tunnel,
and thence pass down the mountain until his road joined the later road
above the town of Black Mountain.
This James Alexander was the James Alexander who was one of
the justices of Buncombe County's first County Court who organized
that county in 1792. The United States paid him a pension through
out his later life for his services in the Revolutionary War; and, after
his death on June 28, 1844, in Buncombe County, continued the

152

Asheville and Buncombe County

pension to his widow, Mrs. Rhoda Alexander, until her death at the
same place on January 29, 1848.
James .\lexander died at the place where he first settled on Bee
Tree. He was a Presb)'terian.

Grave of James Alexander — Piney Grove. Dark slab with white piece inserted
James Mitchell Alexander was a son of James Alexander and
Rhoda, his wife. On September 8, 1814, he married Nancy Foster,
oldest child of Captain Thomas Foster above mentioned, who was born
November 17, 1797. In 1816 James Mitchell Alexander removed to
Asheville and bought and improved the property on the west side of
South Main Street known as the Hilliard residence. On this he erected
the old house which was removed in 1889 in widening the street and
stood just at the turn in the street. By trade he was a saddler, and at
this house lived until 1828, carrying on his trade and keeping a hotel,
At the last mentioned date, upon the opening of the Buncombe Turn
pike, part of which he built as a contractor, he bought and improved
the place on the eastern side of French Broad River at Alexander's
known in the early days as the "Alexander Hotel" and "French
Broad." Here for a great many years he conducted a hotel and mer-

Asheville and Buncombe County 153
chandise business, and carried on a tanyard, a shoe-shop, a harness-
shop, a blacksmith-shop, a grist mill, a saw mill, a farm and a wagon-
shop. His hotel was famous from Cincinnati to Charleston for its
superior accommodations. In the latter part of his life he turned over
his business to his son, the late A. M. Alexander, and one of his sons-
in-law, the late J. S. Burnett, and improved a place three miles nearer
Asheville called Montrealla. Here he died on June 11, 1858, and was
buried in his family burying ground about a half a mile away at
Alexander's Chapel, a church named in his honor and built by him.
He accumulated a good property. His wife survived him a few years
and died January 14, 1862, and is buried by his side. They were
Methodists. Reference has several times been made to James !M. Smith. He
was the first white child born west of the Blue Ridge in North Caro
lina. His father. Colonel Daniel Smith, a native of New Jersey, after
considerable experience in the Indian wars, and as a soldier on the
American side in the Revolutionary War, removed to Buncombe, then
Burke, and settled immediately east of the railroad at the first branch
above the passenger station at Asheville, on the hill just north of the
branch where his cabin stood for many years, and where he died May
17, 1824. He was buried with military honors on the hill where Femi
hurst now stands; but about 1875 his body was removed to the Newton
Academy graveyard where it now rests. The curious and interesting
inscription on his tombstone is as follows :
"In memory of Col. Daniel Smith, who departed this life on the
17th May, 1824, Aged 67. A native of New Jersey, an industrious
citizen, an honest man, and a brave soldier. The soil which inurns
his ashes is a part of the heritage wrested by his valour for his children
and his country from a ruthless and savage foe."
His old rifle is still in Asheville. His widow, Mary Smith, who
was a daughter of >Iajor William Davidson above mentioned, died
April 29, 1842, in the 82d year of her age and is buried by his side.
At the home place of Colonel Daniel Smith just described was
bom on January 7, 1894, his son, James McConnell Smith. The latter
married Polly Patton, daughter of Colonel John Patton hereinbefore
mentioned.

154 Asheville and Buncombe County
He settled in AsheviUe, and began at the old Buck Hotel and on
the opposite side of the street his long and singularly successful career
as hotel keeper, merchant and manufacturer of several kinds of articles.
He also conducted farming on a large scale, and for many years kept
a tanyard in the vaUey of Gash's Creek between where South Main
Street crosses that stream and where Southside Avenue first crossses it
going from the public square in AshevUle. He was a large landowner
in AsheviUe, and its vicinity, and at the time of his death was a very
wealthy man. He died on December 11, 1853, and was buried at the
graveyard of his family where Femihurst is now; but in 1875 his body
was removed to, and now rests in, the Newton Academy graveyard.
His wife had died in 1843. A numerous family of children and
descendants survive him, and are yet living in Buncombe County and
elsewhere in the United States.
On August 12, 1869, W. D. Rankin and wife, E. L. Rankin, con
veyed what has since been known as Catholic HiU to Rev. James
Gibbons for a Catholic Church. About 1874 or 1875 the CathoUcs
built on this lot the brick structure used by them for many years as a
church, but in 1889 they bought the lot on- Haywood Street at the
comer of Flint and erected on it a Catholic Church, first a frame and
later a brick building, the last now standing and very handsome.
The first female school in Asheville was that conducted by John
Dickson, D.D., M.D., in the building which stood on the site of a
portion of the Drhumor Block. His music teacher had conceived the
idea of studying medicine. He taught her in this science, and later
gave her material assistance. She was Elizabeth Blackwell, and after
wards became the first woman doctor who ever received a medical
diploma in the United States. This school, through various changes
from time to time, was later the AsheviUe College for Young Women.
In 1846, the late Stephen Lee, a South Carolinian, opened first at
the Thornton place near Swannanoa River and later at his residence in
Chunn's Cove, now occupied by the Messrs. Armstrong, a boys' school.
This he continued to teach untU 1879, the time of his death, except
during the war, when he was a colonel in the Confederate service, and
one session, which he taught in conjunction with Mr. Sturgeon, a
Presbyterian preacher, in 1867, at the Newton Academy. Probably no

Asheville and Buncombe County 155
local school ever had a greater fame, a wider patronage, or a better
teacher than Colonel Lee's. Men from all parts of the south sent their
boys here to school, and it was nothing unusual to meet in any of the
Southern States with a man whose education was begun at Colonel
Lee's school near Asheville. He was a graduate of West Point, and a
strict disciplinarian, but a kind hearted man.
And yet we are told that in the face of these facts, a few years ago
in the Congress of the United States "Mr. Campbell, of Ohio, was
showing the percentage of population as to reading, and found Bun
combe County, North Carolina, the lowest." (Why We Laugh, by
Samuel S. Cox, page 242.)
Asheville's first newspaper, established about 1840, was the
Highland Messenger. It was edited by D. R. McAnally, who was a
Methodist preacher and later a Methodist editor in Saint Louis.
Missouri, where he died in July, 1895. He was bom in Granger
County, Tennessee, February 17, 1810, and became a preacher when
he was nineteen years old. For some years he engaged in preaching
and came to Asheville in that work, living at the foot of the hill on the
north side of Woodfin Street a little east of the mouth of Vance Street.
He edited the Highland Messenger, a weekly paper, for three years,
and in 1843 went to Knoxville, Tennessee, where, for eight years, he
had charge of a female school, four years of which he also edited a
religious newspaper there. In 1851 he went to Saint Louis, Missouri,
and there for many years was editor of the Christian Advocate, and
was superintendent of a Methodist book concern. When the war on
the South was conducted he was imprisoned and suffered much for his
outspoken devotion to the cause of the South. He was the author of
Life of Martha Laurens Ramsey (1852), Life and Times of Rev.
WiUiam Patton (1856), Life and Times of Rev. Dr. Samuel Patton
(1857), Life and Labors of Bishop Marvin (1878), History of Metho
dism in Missouri (1881), and a large number of pamphlets. His
second wife was a sister of Dr. R. H. Reeves of Asheville.
Such was Asheville's and western North Carolina's first editor.
The publishers of the Highland Messenger were Joshua Roberts above
mentioned and his brother-in-law, John H. Christy, who later removed

156 Asheville and Buncombe County
to Athens, Georgia, where he published the Southern Watchman, The
first newspaper published in Asheville more frequently than once a
week was the Journal, owned and edited by W. H. Deaver, and pub
lished by him semi-weekly in 1879 on the western side of the Public
Square a little north of the present Smith Drug Store. The Asheville
Citizen soon thereafter began to issue, besides its weekly edition, the
first daily newspaper published in Asheville.

