Tough Sleddin’ in Highlands NC

Posted on March 31, 2012 by thelaurelmagazine

Charlie McDowell took this photo of snow on March 3, 1942. Photo courtesy of the Highlands Historical Society.

Everyone seems to agree, the weather has been nutzo this year.

Forecasters tell us the jet stream has shifted north this year because of la niña. That means the warm gulf air hasn’t banged into the stream very often. So instead of frozen rain and snow, we’ve gotten plain ol’ rain. Not that rain is a bad thing… it’s just tough sleddin’ in the dirt.

One morning back in February I got up at my usual 4:00 a.m. and the temperature was 64 degrees… in the middle of the night in the dead of winter! What the heck?

These warmer temperatures have Gulf states trembling. Warmer oceans could signal a year of hurricanes that might make it all the way through the alphabet, and storms all the way to North Carolina.

So, is this global warming? Are there any weather statistics that reflect other unusually warm winters in Highlands history? The coldest day ever recorded was an official 20 degrees below zero on January 29th, 1966. The previous low had been minus 19 eighty years earlier in 1886, the year of the deep snow. But what about warm winters? 1936 had the mildest December on record, with a toasty 61 degrees on Christmas Day.

For the most part, the Highlands Plateau has been spared late spring freezes because it is situated on a thermal belt which helps regulate the temperature. There have been exceptions though. In May 1891, there was a killing frost late in the season which completely wiped out the fruit crop for that year. And they didn’t even have Smuckers or Libby’s to fall back on.

In the late forties and early fifties, Clifford and Earl Dendy planted Rome beauties, Jonathans, Staymans, McIntoshes, Grimes Goldens, Red Delicious, and Golden Delicious apples, only to have the young blooming trees wiped out by the freezes of 1949 and 1955.

But in good years, when the growing season extended into mid-October, life and fruit were good. Even so, Mother Nature would have the last word in subsequent seasons with early freezes and once again, all was lost.

Mother Nature’s offspring, el niño and la niña, cycle around every few years, cooling and warming the oceans. And when that happens everything shifts accordingly. So perhaps this will be a warm year. The highest temperature ever recorded in Highlands was 98 degrees on July 12, 1930. Could it finally reach 100 this year? Probably not, but we could be in for a long, hot one nonetheless!

Ran Shaffner of the Highlands Historical Society adds this insight, “For the past 50 years the winters have grown warmer, the springs cooler, and the summers and falls have remained the same. So the average annual temperature in Highlands really hasn’t changed for five decades. It’s the shade of the trees that affect how it feels during
the summer.”

So, plant a tree and get the ice cream churn cranked up. Think of days gone by when hauling a block of ice from the icehouse on a scorching hot day was a big wonderful deal. Chip off an imaginary chunk, sit back, and thank God you have air conditioning.

To learn more about the Highlands Plateau read Randolph Shaffner’s “Heart of the Blue Ridge,” or visit www.highlandshistory.com.

by Donna Rhodes

Buried Jackson County NC Deed Books

Posted on March 31, 2012 by thelaurelmagazine

2012 staff of Jackson County Register of Deeds Office, Register Joe Hamilton and Jennifer Blanton Jamison, Stephanie Grissom, Lois Danner and Shandra Sims.

During the Civil War, William R. Buchanan, register of deeds for Jackson County, heard rumors of Union soldiers burning courthouses in Western North Carolina. He was scared that the Jackson County Courthouse, then located in Webster, was in danger, so he secretly took the four county deed books up to the top of Kings Mountain, dug a hole, and buried the books.

After the end of the Civil War, Buchanan returned to Kings Mountain to retrieve the deed books and restore them to the courthouse but he found that fallen leaves of at least one autumn had thoroughly covered the ground. The burial spot had not been clearly marked so that possible Yankee search parties would have no clue to the location of the deed books. In reality, bushwhackers were only interested in stealing food and horses.

Buchanan went back to Webster and recruited a crew of men armed with rakes and before long the register of deeds recognized the burial area and the four deed books were dug up. Deed Book 1, on top, had sustained extensive water damage. Deed Book 4, on the bottom, was somewhat mildewed but otherwise in pretty good shape. Deed Books 2 and 3 were in good condition. The original Deed Book 1 was typed years ago and bound as Deed Book 1A while the once buried Deed Book 1, recorded in beautiful handwriting, is kept in a box at the office of the current register of deeds in Sylva. Most of Deed Book 1 is filled with land grants from North Carolina governors, with the grants carrying a stipulation of five cents per acre.

The information for this article came from a book entitled Knowing Jackson County by Johnson Davis McRorie, published by the Jackson County Historical Association, plus an old article, undated, from the Sylva Herald and Ruralite.

Contributed by Jane Gibson Nardy, Historian, Cashiers Historical Society

White Lightning Strikes in Highlands NC

Posted on March 31, 2012 by thelaurelmagazine

J. J. Joannides

Last fall I undertook to paint a backdrop for a copper whiskey still that is displayed at the Historical Society’s Museum. This project brought back memories of a hike along mountain trails. These mountains appeared quiet and serene wrapped in their majestic coats of evergreen. Their carpet of galax leaves muffled our footsteps as we climbed the trails. Don’t let that tranquility fool you. There’s power in those hills and I’m here to share an event that is a vivid memory despite my fading memory.

Mountain folks are
well-acquainted with
large stands of rhododendron with their gnarled trunks and expansive green leaves. They know that rhoddies can get so dense that you need a GPS to find your way out. I learned that and more on that
fateful day.

In 1975 my friend and I parked his jeep at the trailhead in Pisgah Forest with plans to hike to the rye field where deer fed. The field would give us a perfect point to view the full moon as it rose over the mountain. We had barely reached the meadow when out of a nearby rhododendron thicket, peeked a sturdily-built man, a hunting cap shadowing his face. With shotgun in hand and a smile on his face, he politely asked us “Where ya going there folks?” Once we had shared our plans, he said, “You can’t go there without first having a bite to eat and drink. You come with me.” To punctuate his command, he nudged my friend with the brunt of the gun. With his massive hand, he gently pulled back the rhododendron and urged us into the bushes. My friend John was calm and collected, but I was nervous as could be. We ambled up the narrow trail, single file with John leading and me too close behind. Our “host” brought up the rear. We rock-hopped over the gurgling stream using low hanging limbs to steady us.

We smelled the smoke before we saw the crude shack or heard the raucous laughter of the men inside. With a single motion, he gently pushed the door ajar. “Make our guests feel welcome,” he
admonished his companions. Two men sprawled lazily on the lower bunk; one slumped on a camp stool with a brown jug at his feet, while a fourth shuffled from the shadows ambling toward the fire. Fresh venison sizzled lazily on the wood-burning stove. When the cook opened the stove door, the aroma of freshly-baked biscuits filled
the room.

Everyone gathered round the roughhewn table to savor fresh venison, mashed taters, and golden brown biscuits. White lightening from a Mason jar was our only beverage. I soon realized that we had ventured too close to a mountain still. By partaking of the illegal booze and the out-of-season kill, John and I were guilty, too. That’s why we were invited to the party. Beware of those thickets!

The First of a Two-Part Short Story by J. J. Joannides

Nature … Highlands NC’s Muse

Posted on February 24, 2012 by thelaurelmagazine

George Masa’s Sea of Views

: Mark Hutchinson’s Lake Sequoia

: James Valentine’s Bridal Veil Falls

Ben Hensley was writing about the beauty of daybreak “up on Smoky,” but his sentiment extends to all the natural wonders adorning the Highlands Plateau.