Chapter XII
CALHOUN'S PREDICTION
A SHEVILLE and its vicinity was a favorite summer resort of
/% John C. Calhoun. Probably no greater triumph of inductive
¦^ "^ reasoning could anywhere be found than the process by which
that extraordinary man, merely by an examination of the map, reached
the conclusion long before the facts had been demonstrated by measure
ment, that in the Black Mountains near Asheville was the highest land
in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. He repeatedly
declared this to be the fact to Governor Swain and others before any
measurement of those altitudes had been made. Finally, in 1835, and
1844, Elisha Mitchell, D.D., who had been professor of mathematics
and natural philosophy in the University of North Carolina, and then
held in that institution the chair of chemistry, mineralogy and geology,
measured these mountains, and found one of them to be, as Calhoun
had declared he would, the highest peak east of the Rocky Mountains.
Dr. Mitchell was born in Washington, Litchfield County, Connecticut,
August 19, 1793. After graduating in Yale College in 1815, he was
elected to a chair in the North Carolina University in 1817, was mar
ried in 1819, ordained by Orange Presbytery in 1821, made professor
of chemistry, mineralogy and geology at the University in 1825, became
Doctor Divinity in 1840, and died June 27, 1857.
A controversy arose between him and the late General T. L. Cling
man as to who had first measured the highest peak. Dr. Mitchell
undertook to establish his claim, and was proceeding through these
mountains to Big Tom Wilson's in order to get up evidence for this
purpose, when, being overtaken by night, he fell over a declivity and
was drowned at what was afterwards called Mitchell's Fall on Cat
Tail Creek of Cane River in Yancey County, near the scene of his
greatest achievement. For days his disappearance could not be ac
counted for, and numerous parties from all directions flocked to the
mountains in search for him. At last his body was found and brought
to Asheville, where it was buried in the churchyard of the Presbyterian

158

Asheville and Buncombe County

Mitchell's Falls— Yancey County— Cat-tail Branch of Caney River— Scene of Death of
Dr. Elisha Mitchell in 1857

Asheville and Buncombe County 159
Church on Church Street. Later it was removed and reburied on the
top of the highest peak of the Black Mountains, named in his honor,
Mitchell's Peak. Here a monument has in late years been erected
to him. There was no dispute as to Clingman's having measured the high
peak in 1855 or as to Mitchell's having measured peaks of the Black
Mountain in 1844. The only question was as to whether or not
Mitchell had measured the high peak in 1844. In this last mentioned
year his guide had been Thomas Wilson of Yancey County, commonly
called "Big Tom Wilson" ; and when MitcheU lost his life he was on
the way to the home of Wilson in order to secure a statement from the
latter that the high peak was one of those which Mitchell had measured
the altitude of in 1844. It was Wilson who led the party that dis
covered Mitchell's dead body. For years foUowing this, great num
bers of people visited Mitchell's Peak every summer, approaching it
by way of the North Fork of Swannanoa. At the foot of the moun
tains near which has been for years the "intake" of the Asheville
Waterworks, was built a house for the entertainment of the visitors
and halfway up the mountain, five miles above that house, Mr. William
Patton, of Charleston, South Carolina, built another house where such
visitors might spend the night, and for some time he kept it up.
Finally during the war on the South this latter house, commonly called
the "Mountain House," or Half-way House," was left without any one
to care for it and at last decayed and feU. Years later visitors to
Mitchell's Peak began to reach it from the town of Black Mountain
over the peak called Greybeard and later over a logging railroad.
Mitchell's Peak has been variously called Mitchell's Peak,
Mitchell's High Peak, Clingman's Peak, Black Dome, and some
times Mount Mitchell, although this last name has also been given to
another peak of the same range a few miles away. According to the
measurements of A. Guyot the high peak is 6,701 feet above sea-level
at its top, but a later measurement of Professor Turner puts its altitude
at 6,711 feet. T. L. Clingman made it 6,941 feet and Dr. MitcheU
made it 6,708 feet high, although the latter's former measurement was
6,772 feet.

160

Asheville and Buncombe County

Mitchell s Peak

Asheville and Buncombe County 161
MitcheU had been led to measure the heights of peaks in these
mountains called the Black Mountain by the hope of finding here the
highest land in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, because
he found here a greater variety of vegetation than anywhere else and
much of this vegetation towards the tops of the mountains in "the
Black" was of a character that belonged only to high altitudes or far
northern latitudes.
About 1873 the United States established and for some time main
tained on the top of Mitchell's Peak a meteorological signal station and
built there a log cabin in which the men so employed lived. Their food
and other supplies were carried to them from the settlement ten miles
or more below chiefly by the late Charles Glass on his back.
When about the year 1836 a railroad from Cincinnati to Charles
ton, which should pass through Asheville, was projected, Robert Y.
Hayne, the great South Carolinian, who had vanquished Daniel
Webster in debate and cowed Andrew Jackson in resolution, was made
its president. At a meeting of this company, held in Asheville in 1839,
Mr. Hayne, who had continued to be its president, became dangerously
ill, and died here September 24, 1829.
During the war on the South, Asheville became in a small way a
military centre. Confederate troops were from time to time encamped
at Camp Patton, at Camp Clingman on French Broad Avenue and
Philip Street, at the crossing of Flint Street and Cherry Street on the
north side of Flint Street called Camp Jeter, on Battery Park hill then
Battery Porter, on Beaucatcher Peak now called Beaumont, on Woodfin
Street opposite the former site of the Oaks Hotel, on Montford Avenue
near the residence of J. E. Rumbough, on the hill near the end of River
side Drive north of T. S. Morrison's, and on the ridge immediately
east of the place where North Main Street last crosses Glenn's Creek,
just before reaching French Broad River, once owned by the children
of the late N. W. Woodfin. At this last place, on April 5, 1865, a
battle was fought between the Confederate troops at Asheville and a
detachment of United States troops, who came up the French Broad
River. The latter was defeated and compelled to retum into Tennessee.
This was the battle of Asheville.

162 Asheville and Buncombe County
In 1869 S. C. Shelton, who had just removed from Virginia and
settled in Chunn's Cove, introduced into Buncombe County the culture
of tobacco, which theretofore had been raised in that region only in
small patches planted by old women and negroes. Soon tobacco came
to be the chief crop of the farmer and in two or three years equaUy so
in Madison and other adjoining counties. About 1888 AshevUle had
six or seven large warehouses devoted, in the season for sales, to the
marketing of tobacco raised in Western North Carolina, which was
said to be the finest and best in the world. Packing-houses were
numerous throughout the business parts of the city; but the ware
houses were on the site of the present Millard Building at the corner of
North Main and Walnut streets, and in the southem portion of the
Swannanoa Hotel on South Main Street, and on Valley Street, and at
the northwestern corner of Walnut Street and Lexington Avenue (then
called Water Street) , and at the southeastern corner of Patton Avenue
and Bailey Street (now Asheland Avenue) where is now the street-car
building. In two or three years more the business had disappeared
and a very few pounds of tobacco were raised in Western North Caro
lina. The danger from early frosts, the labor and risk in curing, and
the variations in prices, have all been assigned as reasons for this
sudden change in farming, while some tobacco-buyers said that the soil
no longer produced as fine a quality of the article as before.
The Confederate postoffice was in the old Buck Hotel building on
North Main Street, now Langren. The Confederate commissary was
on the east side of North Main Street between the Public Square and
College Street. This old building was afterwards removed to Patton
Avenue, whence it was removed again to give way to a brick building.
The Confederate hospital stood on the groimds afterwards occupied
by the Legal Building. The chief armories of the Confederate States
were at Richmond, Virginia, and Fayetteville, North Carolina, but
there were two smaller establishments, one at Asheville, North Caro
lina, and the other at Tallahassee, Alabama. (1 Davis's Rise and
Fall of the Confederate Government, page 480.)
The armory at Asheville was in charge of an Englishman by the
name of Riley as chief machinist. It stood on the branch immediately
east of where VaUey Street crosses it. About a hundreds yards or a