Painters, poets, musicians, preservationists, and lecturers have been drawn to the region’s beauty. They have captured it on canvas, in verse, on film, and in song. Perhaps none have portrayed its essence better than a collective of gifted photographers whose work appears here in a short montage of some of Highlands’ most exquisite vistas.

George Masa’s Sea of Views in 1929; James Valentine’s breathtaking photo of Bridal Veil Falls in the Winter of 1977; Mary Kay Moore’s mystical view of Mountain Laurel on Satulah and Mark Hutchinson’s shot of Lake Sequoia, 2001.

Now, boys… and girls, if those don’t grind and polish a naturalist’s soul, nothing can.

To see and read more of Highlands beauty captured on film and in prose, read Randolph Shaffner’s Heart of the Blue Ridge, or visit www.highlandshistory.com.

by Donna Rhodes

Mountain Weather Disasters, the 1940 Flood in Cashiers NC

Posted on February 24, 2012 by thelaurelmagazine

Jeanne Pell Wright with her baby, Sandra, born during the August 1940 floods.

The worst natural disaster in Jackson County was the devastating flood in August 1940. No one who experienced that fury ever forgot the traumatizing event. Personal flood memories can be found in books, newspapers, on the internet and in the minds of the flood victim’s descendants who heard from birth, their parents’ or grandparents’ flood stories. What is not told, is that the root cause of the flood was two unnamed Atlantic hurricanes, one hitting land just north of Savannah, and the other one landing a little north of the first one only a few weeks later. After hitting land, both hurricanes barreled north across land and dumped their massive amounts of water over the Western North Carolina mountains. [Note that hurricanes were first named in 1953.]

The Tuckaseegee River, with its headwaters in Cashiers, loosely parallels Highway 107 all the way from Cashiers to Bryson City and beyond. For most of that distance you’ll find buildings near the river on the left or on the right or on both sides as it flows through the valleys. All bridges over the river were destroyed and every building of any description was lifted off its foundation and carried downstream by the torrents.

Many people were interviewed for this article and a few of their stories follow: Cashiers resident, Jeanne Pell Wright, expecting the birth of her first child, was already at the hospital in Asheville, awaiting the big event, when the rainfall increased. Baby Sandra Wright arrived but due to high water, Jeanne’s husband, Newell Wright, couldn’t get to the hospital for about five days to bring his wife and child home. Mary Baumgarner, a Cashiers school girl, couldn’t get across the little creek that had turned almost into a river, so she missed over a week of school. On down the Tuckaseegee River, in the areas of Glenville, Tuckaseegee, Little Canada and Cullowhee, the worst devastation was found. It started in the blackness of night, when the people could hear but could see nothing. When sun rose the next morning, the landscape had changed to a wasteland.

Ancient hemlocks floated downstream, roots first. Dead hogs and chickens rolled by and a large rooster standing on the top of a building, crowed constantly as the building swept around a curve. Eight family members held hands as they walked to higher ground, all the time feeling the road pavement crumbling beneath their feet. Four residents lost their lives, one of them being Mrs. Vassie Mathis who was close to the end of her current pregnancy. A debris flow tore her from her husband’s arms and when daylight came, the house was gone except for a pie safe, standing upright, with the leftover food from supper still in it and a $10 bill in a tea cup, put there to pay the granny woman when their baby came.

These are only a few flood stories, a sampling of the hundreds available. If you have a 1940 flood memory, please contact me at (828) 743-9002.

Contributed by Jane Gibson Nardy, Historian, Cashiers Historical Society

Highlands NC History: Hard Times

Posted on December 30, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

William W. “Tanner” Cobb and his son Sam Cobb ran the Highlands Tannery beginning in 1886.

Perhaps the only reason Highlands fared so well during the Great Depression was that nothing really changed. Because Highlanders were used to hard times they had become resourceful. Herman Wilson, a youngster during the Depression, recalled, “We fared better than anybody in the whole country. I’ll tell you why we did. We grew our own meat, our vegetables, our corn and hogs and chickens, and we never went hungry.” He added that there simply wasn’t any money. It was “Like it just vanished from the earth.” So people were forced to do their own shoe repair and clothes mending, or they simply bartered for services amongst themselves.

Professor Harbison, an influential educator, businessman and politician in the Highlands area said that he had lived through three depressions: the first in the 1870s after the Civil War when factories, mines and furnaces were shut down across the country; the second, when those hard times spread around the world; and the third, when the world was upended by WWI and subsequent bad fiscal management.

When the Great Depression hit, Harbison said that the elders who had argued for learning from experience, thrift and economy saw the writing on the wall. But those who weren’t alive during the two previous economic crashes didn’t plan ahead. They hugely overspent… then, bills due, wondered why the sky started raining financial anvils on their heads. Of course politicians were blamed, but Harbison said, “To read history and political economy is to learn to work, save, and pay which is nothing new to us oldsters, but the youngsters have been in for an awakening…”

So, if we shine a contemporary light on his words, we might tremble, for history is repeating itself for a fourth or fifth time in little over a century. Or as Elmer Fudd might warn, “Be afwaid. Be vewy vewy afwaid.” …and learn how to slop a hog.

One thing for certain, those who are accustomed to living off the land, the hard-core Highlanders, will most likely survive the next economic bust, for their ability to endure hard times is reflected in their stamina and ability to turn rocky land into sustenance.

To learn more about the hardy Highlanders, read Heart of the Blue Ridge by Randolph Shaffner or visit www.highlandshistory.com

by Donna Rhodes

Cashiers NC History: David Mordecai Zachary

Posted on December 30, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Mordecai Zachary and Elvira Keener Zachary’s eighth child, David Mordecai Zachary

Continuing the series on the children of Mordecai Zachary and Elvira Keener Zachary, this article will feature their eighth child, David Mordecai Zachary who was born in Cashiers Valley March 14th, 1865 in the grand old house now called the Zachary-Tolbert House. He moved with his parents and siblings to the Qualla (later called Whittier) area of Jackson County in 1873 and remained in that section all his life. Amanda Eglantine Carver married David M. Zachary on December 13th, 1891 and they became the parents of 10 children, three boys and seven girls.

David made his living as a “timber man,” working one time for the W. M Chester Lumber Company. On several censuses, his occupation was listed as a “sawyer” at a Saw Mill and his residences vary from Charleston, Swain County, North Carolina to Qualla, Jackson County. No land ownership was noted on the censuses. Family history tells of how David liked to read poetry to his children, particularly the works of John Greenleaf Whittier, and having the children memorize and recite poetry at the dinner table. Other family descendants remember stories of how David was adored by everyone in the household.

At the 2010 Zachary Family Reunion in Cashiers, two sisters from Knoxville, Tennessee were in attendance and while talking about who had pictures of Zachary ancestors, these sisters, Suzanne McNabb and Betty Whitworth, said they had a picture of their ancestor, David Mordecai Zachary. Back at home, they made a copy and sent it to me and that’s the picture shown in this article. You may remember a year or so ago, I wrote an article about the Bible of Mordecai and Elvira Zachary which had been passed down in the family of David Mordecai Zachary and donated to the Zachary-Tolbert House by Bill Fryer, a descendant of David M.