Asheville and Buncombe County 163
litUe more north of it was the armorer's house on the same lot. Here
when North Carolina was one of the Confederate States of America,
the Confederate flag from a high flag pole was constantly displayed.
There it floated in the breeze and rested in the sunlight, the emblem
"Of liberty bom of a patriot's dream,
Of a storm-cradled nation that fell."
These buUdings were burned by the United States troops when
they entered the town in the latter part of April, 1865.
In 1840 the charter of the City of AsheviUe was amended by an
act of the Legislature, Chapter 58, which recites that
"The main street in Asheville is too narrow, and the laying out of
one or more cross street? and the ascertaining the extent of the public
square and the boundaries of the village and the encroachments upon
same are demanded by the public convenience"; and appoints Philip
Brittain, Thomas Foster and James Gudger as commissioners to buy
land for widening the street, and making cross streets, and for other
purposes. Afterwards, on January 11, 1841, the Legislature passed
another amendatory statute whereby "James M. Smith, James W.
Patton, N. W. Woodfin, Isaac T. Poor and James F. E. Hardy" were
"incorporated into a body politic and corporate by the name of the
'Board of Commissioners for the town of AsheviUe,' " with certain
powers therein defined. Still later by an act ratified March 8, 1883,
and entitled "An act to amend the charter of the town of Asheville,"
the town of Asheville ceased to exist as such, and thenceforth became
"The City of AsheviUe."
In 1901 another act of the legislature enlarged the territorial
limits of the city. Then again on March 4, 1905, another act was
passed further extending the city's northern and southem borders until
at the southwestern comer they reached nearly to the mouth of the
Swannanoa River, and reached on the east one hundred feet east of the
mountain crest. Various small municipalities had then recently been
incorporated on the northern and southern borders of the city. On the
northern part had been so fonned on February 28, 1889, the town of
Ramoth, the name of which had been changed to Woolsey, on March
2, 1903. At the same end and further west had been thus formed on

164 Asheville and Buncombe County
February 17, 1893, the town of Montford. Then on the southern end
had been so formed on February 27, 1891, the town of Kenilworth,
and west of that had been thus formed on March 7, 1887, the town of
Victoria. This act of March 4, 1905, enlarging the city's limits, took
into these the territory of Woolsey and Montford and Victoria and part
of the territory of Kenilworth and repealed the charter of all of these
small towns except that of Kenilworth, and even the charter of Kenil
worth in so far as it related to territory formerly belonging to that
municipality but now transferred to the City of Asheville. On
February 9, 1889, the legislature had incorporated the town of West '
Asheville for territory opposite AsheviUe and on the western side of
French Broad River. This charter was repealed on March 8, 1897;
but the town was reincorporated on March 6, 1913. On March
5, 1917, provision was made in an act of legislature for a consolidation
of West Asheville with the City of Asheville if so approved by a vote
of the two corporations at an election on the question to be held in
June, 1917. The election was held at the time so appointed and
resulted favorably to the consolidation and West Asheville became a
part of the City of Asheville.
For many years Asheville was the only municipal corporation in
Buncombe County. After a while a good number of small towns within
that county were, from time to time, incorporated by special legislative
enactments. On September 7, 1832, there was formed at what is now the
southem end of Weaverville a campmeeting place called "Salem."
Adjoining this was a church building provided for on the north on
September 20, 1844. Then, on December 19, 1849, was provided a
Methodist Parsonage on the east; and on June 17, 1851, a Temper
ance Hall and school house adjoining the church and camp ground on
the west. Then a coUege on the north of the church and Temperance
Hall lots was incorporated under the name of Weaverville College on
December 15, 1873. At this place, on March 16, 1875, was formed by
legislative charter the town of Weaversville, which on March 8, 1909,
was made the town of Weaverville by an act of the legislature then
passed. Some years before the war on the South a settlement on New
found Creek in the northwestern part of Buncombe County was named

Asheville and Buncombe County 165
Leicester in honor of Mr. Leicester Chapman, a naturalized English
man then engaged in merchandizing at the place. To the public,
however, it soom became somewhat jocularly known as "Lick Skillet"
and even as "The Skillet.'' Even yet the name of Leicester is pro
nounced in the neighborhood by many people just as it is spelled and
not as the English pronunciation of Lester would have it. The town
was incorporated on February 9, 1874, but the act of final incorpora
tion was repealed March 2, 1905.
On March 29, 1880, the State of North CaroUna sold its interest
in the Western North Carolina Railroad Company to W. J. Best and
his associates. At that time the railroad of that company had been
extended west to the Blue Ridge vicinity but not across to where is
now the town of Biltmore. When it reached that far the place was
made a station and called Best. In May 3, 1888, Mr. G. W. Vander
bilt began to buy land in that neighborhood and erected on that his
handsome mansion (finished in 1895) and Biltmore Estate. In his
purchase he included Best, and built on its site the town of Biltmore on
the southem side of Swannanoa River. That town was incorporated
under the name of Biltmore on March 6, 1893. Its corporate limits
were enlarged so as to cross Swannanoa River and take in some land
to the north of the stream and the stream itself on March 6, 1903, and
it now adjoins the City of AsheviUe.
To the south of Biltmore is the town of South Biltmore incor
porated Febraary 15, 1895.
Black Mountain, where for many years before the arrival of the
raihoad there had been a postoffice called Gray Eagle at Mr. S.
Dougherty's, was incorporated March 4, 1893 ; and its close neighbor
Montreat is the town of the "Mountain Retreat Association," incor
porated March 2, 1897.
Arden was incorporated March 13, 1895.
Alexander became a town Febmary 21, 1905.
I Swannanoa was first made a railroad station and called
"Cooper's" in honor of A. D. Cooper who then owned the land; but
soon the name was changed to "Swaimanoa."
Hazel was incorporated February 28, 1891, and Jupiter March
12, 1895.

166 Asheville and Buncombe County
Buena Vista was incorporated March 4, 1891 ; but its charter was
repealed in 1903. So, too, Inanda was incorporated in 1893 and its
charter was repealed March 7, 1901.
Other places, such as Fairview, Ridgecrest, Acton, Turnpike, Sky-
land, Busbee, Candler, and Barnardsville, had grown up in the county,
chiefly since the railroads came.
The matter of early roads in Buncombe County has been already
mentioned. The Asheville Plateau was approached through gaps in
the surrounding mountains although usually the roads through these
gaps were scarcely worthy of the name. Going from Asheville toward
the east there was a road which passed up the French Broad River and
over the mountains near Caesar's Head into what is now Greenville
County of upper South Carolina; then further north the road
from Asheville ran by way of the present Hendersonville through
Saluda Gap and on to what is now the City of Greenville, and to
Columbia in separate branches; then yet further north was what was
called the Howard Gap Road which left the road to Saluda Gap at
Fletchers on Cane Creek and taking to the east passed through
Howard's Gap and by way of the modern Lynn to the town of Spartan
burg; then still further north the Mills Gap Road left the road to
Saluda Gap at the present Busbee and ran by way of EdneyviUe across
Mills's Gap at Point Lookout Mountain down to Green River; then
another road left the Mills Gap Road before reaching Mills's Gap and
running further east went through Cooper's Gap north of Mills's Gap
and near Sugar Loaf Mountain; then further north still a road known
as the Hickorynut Gap Road turned to the east at the present town of
Biltmore and passed by the modern Fairview and through Sherrill's
Gap later called Hickorynut Gap and down Broad River, and a road
from EdneyviUe and on through Reedy Patch Gap (the lowest gap in
these mountains) into the Hickorynut Gap Road at little north of
Chimney Rock, and then still to the north the Swannanoa Road ran up
Swannanoa River and passed through Swannanoa Gap (originally
one-half mUe south of the Big Tunnel place and later at that place)
down Davidson's Mill Creek to the Old Fort. Going from Asheville
toward the west the road ran to the Pigeon River at the site of the
present town of Canton and on to Clyde, but forked with one fork

Asheville and Buncombe County 167
passing down Pigeon River into Tennessee and another running on
west, one branch by Franklin and through Rabun's Gap into Georgia,
another branch down Tuckaseigee and Little Tennessee rivers into
Tennessee, and a third branch between them into the present Cherokee
County. From Asheville going to the north the road ran down French
Broad River, the Old Warm Spring Road often leaving the river to the
west for considerable distances, but the later Buncombe Turnpike keep
ing near that stream's eastern or northern bank, passing oppiosite Warm
Springs to Paint Rock ; another road led northward from Asheville by
way of the pre.sent Weaverville beyond which it forked, with the left
fork passing over into Tennessee in the Watauga region and the right
fork running to the modern town of Burnsville. Mr. S. M. Feather-
stone has aided me much in locating some of the eastem gaps just
mentioned. Of these roads in early days, that between Paint Rock and Saluda
Gap was most used, especially after the constmction of the Buncombe
Tumpike, which was for many years kept in excellent repair by squads
of hands under the direction of the late Colonel Enoch H. Cunning
ham. All the more prosperous people of the country kept handsome
carriages and a pair of fine horses whose only duty was to draw the
vehicle and with a negro man who generally gave his entire time to the
care of the carriage and its horses. At a very early day wealthy men
from South Carolina and Georgia began to spend their summers in
these mountains and came with their beautiful carriages and horses.
Thus, particularly in summer but throughout the year, a traveUer on
one of the principal Buncombe roads, and especially on the Buncombe
Turnpike, was sure to meet many handsome equipages on any portion
of his journey.
Then, too, even as early as 1800, stock-raisers of Kentucky and
Tennessee had begun to drive their hogs and horses and cattle in large
droves through Buncombe County to the markets of South Carolina
and Georgia. This species of travel greatly increased when the Bun
combe Tumpike was opened. To such an extent was this increase that
at the proper season of the year one passing along that road in daytime
was scarcely ever out of sight and hearing of one or more of these
droves. Even turkevs were driven to market in the same way, the