We’ll have to end this article on a sad note with the deaths of David M. Zachary and his wife Amanda Zachary. They are buried in the New Whittier Cemetery, in the Whittier, North Carolina area. Amanda’s birth and death dates are 1872-1921 with cause of death unknown. David M. Zachary’s death date according to his obituary, his tombstone and his death certificate was October 23, 1923. The family story tells that he, along with a crew of mostly Cherokees, went deep into the forest to harvest timber when his appendix ruptured. They were not able to get him out to the doctor in time and he died. The older daughters had to raise their younger sisters due to the untimely deaths of their parents, David Mordecai Zachary and Amanda Carver Zachary.

Contributed by Jane Gibson Nardy, Historian, Cashiers Historical Society

Highlands NC History: And Visions of Surgarplums

Posted on November 30, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

HighHistLgMiller Family Plowing 1897 - Highlands NC

The Miller family plowing their field in 1897. Courtesy of the Highlands Historical Society.

As a kid, on the night before Christmas I could not conjure up a single dancing sugarplum. The best I could muster was an image of the Sugarplum Fairy from The Nutcracker. I desperately wanted some delicious sweet meat to do the fandango, if not in my head, at least on my tongue. Alas, peppermint sticks and homemade fondant were as plumy as my mom could manage. She hadn’t a sugarplum clue either.

Recently I did some research and discovered that sugarplums go back to the 1600s. Resembling comfits (sugary seeded confections) they were the size of plums and sweet. There the similarity to plums ends. They were made of chopped dried fruits like currants figs, and raisins, mixed with sugar and pungent seeds like anise or cardamom, then boiled, shaped into a ball, molded onto a wire stalk, and rolled in sugar. To me a cherry dipped in Ghirardelli would be the quintessential sugarplum, but in 1600, long before chocolate laid claim to our palates, sugarcoated ground-up fruits were quite the rage.

Candies and sweets have gone through a huge evolution since the 1600s. When the sugar industry kicked into high gear and refrigeration became accessible, ice cream shops popped up everywhere. In 1939 Bill Holt, son of a local businessman, opened Highlands’ first ice cream parlor, Bill’s Soda Shop on the corner of 4th and Main. It is where Highlands Deli is today (formerly House of Wong).

Each week Bill would run an ad in the paper inviting folks to drop in for a “rich, creamy milkshake or a bracing three-dip ice cream soda,” His shop would fill with sweet-seekers who would sit and sip and socialize.

Bill sold sandwiches, magazines and newspapers, and he even provided curb service to cars parked outside. In his shop’s early days carbonated water was made by hand, turning a crank to mix soda and water.

In the back of the shop, there were pinball machines for entertainment. Bill sold cigars, cigarettes, and candies. He served cherry cokes and smashes and something called ammonia coke. Ammonium carbonate and ammonium hydroxide (though not the kitchen cleaning kind) were mixed with a touch of alcohol and essential oils of lemon, nutmeg and lavender to give coke a zing. Sounds a bit like spring cleaning for the gastros.

Bills’ Soda Shop closed in 1972. Today Kilwin’s handmade ice cream and chocolates and Sweet Treats satisfy Highlands’ sweet tooth, but for over three decades the sweets at Bill’s Soda Shop were what danced in children’s heads at Christmas… and all year long.

To read more sweet stories about Highlands, check out Heart of the Blue Ridge by Ran Shaffner. Or visit Highlands Historical Society online at www.highlandshistory.com.

by Donna Rhodes

Posted on November 30, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Paul Childers (middle) & his nephews, circa 1950

In 1967, Rick Rodgers wrote an article for the Highlander titled “The Art of Woodworking,” which featured the Cashiers brothers Roy Hamilton “Ham” Childers and Paul Childers, owners of the Woodpecker Shop. Here are some excerpts from that article:

“Woodworking, like so many craftsman trades is a vanishing art, yet a few craftsmen are still creating hand made furniture to custom design, such as the bachelor Childers brothers in Cashiers. Since 1942, every visitor to Cashiers has seen the work of these mountain men at High Hampton Inn, Cottage Inn, Cashiers Motel and Oakmont Lodge. Each piece of furniture is expertly created at the rustic shop on Hwy. 64 East. Most of the local homes in Cashiers have at least one piece of the Childers furniture, usually more.

There seems to be a constant flow of visitors and customers in the little shop, slowing down the work but giving Ham time to refill his pipe and welcome newcomers.”

Now, over forty years after the above article was written, the Childers brothers have departed from this earth and are resting at the Union Hill Cemetery, near Whittier, NC. While collecting memories about Paul and Ham from folks in Cashiers, I found “gone but not forgotten” is the right phrase to use. Most people started off or finished up with the words, “They were good people. Everybody liked them.” They shared a house behind John Lee Rogers’ Gulf Station which was an easy walk to their shop. Right next door lived their sister, Alida Childers Pennington whose daughter, Tommie Pennington, worked in the shop making miniature rolling pins engraved “Cashiers, NC” which were sold as souvenirs in local gift shops. Johnnie Sue Rogers Frady was born on Ham Childers birthday, September 14th , and the two shared a birthday cake each year.

Paul was a talented musician, playing his fiddle at square dances about every weekend, always with Ham in attendance. They went to community centers, fish fries, and benefits of all kinds. Paul was the quiet one and Ham, with his big mustache and ever present pipe, was the more out-going type who enjoyed having a drink now and then. A hearty salute to these two Cashiers characters.

Contributed by Jane Gibson Nardy, Historian, Cashiers Historical Society

“When You Call Me That, Smile”

Posted on October 30, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Henry W. Sloan

Highlanders didn’t always have to drive down the mountain to catch the latest flick. In 1920, just five years after Birth of a Nation christened the motion picture industry, Highlands businessman, Henry Sloan, debuted a Western, probably The Virginian, at the Masonic Lodge.

Even in black and white with captions instead of sound, that premiere was a very big deal. Some of the local young people were so excited, they rode all the way down to Scaly to meet and escort the projector into town.

By summer the movie house relocated to the school auditorium. People were so happy to have entertainment they politely endured the film’s snapping and fluttering at what seemed like the climax of every scene. The projectionist, Jim Hicks, would stop, repair, rewind, and crank up the reels once more until the tension of the next bar fight or damsel rescue peaked… then ground to a predictable halt… and audience groan.

But all was not lost during those film snaps. To fill down time, Henry Sloan, always dapper and ready for center stage, would seize the opportunity to make announcements about upcoming events and local attractions.

When the movie cranked back up, house lights went down and Bessie Hines or Gertrude Stone would resume piano improvisation, craning a neck around the upright to catch the action, plunking out a horse gallop, rumbling a villain’s basso profundo, or trilling an idyllic pastorale.

Eventually the projector was moved from its aisle perch on a tripod to a projection stall constructed in the risers. The booth was insulated with, of all things, asbestos. Because early film made of nitrate was so flammable, fireproof asbestos was a necessary precaution. In retrospect, with the threats of fire and cancer-causing asbestos, it’s a wonder moviegoers ever survived. But that was a simpler time… and O.S.H.A. was barely a gleam in Uncle Sam‘s eye.

To warm the theater in the winter, Mr. Sloan installed two pot-bellied stoves. Saturdays at the movies was a popular event in Highlands and when films failed to arrive, the old reliable, The Virginian would be shown again… and again. People knew it so well they started quoting lines, a favorite being, “When you call me that, smile.” Kind of the Go-ahead-make-my day of the era.