168 Asheville and Buncombe County
drivers using whips with pieces of red flannel tied to the end of the
lash. At one period there passed through Asheville in these droves
every year from 140,000 to 160,000 hogs in the months of November
and December. For the entertainment of these drivers and their droves
taverns sprung up along the road at about every five miles and their
capacities were often taxed to the utmost. The country raised the corn
which, in enormous quantities, was required to meet the demands of
this extensive business. This brought considerable profits to the
farmers, the merchants and the innkeepers, and prosperity to the entire
community. The business of driving stock continued, though in de
creasing quantities, until about 1870, when it ceased. Railroads had
increased everywhere and furnished the stock-raisers of Kentucky and
Tennessee cheaper and quicker methods of reaching the markets with
their products.

Chapter XIII
IN 1885 occurred in Buncombe County a change in the law regu
lating the care of stock raised in that region. Before that time
any one who chose to do so might turn out his cattle and hogs to
seek food wherever they could find it. Of course, this made it neces
sary for farmers to protect their crops by surrounding them with fences.
After a while the timber required for fences became scarce. Then, in
1885, the law was so changed that owners of livestock must prevent
them from depredating on lands of other people. Fences then disap
peared. For economic reasons the change was unavoidable, but the
absence of fences detracted much from the beauty of farms. Before
this the fences had contributed greatly to the appearance of agricul
tural districts, especially where such fences were of planks. This was
often the case, particularly along roadsides. A farm so fenced was a
great beauty in the landscape, and its roads were most attractive to the
traveller. When carriages became less numerous and stock-driving through
the country had ceased, less attention was paid to roads and even the
turnpike companies allowed their privileges to lapse. In 1848-1849
the State of North Carolina directed the building of the Western
Tumpike from Salisbury westward to the Georgia line. In 1854-1855
Asheville was ordered to be the eastem terminus of this road. Then
the road was constructed, but was never a good one. When railroads
arrived all care of other roads was, for a time, abandoned. Mean
while the streets of Asheville, from increased use by a growing popu
lation, were in such condition that, in seasons of winter or prolonged
rains, they were often impassable. Paving with crushed rock, obtained
from the place where the "New Reservoir" is now, was put upon some
of the streets near the city's centre and toward the depot, beginning
about 1884. Then other streets were paved with stone blocks. At
last, in 1890, a system of paving was adopted. The first of this was
on that part of South Main Street from the Public Square southward
toward Southside Avenue. The material used for this work was
paving-bricks and the contractor for the work was General P. M. B.

170 Asheville and Buncombe County
Young, the distinguished Confederate cavalry officer. In 1896 Mr.
Caney Brown was chairman of the Board of Commissioners of Bun
combe County and revived the matter of road improvement. He and
his successor, Mr. J. E. Rankin, did a small amount of paving with
cmshed rock on the road between AsheviUe and Biltmore; but in 1900,
when Mr. M. L. Reed was chairman of that board, the county com
menced systematically to pave its roads and put iron and concrete
bridges over the streams where the roads crossed them.
The Western North Carolina Railroad was the first to reach Ashe
ville. This was in 1881. Its first depot in the place was a frarae
building erected for the purpose where West Haywood Street crosses
that railroad in the vicinity of the old Smith's Bridge place. After a
year or so the present freight depot on Depot Street was built and its
northern end used for a while as a passenger station-house while the
remainder of the building was used for freight. Then the present
passenger depot was constructed. The AsheviUe and Spartanburg
Railroad was completed to what is now Biltmore, but then was Best,
in 1886. Through the enterprise of the late Captain C. M. McLoud.
the city had a telegraph line connecting it with Henry Station on the
Western North Carolina Railroad (now abandoned as a station) about
three miles west of Old Fort, a year before the railroad came. In 1887
the first street cars were put upon the streets of Asheville. It was an
electric trolley system from the beginning .and ran at first only from the
Public Square to the present passenger station. Its builder, a Mr.
Davidson, gave a dinner at this station when the car made its first full
trip down. That trip was by way of Southside Avenue. About one
year later the streets began to be lighted with electricity, chiefly through
a tall tower or mast which stood on the Public Square, thei'e having
theretofore been for a short time a few gas lamps near "that square.
Telephones were introduced in 1886. Until about 1876 Asheville's
sidewalks were exceedingly few and short and were constructed entirely
of round stones which were then found in great plenty on or near the
surface of the ground on Battery Park hiU. Then some walks were
built of thick planks running longitudinally along the street two
planks about six inches apart constituting the sidewalk. These gave
way to sidewalks of flagstones and these to bricks and these to concrete.

Asheville and Buncombe County 171
The road which left the present Patton Avenue at or about what
is now the head of Asheland Avenue ran southwestwardly entering the
modem Aston Park at its northeastern corner and circling with the
top. of fhe ridge until it came to the present French Broad Avenue at
about the southeastern corner of Aston Park. That portion of this
road which lay about fifty feet to the south of what is now the Meri
wether Hospital was used in 1865 and 1866 for a tournament ground
by the young Confederate soldiers who had just returned from the army.
The first of these tournaments were ridden only with the sabre. The
rider attempted to catch on his sabre a metal ring of about two inches
in diameter suspended loosely from the arm of an upright post, which
arm projected over the course at about half way, while the ring hung
just a little above the rider's head. At one-fourth the length of the
tourse, one on the right hand and the other on the left, stood by the side
of the course two posts about as high as a horse. These posts were
surmounted by large wooden balls supported on the posts by small
pieces of wood six inches long and just large enough to hold the balls.
The rider ran his horse at a rapid gallop along the course and sought
as he passed to cut these small necks with his sabre so that the balls
would f aU to the ground and in the middle of the course catch the ring
on the same weapon. Later the sabre and balls were abandoned and
the rider attempted to catch one or more suspended rings with a long
lance which he carried. At this place and at about the same time was
held a barbarous "gander-pulling" in which instead of the ring was
suspended a live gander with greased neck, while every rider attempted
to pull off the bird's head. This brutal performance was never re
peated. It is said to have been practised elsewhere in early days. (See
Judge Longstreet's Georgia Scenes.) On this old field was Asheville's
earliest baseball ground. Here occurred in 1866 the first game of that
kind ever played in Buncombe County. Soon it supplanted the old
"town-ball," of which it is a modification, and later it passed largely
into the hands of professional players.
On this ground, too, which was uninclosed, were for many years
conducted picnics and other popular sports and were held poUtical
speakings and other outdoor public gatherings. All these were by per
mission of the owners of the land or without objection from them.