Movies continued in Highlands for several decades. Even blockbuster films in breathtaking cinemascope were shown. But by the fifties television became the entertainment rage, locally WFBC, Channel 4. Nowadays, it’s a trip to Franklin or Waynesville or Asheville to see the latest epic or Oscar nominee. But for half a century or more, going to the movies was the hottest ticket in Highlands. Kind of makes you nostalgic for days gone by.

When you call me old, smile!

by Donna Rhodes | Photo courtesy of Highlands Historical Society

Mordecai’s Children

Posted on October 30, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

circa 1899

In my position as historian for the Cashiers Historical Society, I gave myself the assignment of gathering data on the descendants of Mordecai Zachary and his wife, Elvira Evalina Keener Zachary. Thirteen children were born to this Zachary family with ten of them having children of their own. A few of Mordecai’s children remained in the Jackson County area although none of them lived out their lives in their birthplace of Cashiers Valley. Most of Mordecai’s children ended up in states that bordered the Pacific Ocean.

One of the lessons I learned while researching the family trees of many clients was to work towards locating living descendants of the ancestors as they may have in their possession, old pictures and family information passed down in their family line. Now I’ll share with you a recent successful search in my on-going identification of Mordecai’s descendants.

William “Willie” Keener Zachary, the fourth child of Mordecai and Elvira, was born in Cashiers Valley in the year 1858 and lived in the valley for the first 15 years of his life. He then moved with his parents and siblings to the northern end of Jackson County, settling near the Cherokee Boundary at an area later named Whittier. There they lived adjacent to the well known William Holland Thomas, the “White Chief of the Cherokee.”

About the year 1880 Willie Zachary married Martha Emiline Monteith in Jackson County. After 21 years of marriage, which produced eight children, Martha died in 1901. A year later, Willie married Laura B. “Maggie” Wilson at Webster and the couple, with Willie’s youngest children by his first wife, migrated to the west coast. He and his second wife had three children and in 1937, he died in Washington State.

Let’s fast forward to February of this year, 2011, when a voice mail was left on the Cashiers Historical Society’s telephone from an Oregonian lady named Colleen Graham. She had just learned that there was a yearly Zachary family reunion in Cashiers, North Carolina and she wanted to attend. She and I emailed back and forth and I learned that she was descended from William “Willie” Keener Zachary, the son of Mordecai and Elvira. She had never been to the east coast and when she and her daughter arrived in Cashiers in August, they both fell in love with this mountain area. She presented to the Cashiers Historical Society a tintype made between 1896 and 1902 which pictures Elvira Keener Zachary, widow of Mordecai Zachary; William Keener Zachary, son of Mordecai and Elvira, Willie’s wife, Martha Monteith; and five of Willie and Martha’s children.

What a priceless photograph. It’s the second photo we have of Elvira Keener Zachary; and the first photo we’ve seen of Willie Keener Zachary and his first wife, Martha and some of their children. The tintype had been handed down for several generations, starting with Willie’s daughter, Alice Bell, and now it’s been returned to the place where Willie was born, the Zachary-Tolbert House. Now, if we could just locate a likeness of Mordecai, himself!

Contributed by Jane Gibson Nardy, Historian, Cashiers Historical Society

The Pageantry of the Padgett-Tree

Posted on September 28, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

One spring as I struggled with allergies, a friend explained that because of our altitude and latitude we have the best (or worst, if one is an allergy sufferer) of two worlds: a convergence of Southern and Northern flora as climate zones of South and North overlap. Sinuses aside (a-choo), a gardener’s pleasure is doubled with the best of both worlds on the Highlands Plateau.

Because of this plethora of plant possibilities, the Highlands Horticulture Society guided by Professor Harbison, botanist and town leader in the early 1900s, set about to educate the public as to what kind of trees should be planted along Main Street. The goal: to provide long-term beauty, pleasure, and protection for residents, visitors, and businesses.

“The Ideal Street Tree” an article by James B. Smith launched the discussion. The tree should be easy to transplant with a root system that wouldn’t take over the terrain. There was a long list of things it could NOT be: droopy, short, brittle, slow-growing, evergreen, flowery, prone to insects, “thirsty”, odorous, a producer of anything sticky, gooey or prickly. In other words, anything growing in my back yard would be unacceptable.

One perfect tree candidate remained, complying with all the acceptable criteria. It was the Liriodendron tulipifera, also known as Carolina or yellow poplar, the tulip tree of the mountains and the tallest Eastern hardwood. Even so, Main Street was not planted with tulip trees, because no one took to heart the advice of Smith’s article or the Horticultural Society. Instead, the town planted white pines on Prioleau Ravenel’s recommendation. Harbison had preferred Carolina hemlocks but got overruled.

Still, if you want to see a prime example of a tulip poplar today, take a jaunt down to Horse Cove and check out the “Bob Padgett Tulip Poplar,” measuring twenty feet in circumference and standing one-hundred-twenty-seven feet tall. Its crown spreads twenty-six feet in the air. It is the third largest of its kind in the Eastern United States. And it should be a beauty this time of year.

In 1966 it was named after Bob Padgett when he saved it from logger Tearley Picklesimer. He paid the logger a thousand bucks to put his axe away. Padgett became a town legend, with his boo to Paul Bunyan and his cheer for Johnny Appleseed.

So, by example, restore a little of Highlands’ his-tree, and plant a Liriodendron tulipifera on a treasured patch of your property. Padgett would be proud.

For more stories about the history of our remarkable plateau, read Randolph Shaffner’s Heart of the Blueridge. or visit Highlands Historical Society, Inc., 524 North 4th Street, or email: highlandshistory@nctv.com, website: www.highlandshistory.com.

by Donna Rhodes

The Haunting of Thorpe Cottage

Posted on September 28, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Thorpe Cottage, High Hampton

One of the many cottages at High Hampton Inn and Country Club is the Thorpe Cottage, named after J. E. S. Thorpe, who was the first president of Nantahala Power and Light Company, a subsidiary of the Aluminum Company of America, builders of the hydroelectric project in Glenville. While the dam was under construction, starting c1939, Mr. Thorpe wanted to live full time in Cashiers, so he built himself on the grounds of High Hampton a nice sized cottage with wormy chestnut paneling. Years later when Mr. Thorpe vacated the cottage, for some unknown reason he left many of his personal belongings behind; things like golf and tennis trophies and Thorpe family pictures and diplomas on the walls. Strangely, those things are still there, frozen in time.

The year and date that the unexplained occurrences started at Thorpe Cottage are unknown, but we can estimate that reports circulated as early as the 1940s and continued on as recently as the late 1990s. Most of the stories were told by employees of High Hampton but others came from guests as well as from one famous parapsychologist. A widow who worked in the laundry at High Hampton in the early days told this story. The widow lady would sometimes bring linens to the cottages and several times, while in the Thorpe Cottage, she would hear the sound of children playing outside. When she would look out the window she would catch a glimpse of children walking up the road but they would immediately disappear. Each time she saw and heard this, it was always exactly like the time before.

Men bringing fireplace wood and kindling to Thorpe Cottage heard women’s voices coming from the kitchen. After stacking the wood, they walked back to the kitchen to see who was there but they saw no one and there was absolutely no way anyone could have left without being seen.

Joshua P. Warren, an internationally recognized modern day “ghost hunter,” got wind of the mysterious happenings at Thorpe Cottage and rented the cottage for a night. He brought in fancy cameras and listening devices and settled in for the night. Nothing significant was detected until the next morning when Mr. Warren, shaving in front of a mirror, saw reflected in the mirror behind him a woman dressed in old-fashioned clothing. He whirled around but there was no one there.