172 Asheville and Buncombe County
In Asheville's early days the merchants of Buncombe Count>
hauled their goods in four-horse or six-horse wagons from Charleston.
South Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia, making annual trips and
spending a month or more in the journey. The front pair of horses or
mules always was adorned with jingling bells above their heads. Later
when railroads came into general use these merchants made their pur
chases in Baltimore or New York, going in person to those markets
usually every spring and every fall for the purpose. At the close of
the war on the South Asheville was sixty miles from the nearest point
of every of three railroads, Morganton in North Carolina, and
Greenville in South Carolina and Greeneville in Tennessee, and goods
were usually hauled in wagons from the last of these. Then the rail
road from Morristown to Wolf Creek in Tennessee was completed as
far as Wolf Creek and the goods were so brought from that place.
Then the Western North Carolina Railroad reached Marion, North
Carolina, and then Old Fort and then Henry Station and from these
places, respectively, while one was the nearest railroad station, Ashe
ville's merchants brought their goods by wagon.
At first the money used in Buncombe County was of the English
denominations of pounds, shillings and pence and it was for pounds
and shillings that the first lots in Asheville were sold. Later occasion
ally Mexican dollars, or as they were usually called "Spanish milled
dollars," were in common use. Then came the United States currency.
As late as 1872 there were in circulation in Asheville a good many
silver six-pence (six and one-fourth cents) and shilling (twelve and
one-half cents) pieces. From 1830 to 1835 two men named Bechtler
of Rutherfordton, North Carolina, obtained an act of Congress which
permitted them to coin, in private coinage, gold gathered in the pied
mont portion of Westem North Carolina and South Carolina and in
Northern Georgia. They produced a good many coins of the denomi
nations of one dollar, two and one-half dollars, and five dollars the one
dollars being far the most numerous. These coins contained a little
more gold than their denominations called for, and were produced for
many years, constituting with Mexican silver dollars the principal
money of that region. Often they were counterfeited in brass; but, as
the brass was less easily bent than the gold, a practice grew up of test-

Asheville and Buncombe County

173

ing the genuineness of a Bechtler coin by placing it in the crack of a
door and bending it in order to see how easily it was to bend. For this
reason most of such coins which exist have creases across them. They
are now very scarce, however, and command large premiums from col
lectors. During the war on the South both the Treasurer of Buncombe

Bechtler Coins
County in behalf of the State and Asheville for itself issued paper
money; the county in denominations of five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-
five and fifty cents and one dollar; and the town in the same denomi
nations less than one dollar. But probably the greater part of the
mercantile transactions up to about 1875 was by exchanging country
produce for goods, or as these transactions were differently called,
"barter," or the customer selling his produce and "taking it out in
trade." Sometimes the merchant had two prices which he would pay
for produce, giving more when the seller agreed to "take it out in trade."
Asheville never had a complete market house until the present
building called the City Hall was erected in 1892; but ever mercantile
establishment, except a drug store, was a general store which sold all

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Asheville Confederate Currency

Asheville and Buncombe County

175

kinds of goods and bought all kinds of country produce, although for
a short time before that market-house was built there was in the city a
sort of market-house.
Asheville's first burying-ground was at the southeast corner of
Eagle Street and Market Street, but later on this was changed to a
burying-ground on the east side of the present Church Street between
the Presbyterian Church and Aston Street. Then in 1865 a Methodist
burying-ground was established
on the western side of Church
Street immediately south of the
Central Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, church building.
There were also some burials in
the churchyard of Trinity Epis
copal Church immediately south
of that church building on the
eastern side of Church Street, and
. some on the same side of that
street immediately north of the
Presbyterian Church. All these
graves on Church Street, with the
exception of that of James Patton,
were removed to Riverside Ceme
tery when it was established in
1885 by the Asheville Cemetery
Company incorporated on August
4th of that year. In this way it
came about that many graves in
Riverside Cemetery contain bodies
which were removed to it from
other burying-grounds and some
of which have been removed twice. Among the latter is the grave
marked by the oldest tombstone in that cemetery. It is that of
John Lyon, the distinguished English botanist, "a gentleman through
whose industry and skill more new and rare American plants have
lately been introduced into Europe than through all other channels

Grave of John Lyons,
Riverside Cemetery, Asheville

] 76 Asheville and Buncombe County
v/hatever." John Lyon died of consumption in the old Swain Building
on the eastern side of South Main Street, in September, 1814, at the
age of 49, a lonely stranger in a strange land among strangers
thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean from any relative, but
cared for by strangers with great tenderness. His body was buried in
the old burying-ground east of Market Street and removed thence to
the old Presbyterian graveyard east of Church Street and finally to its
resting place in Riverside Cemetery near the southeastern corner. No
doubt the oldest burying-ground in the county is the Shawano Indian
burying-ground on the eastern banks of French Broad River about one
mile above the mouth of Swannanoa River. Probably the oldest
burying-ground of white people in the county is the old Robert Patton
burying-ground near the town of Swannanoa. The Newton Academy
graveyard is now the oldest graveyard in Asheville; but the oldest
graves in Asheville were the "Indian Graves" on Patton Avenue,
immediately west of the crossing of Lexington Avenue, which were used
as a landmark to indicate the place selected for Buncombe's county
town. This and the other circumstances attendant upon the making of
that location seem to disprove the old story told about that location, as
about the location of other towns, that the commissioners determined
to put the town at the bar-room at which they had met for the purpose
of drinking and had been drinking. There was no bar-room where
they determined should be the site of the county town of Buncombe.
Had there been, it would have been called for in making the location.
The more def:ailed story that the bar-room was at a cross-roads where
the proporietor professod to be deaf and would ask every traveller who
stopped to inquire his way whether he said that he wanted a whiskey
or brandy, is equally set at rest in the same way.

Chapter XIV
THE first preachers having charge of churches in Asheville
were : 1^'or the Presbyterians, George Newton mentioned above ;
for the Methodists, the first circuit rider of "Swanino Circuit"
was Samuel Edney in 1792-1793, while Samuel Lowe was its presiding
elder; and the first station preacher at Asheville was J. S. Burnett
(in 1848) ; for the Episcopalians, the first preacher was Jarvis
Buxton; for the Baptists, the first regular preacher was Thomas
Stradley, an Englishman who came to America and lived on Beaver
dam in Buncombe County. The first Episcopalian in Buncombe
County was Mrs. WiUiam Coleman (bom Miss Evelina Baird). Dr.
Jarvis Buxton was born February 27, 1820, near Washington, North
Carolina; came to Asheville in 1846, where he established the first
Episcopal Church; and died March 11, 1902.
The first physician in Asheville seems to have been R. B. Vance,
who became a member of Congress from the district and was killed in
a duel by S. P. Carson; and the first drug store was built and opened
in 1850 and thence conducted by P. C. Lester, a physician, on the
western side of South Main Street, in a frame building where is now
Hilliard Hall, and in the second story of which was Asheville's first
photograph gallery kept by an itinerant photographer about 1866.
Apparently the first hotel in the place was that of Colonel James
M. Alexander on South Main Street in what became the Hilliard
Residence that occupied a site now within the street. Opposite that
house and just south of the "Henrietta'' was a hitching lot where
horseback riders from the country visiting the town hitched their
horses; but later the hitching lot was on the western side of Haywood
Street opposite the present Citizen Building; and later still every
merchant had his own hitching lot. The next hotel was the Eagle
Hotel on the eastern side of South Main Street between the present
streets called Eagle and Sycamore. It was kept by James Patton.
Then, at an early day, came the Buck Hotel on the site of the present
Langren and kept by James M. Smith. Next came the brick house at
the southwestern corner of North Main and Cherry streets kept by

178

Asheville and Buncombe County

Top — Bank Hotel looking north, site of. T. C. Smith Drug Store
Bottom — North Public Square, Buck Hotel, left background— 1888

Asheville and Buncombe County 179
Israel Baird and later the Brand residence. The Carolina House,
built by John Reynolds on the western side of North Main Street a
little the south of Woodfin Street, was next. The Battery Park Hotel
was built by Frank Coxe and opened in the summer of 1 886 to visitors.
It occupied the site of the old Battery Porter, so called from a Con
federate battery stationed there ; and when the hotel was built the name
was change to "Battery Park." For many years, extending back to the
time of its origin, Asheville had been visited by many strangers in the
summer months of every year; but about the time this hotel was first
opened, the town began to be an all-the-year resort for the pleasure-
seekers and tourists. In the year 1912 on July 4th, the Langren Hotel,
occupying the site of the old Buck Hotel, began business, chiefly
patronized by commercial travel. Then in the summer of 1913 Grove
Park Inn first threw open its door for public entertainment.
Before the war on the South the advantages offered by Asheville
climate for the treatment of persons afflicted with consumption had
been well known. In 1871 two physicians of the name of Gatchell
established a sanatarium at Forest Hill then just without Asheville's
corporate limits. After some while this enterprise was abandoned but
later revived by one of them at the northeastern corner of Haywood and
College Streets. In 1876 a physician named Gleitzman began to con
duct in the old Carolina House on North Main Street a sanatorium for
tubercular patients and continued it for some years.
During the war there had been a Confederate hospital where the
Central Bank is now. After that Asheville had no hospital until 1892
when the Mission Hospital was built on Charlotte and Woodfin streets,
after the Supreme Court of the State had declared void an ordinance
¦ of the city under which the city authorities attempted to prevent its
erection. (See State vs. J. A. Tenant, 110 N. C. 609.)
Before 1884 Asheville had no waterworks. The need of its
inhabitants for water was met by wells and springs. A public well
stood about thirty feet north of the present Central Bank and another
one was on the other side of the Public Square about seventy-five feet
north from the former. Many homes had private wells and a few had
springs. Many of the physical features of Asheville had changed since
it became a town. Some of these physical features of the place are no
longer recognizable, even to people yet living who had known it years

180

Asheville and Buncombe County

AsheviUe, 1883— Eastern side of French Broad River near (earlier) site of Smith's Bridge

Asheville and Buncombe County 181
ago. The streams have ceased to rise and flow where they once rose
and flowed. On the west side of Water Street immediately south of
Walnut Street once stood a famous spring called for in the old deeds,
hut now not to be found. Below it, on both sides of the street, springs
have disappeared in the last half of a century. Even subsequent to
the late war, horses have been seen to mire up to the body in the blue
mud of Water Street (Lexington Avenue) just south of Woodfin Street.
Almost the same state of affairs has existed, and the same changes
taken place in Central Avenue since 1865, when it was a narrow lane
ending at a private residence now opposite the entrance of Orange
Street. I was informed by the late Mr. R. B. Justice, that at the time
of his first visit to Asheville in 1846, a spring of good water, much
used, existed on the spot where now stands the postoffice or Federal
Building. Until within the last two years there stood on the northem
border of South Beaumont Street about fifty yards west from its
junction with College Street a large old chestnut tree in which the late
Colonel E. H. Cunningham used to relate that he had seen killed at
one time three black bears, an old one and her two young.
At a time not long antecedent to the war, some gentlemen had con
ceived the idea of having a waterworks for the town and, under the
supervision of the late Hosea Lindsey. had excavated, at the present
site of the "Old Reservoir," a place in the mountains near where
College Street begins to ascend and had dug a trench for pipes from it
some distance in the direction of the town's centre ; but the project had
been abandoned. About 1884 the City, at the suggestion of the late
Captain Thomas W. Patton, completed that reservoir and pipe line
bringing into them the water collected from the branches running west
out of the mountain for a distance of about a mile to the north. Then
in 1886 the City constructed a pumping station on Swannanoa River at
the place where the road to Oteen leaves the river, now caUed the "Old
Waterworks," but formerly the site of the late Montraville Patton's
grist miU. This water supply was pumped across Beaucatcher Gap
into the "Old Reservoir" and later also into the metal standpipe on
College Street and the old supply of water from the branches was aban
doned. Then, in 1902-1903, the city built a gravity line by which
water from "the intake" on the North Fork of Swannanoa River was

182

Asheville and Buncombe County

Asheville and Buncombe County 183
carried in pipes from its superior altitude, across Beaucatcher Gap,
into the "Old Reservoir" and this standpipe. The filter station on the
southem side of College Street was built in 1890. In 1907 the City
constructed the "New Reservoir" near the standpipe on the eastem side
of College Street a little to the north of Beaucatcher Gap. Then in
1920 was added to the existing source of water supply another "gravity
line" by which water from Bee Tree Creek is carried over Beaucatcher
Gap into the same reservoirs.
As long as Asheville had no waterworks it had, of course, no fire
department or sewer lines. When a fire occurred crowds assembled
and organized an extemporary "bucket brigade." A Hook and Ladder
Company was organized as early as 1882 to assist at fires. But when
waterworks had been established, voluntary "hook and ladder" and
"hose-reel" companies were formed, fhe first in 1884; and, since the
reservoirs were higher than the part of the City then built up, no fire-
engine was needed or has been used. Sewers came in 1888.
Asheville's altitude above sea-level is 2,200 feet according to
some or 2,250 feet according to Guyot, at the Public Square. Most
of the City is built on hills elevated far above the French Broad and
Swannanoa rivers, while parts of the City are much lower than these.
For many years there had occurred, at very rare intervals, floods of
considerable size in these streams; but no one apprehended danger to
any part of the place from such a source. It is said that there had been
a heavy freshet in April, 1791 and another in May, 1845. On August
28-30, 1852, a freshet had done considerable damage in the valleys
of these rivers and washed away on the French Broad the bridge at
Captain Wiley Jones's near the mouth of Hominy Creek, Smith's
Bridge at AsheviUe, Gannon's Bridge at what is now Craggy, Alex
ander's Bridge at French Broad (now Alexander) and Chunn's Bridge
and the Warm Springs Bridge in Madison County, and on the Swan
nanoa Patton's Bridge about half a mUe above the mouth of that stream.
It has been said that in about 1810 or 1811 there had been a famous
freshet in the Swannanoa River, but the injur)- from it was not great;
but this is probably an exaggerated statement. Then in June, 1876,
a freshet in both rivers had done much damage, especiaUy in the valley
of the French Broad. But on July 16, 1916, occurred a flood in both

184

Asheville and Buncombe County

rivers which exceeded any of these and caused ravages parts of
are yet to be seen. The streets of Biltmore and the lower parts of
ville were flooded to considerable depths
until in both places men were drowned in
them, while much property and many
bridges disappeared or were ruined or
greatly injured.
Patton Avenue is Asheville's principal
business street. The part of it from the
Public Square to the Federal Building,
with much narrower width, was part of the
old Haywood Road. Beyond that part to
the west until it comes to Haywood Street
about three-quarters of a miles from the
Public Square had been opened, under the
name of Patton Street, as a rough country
road through the woods before the war, but
the large fills where three hollows were
crossed had washed out in great part, and
it was rare that wagons attempted to pass
over it by driving around the fills. In
1876 this part of the street was rebuilt
and widened under the supervision of
E. Clayton. Ephraim Clayton was born in that
part of Buncombe County which is now
Transylvania County, on Davidson River,
in 1805. In early life he became a con
tractor for building houses and in that
business built probably more houses in
North Carolina, South Carolina and
Georgia than any other two men. Among
the buildings erected by him were Wofford
College at Spartanburg, South Carolina,
and the Buncombe Courthouse which
was burned in 1865 and the present

which Ashe-

Asheville and Buncombe County 185
Newton Academy and (in 1840) the house in Asheville which
gave place to the Drhumor Building and the houses of the Everett
(formerly Ward and then Lowndes) Place on French Broad River in
Transylvania County. His home for the greater part of his life was in
Asheville on what is now the eastem side of Spruce Street opposite
the eastern end of Walnut Street. He brought to Asheville the first
planing machine ever in Westem North Carolina. During the war on
the South he headed a company which manufactured in that town guns
of the Enfield rifle type for the use of Confederate soldiers with which
to protect their country from an invading foe. One of those guns is
now owned by the writer. These guns were made at Colonel Clayton's
shop adjoining his home on the north, where is now the residence of
Doctor R. H. Reeves, and the company which made them was com
posed of Ephraim Clayton, R. W. Pulliam and G. W. Whitson. The
guns, however, could not be made satisfactory at first for want of
proper machinery, but later were by improved machinery superior
rifles, the best in the Confederate army. Iron for their manufacture
was obtained at Cranberry. After the war Colonel Clayton went into
railroad contracting. A large contract on the Spartanburg and Ashe
ville Railroad was worked out by him; and, when, by the failure of
the railroad company, he lost all that was due to him for this work his
property was greatly reduced. He died at his home near Asheville on
the western side of French Broad River on August 9, 1892, the day
before that on which Buncombe County's centennial was celebrated at
the northeastern corner of Flint and Magnolia streets and with various
displays and ceremonies throughout the City.