This last story concerns a lady who worked part time at High Hampton. After getting off work at her normal job she would go over to High Hampton and work in Housekeeping as an inspector. Her job was to make sure the cottages had been satisfactorily cleaned to the high standards of High Hampton. So one early evening, she walked innocently into Thorpe Cottage and began checking each room for cleanliness. All of a sudden she heard someone playing the cottage’s baby grand piano. She stepped into the living room to see who was playing and there was no one sitting at the piano – but – music was still coming from the piano. She ran out and got into her golf cart and drove to the main inn and asked the first bellman she saw to get in the golf cart and go with her to Thorpe Cottage. He reluctantly got in; they went back to the cottage so the bellman could help her finish the inspection. They left the front door open wide. In a few minutes the door slammed shut. They both ran outside where the bellman whispered, “I don’t like this place.” The part time inspector swears she will never step foot into Thorpe Cottage as long as she lives.

Contributed by Jane Gibson Nardy, Historian, Cashiers Historical Society

2011 Showhouse a Rousing Success

Posted on September 28, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Mary McDonald took time to personalize each copy of her book, Mary McDonald Interiors, for guests at the Cashiers Designer Showhouse speakers luncheon.

The 2011 Cashiers Designer Showhouse was an incredible success. This year’s Showhouse was at “Reflections,” the home of Kate and Mitchell Watson. The house, created from two old log cabins that were moved to Cashiers and joined, along with the spectacular gardens provided a beautiful backdrop and source of inspiration for all of the designers.

This year featured the return of old favorites and a host of new friends and events. James Farmer, Charles Faudree and Mary Palmer Dargan did a book signing at the Showhouse for their latest work. Mary McDonald and Nathan Turner from Bravo TV were featured at a speakers’ luncheon and booksigning. Emmy winning actor, Leslie Jordan, came and entertained with a comedy show that will be remembered for years to come. All of these events and more combined to create two truly magical weeks.

All proceeds from the Showhouse go to benefit the Cashiers Historical Society and the Cashiers Valley Community Council. Both groups work to preserve the exceptional character and quality of life that are enjoyed in Cashiers.

Work is already underway planning for next year’s incredible event. For more information, please call (828) 743-7710 or email info@cashiershistoricalsociety.org.

Contributed by Lydia Doyle

Art League of Highlands

Posted on August 29, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

“Hallelujin I, II, III” sculpture by ML Carpenter

The Art League of Highlands presented Painter-Sculptor, ML Carpenter doing “A Demonstration in Sculpture” at their August meeting at the Performing Arts Center. The social began at 5:00 p.m. where participants had a chance to “Meet the Artist,” which was followed by the demonstration at 6:00 p.m.

Carpenter’s recent move to the area is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. “I have always wanted to live in place that has beautiful natural surroundings,” said Carpenter, “and a wonderful community spirit. Highlands has both.” A member of REACH, Bascom, and the Mountain Garden Club, Carpenter also teaches art classes and conducts workshops in the area.

Well-known for her vibrant abstracts and equally adept in three dimensional mediums, Carpenter’s work is fluid and sophisticated, reflecting her surroundings and emotional responses to life and nature. Shown and collected nationally and internationally, her work is featured in many major collections including Emory University, University of Alabama, the JFK Plaza lobby in New York, and recently the University of Kentucky Hospital in Lexington.

After studying sculpture in Italy in the 1980s, Carpenter brought home a love of seeing the clay or marble come to life in her hands. Be sure to attend this event and hear more about ML’s journey and techniques, and meet others in the area who are interested in the arts. Guests are welcome at no charge. For information call Dottie Bruce at (828) 743-7673.

Highlands History

Posted on August 29, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

by Donna Rhodes

I won’t mince words. In the 1800s Highlands was a stinky town. In fact, it was downright offal. “Offal,” a perfect homonym for awful, refers to the entrails cast off by butchers… things so disgusting, you wouldn’t even find them in headcheese. The awful offal was dumped in the streets. That, in combination with manure piles, animal dung from wandering livestock (namely hogs), reeking privies and outhouses, and the stench of moonshine mash wafting down the slopes, all steaming in the summer heat became such a malodorous nuisance that the town fathers were forced to take action.

Ironically, some of the officials (on a police force of seven) were the chief stinkers.

For example, H.M. Bascom, had a huge manure pile right downtown. William Cleaveland, respected storeowner, was selling sugar in hundred pound lots to moonshiners, though it is debated whether or not he knew. C’mon. Nobody but moonshiners had that kind of money. And another of the police, John Jay Smith, was ordered to remove his privy from 4th Street and was no longer allowed to dump his slops in public view, proving once again, even at 4114 feet, poo doesn’t always roll downhill.

Roaming livestock, particularly hogs and their putrid pong, prompted a city ordinance to arrest, so to speak, the pests.

“That any hogs found at large in the town of Highlands on or after the first day of January, 1884, shall be taken up by the Constable, or his Deputy, and a fine of twenty-five cents be levied on each hog and ten cents additional for each day they remain unclaimed.” -Ordinances for the town of Highlands, N.C., May 31, 1883

Said ordinance proved to be another one of those things that look better on paper than in practice. Few officials were willing to enforce the ruling. When fines were levied, local folk would get even by setting fire to the jail or tearing down the holding compound for errant livestock.

Over the decades attitudes and good common scents improved. But for a while, God nose, the mountaintop plateau was known for its fragrant violations.

For more about this and other accounts of Highlands early days, check out Heart of the Blue Ridge by Randolph Shaffner or visit Highlands Historical Society, Inc., 524 North 4th Street, P. O. Box 670, Highlands, NC 28741-0670, email: highlandshistory@nctv.com, website: www.highlandshistory.com.

Dr. Halsted and His Mountain Neighbors

Posted on August 29, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Contributed by Jane Gibson Nardy, Historian, Cashiers Historical Society

While preparing for a speech at the annual Cashiers Historical Society’s Symposium, I read copies of many letters to and from Dr. Halsted and his wife, Caroline Hampton Halsted, usually concerning affairs at their summer estate which they had named High Hampton in the late 1800s. Quite frequently, Dr Halsted also penned letters to local Jackson County public officials, to his Cashiers Valley neighbors and to his estate caretaker–letters of complaint with grumbling about time-honored local customs which interfered with his way of life. Since my Great-Great-Grandfather, Alexander Zachary sold land to Halsted and my Great-Grandfather, T. R. Zachary, owned land adjoining Halsted’s, I didn’t care very much for Halsted’s attitude of superiority.

In November, 1913, Thomas Zachary, usually identified as T. R. Zachary, received a letter from Dr. Halsted.

“Dear Zachary: Mrs. Halsted writes me that she is disturbed at the idea of your having carte blanche to hunt pigs with a rifle on our property. I feel that her objections to it are quite sound, and I am sure that you will understand that if we give permission to one person, we must extend it to all. In such case, every man in the Valley could at any time hunt on our grounds with a gun, and excuse himself by saying that he was hunting his pigs.

I am sure you will see the force of this and not think Mrs. Halsted unreasonable. She will gladly send Frank Bradley with you whenever you decide to collect your pigs.” T. R. Zachary was merely on a search for some of his pigs that had free range to wander anywhere they pleased to forage for food.