.V J

Asheville, 1866 — Right centre, Roberts House— Stable above, site of Elks Building on Haytifood Street— Walnut
Street between— House above that stable, site of Haywood Building— Lower left comer, stable on Lexington
Avenue — Penland Street now crosses centre from left to right

Chapter XV
FOR a long time the name of Asheville's streets were such as the
public saw fit to bestow on them, every man applying to a street
such name as he liked. This continued until December 4, 1876,
when the town authorities appointed a committee, consisting of two
aldermen P. Rollins and F. M. Miller and Colonel R. W. Pulliam,
Captain Thomas W. Patton and Captain William M. Cocke, Jr., all
now deceased, to give official names to all the streets. Some of the
names then given yet remain, but many of them have disappeared. It
would not be too much to say that the official work has not always
improved upon the haphazard of earlier nomenclature in sound or
propriety. Anyhow, Academy Street has been changed to Montford
Avenue, Mulberry Street to Cumberland Avenue, Starnes Street to
Hiawassee Street, North Main Street to Broadway, Beaverdam Street
to Merrimon Avenue, Libbey Street to Liberty Street, Bridge Street to
Central Avenue, White Oak Street to Oak Street, Pine Street to
Furman Avenue, South Main Street to BUtmore Avenue, BaUey Street
to Asheland Avenue, Maria Avenue to French Broad Avenue, Roberts
Street to Bartlett Street, and Buxton Street to Park Avenue and the
"PubUc Square" to "Pack Square."
The PubUc Library of AshevUle was started in 1879 as a private
benevolence. Asheville and Westem North Carolina have not been en
tirely without a historical literature. The principal of the books on the
subject are: (1) Francis Asbury's Journal, quoted above; (2) Charles
Lanman's Letters from the AUeghany Mountains, 1849, repubUshed in
his Adventures in the Wilds of the United States and British American
Provinces, 1856, vol. 1; (3) D. K. Bennett's Chronology of North
Carolina, of which the parts on Western North Carolina were by the
publisher, James M. Edney, 1858'; (4) Henry E. Colton's Mountain
Scenery, 1859; (5) The Land of the Sky by Christian Reid (Miss
Frances Fisher afterwards Mrs. Tiernan), 1875; (6) T. L. Cling
man's Speeches and Writings, 1877; (7) W. G. Zeigler and B. S.
Grosscup's Heart of the AUeghanies, 1883; (8) Standard Guide to
AsheviUe and Western North Carolina, illustrated by Roger Davis,

188.

Asheville and Buncombe County

Asheville — Eastem side of South Main Street — Upper floor marked "Reading," flrst room
occupied by Asheville Public Library— About 1878— Site of Old George Swain House
where John Lyon died, in portion just south of cut
published by Fred L. Jacobs, Asheville, N. C, 1887; and (9) John
Preston Arthur's Western North Carolina, 1914, published by the
Edward Buncombe Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolu
tion of Asheville, N. C.
As bearing more particularly, although not exclusively, on the
Cherokees may be mentioned a two-volume novel now extremely scarce

Asheville and Buncombe County 189
entitled "Eoneguski or the Cherokee Chief : A Tale of Past Wars. By
an American" (Judge Robert Strange of North Carolina), 1839; and
Myths of the Cherokee, by James Mooney, published in 1902 as a part
of the United States government publication "Nineteenth Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology."
On the botany of Western North Carolina a very clear and trust
worthy guide to the trees and shrubs will be found in Dr. M. A. Curtis's
Trees and Shrubs of North Carolina, originally published as Part III
of "Emmons's Geological and Natural History Survey of North Caro
lina," 1860 reprinted as part of P. M. Hale's "Woods and Timbers of
North Carolina," 1883 ; and on the gems of Western North Carolina a
valuable treatise will be found in George Frederick Kunz's "History
of the Gems Found in North Carolina," published as "Bulletin No.
12," being a part of J. Hyde Pratt's "North Carolina Geological and
Economical Survey, 1907."
The book by Christian Reid mentioned above applied a new and
popular name to the Asheville region, which at once became to the
public and has since been frequently called
The Land of the Sky.
Finis.

GENESIS OF THE
COUNTY OF BUNCOMBE

Genesis of the County of Buncombe
By Hon. Theo. F. Davidson

AT the close of 1791, Burke and Rutherford were the frontiei
counties of North Carolina, their western boundaries extend-
^ ing with the Cherokee Indian treaty lines from the State of
South Carolina to Tennessee.
Within a short time after the close of the Revolutionary War,
hostilities with the Cherokee Indians, who had been the allies of the
British, ceased, and the beautiful and fertile lands of the French Broad
valley began to attract a rapid influx of emigrants from the Piedmont
Section of North Carolina and fhe "Watauga settlements" of Tennessee,
and to which was added a steady, although relatively smaller stream
from southwest Virginia and the upper districts of South Carolina.
They were descended from that remarkable people known as Scotch-
Irish, and were peculiarly fitted by their courage, self-reliance, love of
adventure and devotion to the true principles of liberty, for the
dangerous and difficult task of developing a new country and estab
lishing sound government.
In 1791, the population along the French Broad, extending from
the vicinity of the present towns of Hendersonville and Brevard to the
Warm Springs, but confined chiefly to the eastern side of the river, had
become sufficiently numerous and important to require a new county,
and at the session of the General Assembly of North Carolina, which
assembled in November of that year, in the town of Newbern, an act
was passed creating the County of Buncombe.
The Journal of the House of Commons for Saturday, December
17, 1791, recites:
"Mr. Vance presented the petition of the inhabitants of that part
of Burke County lying west of the Appalachian Mountains, praying
that a part of that and a part of Rutherford County be made into a
separate and distinct county. Mr. Wm. Davidson presented a petition
to the same effect, both of which being read, Mr. Vance moved for leave

194 Asheville and Buncombe County
and presented a bill to answer the prayer of the said petitions, which
was read the first time, passed and sent to the Senate."
The Journal of the Senate shows that the bill was received and
passed by that body on the same day, and it was ratified on the 14th
day of January, 17^2. The "Mr. Vance," who introduced the biU, was
Colonel David Vance, and was one of the representatives in the General
Assembly from the County of Burke, and at that time and until his
death in 1813, he resided on his farm at the head of Reems Creek
valley. The "Mr. Wm. Davidson," who presented one of the petitions
for the new county, was Colonel William Davidson, then one of the
representatives in the General Assembly from the County of Burke.
At that time he resided on the south side of the Swannanoa River, at
the place, a short distance west of the present village of Biltmore, now-
known as the "Gum Spring." At his house in April following the
county was organized.
The following is a copy of the act:
"Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of North
Carolina, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same :
"That all that part of the counties of Burke and Rutherford cir
cumscribed by the following lines (viz.): Beginning on the extreme
height of the Appalachian mountains where the southern boundary of
this State crosses the same, then(?e along the extreme height of said
Mountains, to where the road from the head of the Catawba River to
Swannanoa crosses; thence along the main ridge, dividing the water.s
of South Toe frora those of Swannanoa into the Great Black Mountain;
thence along said mountain to the northeast end ; thence along the main
ridge between South Toe and Little Crab Tree, to the mouth of said
Catawba Creek; thence down Toe River aforesaid, to where the same
empties into the Nolechukle River; thence down the said river to the
extreme height of the Iron Mountain and Session line; thence along
said Session line to the southern boundary; thence along the said
boundary to the beginning is hereby created into a Separate and distinct
county, known by the name of Buncombe. And for the due admin
istration of justice in said County of Buncombe.
"Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the
justices nominated and commissioned in the said County of Buncombe

Asheville and Buncombe County 195
shall have the same power and jurisdiction as the justices of the peace
have in any other county in this state;
"And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid. That Philip
court for the said County of Buncombe aforesaid, shall be constantly
held on the third Mondays of January, April, July and October, and
their first court shall be held at the house of William Davidson, Esq.,
on Swannanoa, but the justices of said court may adjourn to any other
place more convenient, until a court house shall be built;
"And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid. That Philip
Hoodenpyl, William Brittain and Lemuel Clayton are hereby appointed
commissioners to fix on the most central place in said- county for the
purpose of erecting a court house, prison and stocks;
"And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid. That Ben
jamin Hawkins, William Whitson and John Patton are hereby ap
pointed commissioners for the purpose of contracting with workmen
to erect the necessary public buildings in said county as soon as the
commissioners shall fix on the center;
"And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That
nothing herein contained shall be construed to debar the late sheriffs
of Burke and Rutherford counties as they stood undivided, to make
distress for any levies, fees and other dues now actually due, or owing
from the inhabitants of said counties of Burke and Rutherford as they
formerly stood undivided in the same manner as by law the said
sheriffs or collectors could or might have done, if the said counties had
remained undivided, and the said levies, fees and other dues shall be
collected and accounted for in the same manner as if this act had never
been made, anything herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding;
"And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the
sheriffs and other collectors and holders of public money in the said
County of Buncombe, shall, from time to time account for and pay
into the public treasury of this state, all public money wherewith they
shall stand chargeable, in the same manner and under the same pains
and penalties as by law any other sheriff and holder of public money
are obliged to account in the State;
"And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That a tax
of one shilling on each poll and a tax of four pence on every himdred