In December of 1921, Halsted wrote to Thomas A. Dillard, well-known resident of Cashiers Valley:

“Dear Dillard: Douglas [High Hampton’s caretaker] has written me in regard to your trespassing on our land. You can imagine my surprise in learning that you had cut down one of our fine chestnut trees. I had considered you a friend, and have, as you know, always responded heartily to your calls for medical advice when members of your family were in trouble. Further more you have held political positions of trust and I have counted on you to uphold law and order and to set an example to the community. Undoubtedly, you have a good excuse for your action and will, I am sure be eager to offer me an explanation.”

A week later, Dr. Halsted received Thomas Dillard’s excuse: “Dear Doctor: Some few days ago, while I was at Sylva, your letter came in regard to the trespass matter. I am very sorry that this happened as I am fifty-four years old and have never been accused of trespassing before. I have never molested your Pheasants or Turkeys before and have never before hunted deer on your land. I have not hunted for raccoons for twenty-five years until my boys got them a dog and I have went with them to learn them how to hunt. We were not hunting on your land, as I told Douglas that night he found me but passing through to the head of Silver Run, the dog had a coon treed. The tree that was cut down was second growth chestnut about 18” through and I do not think neither a fine nor valuable tree but it is yours and not mine and I knew that it was a violation of the law but I did not feel that I was wronging you or anyone else as it is a custom for coon hunters to cut trees that are not valuable. Sorry that I did this as you look at it in a different light – as trespassing. I promise that we will not trespass on you again in this manner. When it comes to the place that a man of my age that has never been accused of trespassing has to be ground after by a man like Douglas Bradley when he goes out after a little measley coon, I think it is time to quit. I am grateful to you for every favor you have rendered to me. I have made a clear statement of the facts just as they are and hope that the explanation is satisfactory.”

Highlands History

Posted on July 30, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Scores of visual and literary artists have called Highlands home, but few are as colorful or as versatile as Bil Dwyer.

Dwyer was a nationally syndicated comic strip artist, writer, publisher, social commentator, philosopher, inventor and, perhaps to keep himself grounded, a farmer. His career started at the age of twelve with his first nationally published cartoon. By the time he graduated Yale he had been published regularly in Colliers, Life, Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, and The New Yorker.

From the thirties to the fifties, his syndicated comic strips, “When Mother Was a Girl,” “Dumb Dora,” and “Sandy Hill,” ran in hundreds of newspapers. His talents evolved from 2-D stills to moving pictures when he dedicated three years to Disney Studios helping direct Bambi, Pinocchio, and Fantasia. After Disney, Paramount Pictures hired him to write personality profiles of actors and actresses which led him into portraiture of famous personages including Will Rogers, Rudy Vallee, Sinclair Lewis, Babe Ruth, Dizzy Dean and many more.

Eventually he escaped the pressures of Hollywood and New York and retired to cattle and hog farming in the mountain cove of Horse Shoe, North Carolina in Henderson County. But for a man of such talent and intellect, it didn’t take long to embellish his farming career with outside pursuits. He taught a correspondence course on Oriental artwork, reaching over 5.000 students worldwide. He invented and patented a plastic artist’s palette called, “Moist Pal” and a kitchen appliance, “Cholly Chop” which he marketed nationally.

Since the first retirement had been anything but, he decided to try it again, this time in Highlands. So in 1970 he and his wife, Louise, established the Merry Mountaineers, a complete commercial printing and graphic service in the old Baxter Wilson house adjacent to Central House. The first edition off the presses was Dictionary for Yankees and Other Uneducated People, written and illustrated by Dwyer. Dwyer had made a study of Southern euphemisms for over two decades. The book included authentic uses of the Southern dialect with entries such as, “She’s getting’ too ageable to marry,” “cat-a-gogglin’” (a cat walking sideways), and keep your “daubers” up (show courage).

In 1974 Louise assisted in the creation of Southern Appalachian Mountain Cookin’, bustin’ with mouth-waterin’ authentic recipes many Southern women would rather hand down than write down. Louise wrote them down and even included a section on “Moonshine Makin’” complete with a diagram for brewin’ at home.

These books launched a steady stream of down home volumes including Southern Sayin’s for Yankees and Other Immigrants and Cookin’ Yankees Ain’t Et. And while they published, Bil painted, showing his watercolors up and down the Eastern Seaboard. He lived his life to the fullest, the eternal fully-employed retiree. And Highlands is proud to lay claim on the amazing Bil Dwyer.

To learn more about Highlands people, places and things, read Randolph Shaffner’s Heart of the Blue Ridge or visit the Highlands Historical Society’s website: www.highlandshistory.com.

An Old Mystery is Solved

Posted on July 30, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Zachary Reunion c1960.

For most of my life I have attended the yearly Zachary Reunion in Cashiers and since the 1970s I have been active in searching for and collecting records on Col. John A. Zachary, his forebears and descendants. Many new Zachary records have been located but the question of why Col. Zachary, in the early 1830s, moved his family from Surry County, NC to a wilderness later named Cashiers Valley, had never been answered until a few weeks ago. I received from cousin Nancy Jane Flesch of Oregon, a copy of a 15 August, 1917 Keowee Courier newspaper article written shortly after the 9th Zachary Reunion.

John Robert Zachary of Oconee, County, SC and Ralph Horace Zachary of Brevard, both grandsons of Col. Zachary, addressed the crowd

“Our grandfather lived in Surry County, NC, in his own home which was at least a competent one. I have seen the home surrounded by a large family of healthy, intelligent children ranging from five years to manhood and womanhood, equal, perhaps, to almost any in the State. But by an unfortunate coincidence emanating from the goodness of his heart, ready to help his fellow man in trouble, he lost his property and his home. In his depleted condition he was not able to purchase another at the prices in that community, and rather than subvert the independence of his spirit which rebelled at the idea of becoming a tenant, he preferred to seek where he could build a home of his own, however humble, even though it be in a foreign land. And on his return from a long pursuit of the man who had reduced him to penury, he happened to pass through [the area of] Cashiers Valley and being attracted by its promises and possibilities, he decided to make it his future home. So, subsequent to that time – I don’t know how long – he returned here with some of the boys – I don’t know which ones – except for Uncle Andy – and by their own labor, they built two log cabins for a home and with their own hands they felled the trees and cleared the land, split the rails and fenced the fields and raised a crop of corn and potatoes. Then in the fall, he went back to Surry County and moved his family here.”

Ralph H. Zachary told of the hardships and the triumphs that followed the move but we’ll save that for later. Perhaps the lesson learned here is “no good deed goes unpunished.” or maybe, “Never give up.”

PLEASE NOTE: This year’s Zachary Reunion will be held at noon at the Zachary-Tolbert House on August 14th, 2011.

Painting Workshops with Kathie Blozan

Posted on July 30, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Kathie Blozan’s “Pink Shell Azalea” is a study in delicate beauty.

This August, local artist Kathie Blozan will lead painting workshops at the Zachary-Tolbert House. Participants will learn to sketch and paint wildflowers and will produce one or more small finished paintings. Workshops will be held August 9th, 11th and 13th from 10:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. Each day is independent of the others so participants may attend one, two or all three days.

“Enjoying wildflowers is a pleasure and what better way to get to know them than by drawing and painting them,” says Kathie. Attendees will walk along the nature trail at the Zachary-Tolbert House to look at wildflowers and then return to the pavilion to sketch and paint.

Each workshop costs $60 for members of the Cashiers Historical Society and $75 for non-members. The fee includes all supplies that will be needed for the class, but does not include lunch. The workshop will meet rain or shine and is appropriate for beginners through advanced artists.