196 Asheville and Buncombe County
acres of land, shall be and is hereby assessed on the taxable property
in the said County of Buncombe for two years, to commence from the
passing of this act, and that aU persons who shall neglect and refuse
to pay the aforesaid tax at the time limited for the payment of pubUc
taxes shall be liable to the same penalties and distresses as for the non
payment of public taxes, and the collectors of said taxes are hereby
required and directed to account for and pay the money by thera
collected, to the commissioners, aforesaid, after deducting two and a
half per cent for the trouble of collecting the same, and in case of
failure or neglect in any of the said collectors, each collector so failing
or neglecting, shall be liable to the same penalties and recoveries as by
law may be had against collectors of public taxes ;
"And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid. That all
manner of suits, causes and pleas, whether civil or criminal, commenced
or depending in the said county courts of Burke and Rutheff ord, shall
continue and may be prosecuted to the final end and determination in
the same manner as if this act had never passed ;
"And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid. That the
court of the said County of Buncombe shall appoint five jurors to
attend at every Superior Court for the district of Morgan;
"And, whereas, the County of Burke appoints jurors to attend the
Superior Court, and Rutherford court appoints nine jurors to attend
the said court, which in justice ought to be altered agreeably to the
part taken off each county;
"Be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the
County of Burke, from and after the passing of this act, shall appoint
twelve jurors to attend the Superior Court, and Rutherford seven jurors
to attend said court, any law to the contrary notwithstanding.
"Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid. That the countv
court of Burke shall constantly be held on the fourth Mondays of
January, April, July and October;
"Be it further enacted. That all justices appointed, either in the
counties of Burke or Rutherford, which now reside in the County of
Buncombe, shall exercise their offices in the sarae raanner in the County

Asheville and Buncombe County 197
of Buncombe as they could have exercised them in the counties of
Burke and Rutherford as they stood undivided.
"Wm. Lenoir, S. S.
"S. Cabarrus, Sp. H. C.
"Read three tiraes and ratified in General Assembly the 14th day
of January, Anno Domini 1792."
(Endorsed on back.)
"An act forming the western parts of Burke and Rutherford
counties into a separate and distinct county.
¦ "Examined. "J. Graham,
"D. Stone."
Then came the work of organization and putting the machinery
of county government in operation, and fortunately we have preserved
the original record now before us in the handwriting of Col. David
Vance, the first clerk of the court. The beauty of his chirography, the
order, neatness and accuracies of his entries, giving evidence of his
qualifications for the duties of his office. The following extract from
the record of that day's proceedings showing the first officers and jurors
for the county, cannot fail to be deeply interesting to every one who
loves his country or reveres his ancestors. "B
"North Carolina, Buncombe County.
"AprU 16th, A.D., 1792.
"Minutes of AprU Court, 1792.
"Agreeably to a commission to us directed the county court gf said
county was begun, opened and held at the house of Col. William
Davidson, Esq.
"Present: — James Davidson, David Vance, William Whitson,
William Davidson, James Alexander, James Brittain, Philip Hooden
pile. "Took the oath of office for the qualification of public officers
and took their seats as justices.
"Silence being commanded and proclamation being made, the court
was opened in due and solemn form of law, by John Patton specially
appointed for that purpose.

198 Asheville and Buncombe County
"Lambert Clayton and William Brittain being duly commissioned
as justices of said county, appeared and qualified as such by taking the
oaths for the qualification of public officers and the oath of offices as
justices of the peace for said county and took their seats.
"The court proceeded to the election of a sheriff- for said county
and did elect to that office Joseph Hughey, Esq., who was directed to
find security, give bond and qualify tomorrow at 10 o'clock.
"The court then proceeded to elect the clerk of said county, and
did elect thereto David Vance, Esq., who was directed to give bond
with security tomorrow at 10 o'clock.
"The court then proceeded to election of entry officer of claims for
land in said county, and did elect thereto Thomas Davidson, Esq.
"The court proceeded to elect a surveyor, and did elect to that
office John Patton, Esq., who was directed to give bond and security
tomorrow at 10 o'clock.
"The court proceeded to elect a registrar, and did elect thereto
John Davidson (son of James).
"The court then proceeded to the election of a ranger, and did elect
John Dillard, etc., etc.
"The court proceeded to the election of a coroner, and did elect to
that office Edmund Sams, Esq.
"Court adjourned till tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock.
"Court met according to adjournment.
"Ordered by the court that the following persons be summoned to
attend as jurors at the succeeding term, viz. :
"1. George Baker. 2. Hickman Hensley. 3. Will Treadway.
4. Henry Atkins. 5. Thomas Patton. 6. Matthew Patton. 7. Samuel
Forgee. 8. Robert Patton. 9. WUl Dever, Sr. 10. John Weaver.
11. Will Gudger. 12. Benjamin Hawkins. 13. William Greggory.
14. Benjamin Odele, Sr. 15. Joshua English. 16. Thomas May.
17. James Stringfield, Sr. 18. Nicholas Woodfin. — Benjamin
Johnson. 19. Elijah WiUiamson. 20. John Craig. 21. James WUson.
22. John Ashworth. 23. Henry Deweese. 24. John Dillard. 25.
James Cravens. 26. WiU Foster. 27. Gabriel Ragsdale. 28. James

Asheville and Buncombe County 199
Clemmons. 29. Harmon Reid. 30. Simon Kuykendall. 32. John
Philips. 33. James Medlock. 34. Adam Dunsmore. 35. Benjamin
Yearly. 36. Daniel Smith. 37. Nat Smith."
In these records will be recognized many names now borne by
their descendants v/ho yet "dwell in the lands which their fathers gave
unto them."
, It is interesting to note in the subsequent proceedings of this court
the rapid growth in the population and development of the country,
and the temptation to make further extracts is very great, but the pur
pose of this paper being only to direct the attention of my fellow citizens
to the principal historic facts connected with the creation and organiza
tion of the now famous County of Buncombe, I shall leave its later
history to more competent hands. Let me, however, give two further
quaint extracts, which may illustrate the simple and grave manners
of the men and women of those times :
"Minutes of July Court, 1792.
"A bill of divorce from Ruth Edwards to her husband John
Edwards was proved in open court by Philip Hoodenpile, Esq., a sub
scribing witness heretofore — ordered to be registered."
While this homely method of untying the inconvenient matri
monial knot does not begin to compare with the modem solemn per
formances to accomplish the same end, it has the merit of being far
more honest and direct — and doubtless was as effectual. Perhaps the
parties, in the absence of any other known provisions of law or
precedents, recalled the old Masaic statute, that when a man desires to
get rid of an undesirable wife, "let him write her a bill of divorcement,
and give it in her hand and send her out of his house."
"Minutes of October Court, 1793.
"Ordered by court that Thomas Hopper, upon his own motion,
have a certificate from the clerk, certifying that his right ear was bit
off by Philip WiUiams in a fight between said Hopper and Williams..
Certificates issued."
When we recall that in those days and for many years afterwards
the punishment for certain crimes — perjury, forgery and perhaps some
others — was by cutting off a portion of the ear of the offender, com
monly called "cropping," we can well understand why "said Hopper"

200 Asheville and Buncombe County
was so anxious that the truth of his misfortune should be preserved in
sorae authentic way. Evidently the court being plain, sensible and just
men saw nothing unreasonable in the matter and gave a place on the
records for the fact.
I have looked in vain through these records for evidence of any
crirainal prosecution of the "said Hopper and Williams," for this fight,
but as good old-fashioned fighting without rocks, knives, pistols or
"brass knucks" was one of the raost coramon and popular amusements
of those days, and there seems to have been no raore serious injury than
the loss of an ear, and doubtless the fight being a fair one, the con
servators of the law and order did not feel called upon to take official
notice of it. Nowadays such an occurrence would furnish us with a
sensational two days' trial, and fees galore.
Perhaps, possibly with the exception of Orange, Buncombe has
exerted greater influence in the thought, history and policy of the State
than any other .County. It has furnished three governors, three United
States senators, one Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, nine judges
of the Superior Court, nine representatives in Congress, one president
of the University to the public service. In addition, its delegations to
various constitutional conventions and representatives in our State
Legislature and Executive Departments of the State are recognized
among the first in the annals of our Governraent. In wealth, popu
lation, enterprise, especially in the great raoveraents of civic and
economic progress, it has been in the front rank.
"The past, at least, is secure."

YALE UNIVERSITY UBRARY

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