For more information please call (828)743-7710 or email info@cashiershistoricalsociety.org.

Highlands’ Bug Hill

Posted on June 29, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Events of 1921 still ripple through my family history nearly a century later. In May of that year my mother was born. In November, her father died.

Growing up, my mother told me my grandfather died of a complication from throat surgery. Because of that, fears about anything throat-related colored her judgment. Though I had frequent bouts with tonsillitis, she stood firmly against a tonsillectomy.

When I was about twelve, Mother’s older sister secretly told me that my grandfather had not died as Mother described. She claimed he suffered from complications caused by a fall from a tree, which severely injured his lungs and throat. In both my mother’s and aunt’s renditions grandfather lived a few months, bedridden, before passing on.

Mother, now in her 91st year, still stands by her account. But several years ago, Mother’s older cousin cast a darker light on my grandfather’s death. Yes, there was a long period of convalescence before my grandfather succumbed, but his passing was the result of tuberculosis, not the surgeon’s knife or a fatal fall.

In the early 1900’s there was terrible shame attached to TB. People with the disease were spoken of in whispers and were often considered trashy, dirty or worse. For that reason, the elders in my family contrived explanations for grandfather’s death so that my mother and aunt wouldn’t think ill of him or be shunned because of it.

As far as I know, my mother never knew about grandfather’s consumption, and, though I am puzzled by my own reluctance to do so, I will never tell her.

In the 20th century TB was a worldwide threat. Even Highlands in the pristine mountains was affected by it. In fact, in 1908 Mary Lapham, a physician who cared deeply for the ill and aging purchased a three-story home on a hill in town. It was located where the Highlands Recreation Center stands now. There she established a sanatorium for victims of tuberculosis. Townsfolk called it Bug Hill, referencing mycobacterium tuberculosis bacillus.

Dr. Lapham, a pioneer in the treatment of TB, would intentionally collapse an infected lung, allowing it to rest, so that treatment could be facilitated. She prescribed rest, fresh air, and sunshine for her patients. When weather permitted they slept in open-air cottages, tent-like constructions with canvas ceilings and walls, which allowed a constant flow of crisp, clean air.

Her treatments were highly successful. W.S. Davis of Commerce, Georgia, arrived in critical condition on a stretcher. He was given only six weeks to live. But under Lapham’s care he recuperated and lived to the ripe old age of ninety. As far as anyone knows, no Highlanders contracted the disease from any of Lapham’s patients.

In hindsight, would that my family had taken my grandfather the two-hundred mile trek to Highlands. Our family history could have been entirely different. But, happily, for many other residents, Dr. Lapham’s efforts restored good health to their loved ones. And Highlands, once again, is remembered for another remarkable resident who had a huge and positive impact on the world.

For more information about Highlands history, read Randolph Shaffner’s Heart of the Blue Ridge or visit the Highlands Historical Society’s Museum or website: www.highlandshistory.com.

Stories You Missed on the Cashiers Civil War Sites Ramble

Posted on June 29, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

This spring the Cashiers Historical Society sponsored a ramble around the area, leading a group of thirty people who visited Civil War Sites and heard stories about true events that took place at the homes of our local ancestors.

Following are two of the stories.

MARTHA CAROLINE POTTS PIERSON CIVIL WAR EXPERIENCE:

Born in 1858, Martha Potts Pierson was the daughter of Allen Potts and Susan Wade Potts who lived in the Yellow Mountain area. Martha was just about five years old when the Yankee raiders came to her family’s home. They stole all the food and because there was so little food to steal, the raiders took all of Susan Potts’ dishes outside and broke them on the rocks, just for spite. Not satisfied, the raiders stripped their father and horse whipped him in front of the terrified family. After they left, Martha’s mother went out into the yard and picked up what was left of the dishes.

T. R. ZACHARY & THE ESCAPED UNION ARMY PRISON ESCAPEES:

Capt. Mark M. Bassett, a member of Company E, 53rd Regiment, Illinois Volunteers, Union Army, had been captured by the Confederates during the siege of Vicksburg in the summer of 1863. Before the end of July, he was brought to Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. There were twelve hundred Union Officers already held there. With a group of other soldiers, Bassett helped dig an escape tunnel and 110 men successfully escaped through the tunnel during February 1864. Bassett was recaptured.

He was moved around a bit and eventually landed in a new Confederate Prison Stockade, still under construction in Columbia, SC. Just a short time after arriving at the stockade, Bassett and eight other officers decided to make a stab at breaking out, before the stockade was completely built. They successfully sneaked away on November 10th, 1864, during the middle of the night and headed North West towards the Blue Ridge Mountains. They had heard that if they could reach the North Carolina Mountains they would find Union sympathizers who would help them get to the Union Lines in Knoxville.

After slow traveling and many close calls, the hungry, cold, group was brought to the home of Alexander Zachary in Cashiers Valley. After some deliberation Zachary allowed his fourteen year old son, Tommy, to join two other guides to lead the Yankees all the way over the mountains to Knoxville. It was promised that after the war, money would be sent back to the Zacharys to pay for Tommy’s education.

From the time the Union officers escaped from “Camp Sorghum” in South Carolina, and the time they arrived in Knoxville, added up to 52 days and nights of winter weather in the mountains. Quoted from Trotter’s book: “By the middle of December 1864 there were already 18 inches of snow on the ground when the weather conditions changed from wretched to appalling. A blizzard raked over the mountains dumping 10 inches of fresh snow and obliterating any trails. Most of the mountain front remained static for awhile, as all movement was paralyzed by arctic cold, lashing snow, and winds that could reach hurricane velocities. Thus, ended the year of 1864 in the Western District of North Carolina. Arriving in Knoxville on January 1st, 1865 a photograph was taken of the group, later to be called “Union Refugees in East Tennessee.” If you drive by the office of the Cashiers Historical Society, you can see a copy of that picture.

Glenville History Tour

Posted on June 29, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Serious history buffs and the merely curious will love this self-guided tour set for Saturday, July 23rd

The Glenville Area Historical Tour on Saturday, July 23rd, arranged and organized by the Glenville History Project Committee, will reveal a bit of the extensive history of the area uncovered by the research and studies conducted by members of the Committee.

Tour-goers will benefit from the Committee’s efforts at historical sites ranging from the Drake Cabin, parts of which are thought to be 150 years old, to the story of the dam at Lake Glenville and perhaps an answer to the question, “Is Hamburg township at the bottom of the lake?”

In July of 2009 a few historically energized Glenville residents concluded that Glenville goes “way back” and preservation of the history was imperative because much of the history of Glenville would be lost if experiences and recollections from old-time residents were not recorded and preserved. As the committee formed, highly knowledgeable committee members included several with long time family ties to the Glenville community either as descendents of early settlers, early Hamburg township residents or property owners going back to when Lake Glenville was built.

In 1827 the state of North Carolina recorded eleven families in the Glenville area and by 1854 nine more homesteading families were added. A significant piece of the Glenville area narrative traces Hamburg Township, aka Old Glenville, the centerpiece of the area, and it’s subsequent disappearance when the Alcoa Aluminum Company constructed the dam that resulted in Lake Glenville originally called Thorpe Lake. Alcoa needed the electrical energy for the company’s WW II production efforts. In documenting the development of the Glenville area, key resident’s interviews have been recorded, and numerous photos and documents have been scanned and saved for the eventual publication of an authentic history of Glenville.

The July 23rd tour begins at the Glenville Community Development Clubhouse on Highway 107 in Glenville across from the Glenville Post Office where tour maps and directions will be provided as well as a general introduction to the area’s history. All sites on the tour will be tended by a Glenville History Project Committee member who is knowledgeable about the facts and anecdotes about the site.

Old photos and maps will be displayed at most sites that in addition to the Drake cabin and dam include the Hamburg Baptist Church that was moved from Hamburg Township, cemetery included, to accommodate the lake; the Glenville Wesleyan Church, the Old Glenville Post Office and present-day tree farms where the agricultural history begins with cabbage crops. Rarely-open-to-the-public, sites on the tour include a root celler, spring house and smoke house compound in continual use since before the 1940s and the 1914 vintage Pine Creek one-room school house.

Tickets for the tour are $10.00 and can be purchased at the Glenville Community Center Clubhouse or from any of the History Project Committee members by calling (828) 743-6744 or (828) 743-1658.

Symposium a Rousing Success

Posted on June 29, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Cashiers Historical Society Board Chair David Dimling presents a framed poster from the Halsted Symposium to Symposium Chair Dr. Robert Lathan.

On June 2nd doctors and historians from across the country gathered at High Hampton Inn to learn about the life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted. The sold out crowd of 150 was treated to talks by renowned physicians and scholars from Cashiers, Atlanta, Baltimore, Virginia and New York who shared their knowledge of the “Father of American Surgery.”

Dr. Halsted worked at Johns Hopkins Hospital and was married to Caroline Hampton Halsted, niece of Confederate General Wade Hampton III. Together, Dr. Halsted and Caroline owned and farmed the property that later became High Hampton Inn. Dr. Halsted was the first doctor to use rubber gloves during surgery and championed more sterile conditions in the operating room. He also pioneered surgeries that are still used today.

The 7th Annual Jan Wyatt Symposium was chaired by Dr. Robert Lathan and co-sponsored by the Cashiers Historical Society, the Highlands-Cashiers Hospital Foundation and High Hampton Inn. For more information about this and upcoming Cashiers Historical Society events please visit www.cashiershistoricalsociety.org, call (828) 743-7710 or email info@cashiershistoricalsociety.org.

Highlands Own Stephen Vincent Benét

Posted on June 29, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Highlands has had its share of famous visitors and residents, among them golfer, Arnold Palmer, baseball outfielder, Ty Cobb, and Alex Haley, author of Roots. But perhaps the most distinguished summer resident of whom Highlands can boast was Stephen Vincent Benét, winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1929 for the book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown’s Body.

In addition to poetry Benét was also recognized for his brilliant short stories and novels. He was solidly accepted as a published author by age seventeen, well on his way to successful literary studies at Yale.

During those pre-Yale years Benét summered in Highlands. One would expect a young man to spend a great deal of time climbing up the enticing peaks and sliding down the slopes, but Benét, as his pudgy, bespectacled persona prescribed, was much more at home in a library experiencing the wild outdoors on the pages of history books or in volumes of poetry. Thus, the Hudson Library, not the mountainsides, became his second home. And when the library moved and expanded, he moved right along with it.

While he holed up among the books, WWI was raging in Europe. Benét, fascinated with world events, kept a map of the Allied Front on the wall in the Highlands post office and carefully tracked the battles at the front with color-coded pins. He became the local authority on the war effort and would happily inform any and all of the progress of the Allies and Central Powers.

As his devotion to the Highlands library indicated, he spent as much time consuming information as he did writing and talking about it. All that paid off, for a couple of years down the road at Yale, his colleague, Thornton Wilder, author of Our Town, said of him, “He was the power behind the Yale Lit.” That power catapulted him to an O. Henry Award for his short story, The Devil and Daniel Webster in 1937. Benét even dipped his toe in journalism’s waters, occasionally serving as a contributor to Time Magazine.

Benét was a resident of Pennsylvania and New York, but he also had a home in Augusta, Georgia. Today the Benét House is part of Augusta College. His Southern experiences in Augusta and Highlands are the inspiration for the following lines from his poem, “The Mountain Whippoorwill:”

Up in the mountains, it’s lonesome all the time,

(Sof’ win’ slewin’ thu’ the sweet-potato vine.)

Up in the mountains, it’s lonesome for a child,

(Whippoorwills a-callin’ when the sap runs wild.)

Up in the mountains, mountains in the fog,

Everythin’s as lazy as an old houn’ dog.

Born in the mountains, never raised a pet,

Don’t want nuthin’ an’ never got it yet.

While Benét’s poetic character may have never aspired to much, Benét himself got plenty from his Highlands mountain adventures. To learn more about him and other famous Highlands visitors, read Randolph Shaffner’s Heart of the Blue Ridge or visit the Highlands Historical Society’s website: www.highlandshistory.com

Douglas Andrew Baumgardner

Posted on June 29, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Baumgardner-Madden House, Cashiers School Rd.

Douglas “Doug” Andrew Baumgardner, the son of Andrew Baumgardner, was born in Cashiers. Doug [pronounced “Doog”] accompanied his brothers to Wyoming in the early 1900s. Frances Baumgarner Lombard, in her book From the Hills of Home, writes in detail about what she calls “The Great Migration West.” Many young men from the Cashiers and Highlands areas sought their fortune in the west, mainly in Wyoming. Some returned home but many remained. Doug’s brother, Zebulan Baumgardner, was shot and killed by a “conniving woman” in Douglas, Wyoming in 1914. Zeb’s body was shipped back to North Carolina and buried in the Lower Zachary Cemetery in Cashiers. Brother Doug remained in Wyoming through the trial of the killer and then returned to Cashiers after hearing the guilty verdict.

Back at home, Doug married Gracie Cole, the daughter of George M. Cole and Mandy Zachary. Doug and Gracie had no children but Doug and his second wife, Julia Norris, had a daughter named Claudia. The Baumgardners lived in and operated what is believed to have been the first hotel in the community–the Cashiers Hotel. The large building was purported to have had eight bedrooms and two bathrooms and it is still standing at the corner of Cashiers Road and Zeb Alley Road.

After the death of his second wife, Doug left Cashiers and moved to South Carolina where he met and married his third wife, Ruby. They lived in the town of Fairplay where they had a farm. Besides farming, Doug worked for years as a salesman at Belk’s department store in the town of Anderson, South Carolina. In Cashiers, Doug had attended the Methodist Church but when he moved to South Carolina, he started attending a nearby Presbyterian Church due to its close proximity to his home. At times he even preached there if the minister was away.

But Doug was not yet through with marrying as when his third wife Ruby died, he married Dorothy Holcombe, his fourth and last wife. Though he had four wives, Doug only had the one child, Claudia.

[Note: The surname Baumgarner is spelled in a variety of ways]

Roderick Norton Early Settler of Norton, North Carolina

Posted on April 28, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Original signature of Roderick Norton on an 1842 deed.

In 1824, 16-year-old Roderick Norton arrived in Whiteside Cove, North Carolina, with his parents, Barak Norton and Mary B. Nicholson Norton, plus two older sisters.

He had been born in Pickens County, South Carolina on January 18, 1808, and after moving into North Carolina, his parents had five more children.

Since in 1824, Roderick was his father’s only nearly-grown son, and we can imagine that he and his father were the ones who built the house as well as clearing land, planting crops and anything else that a new homesteading family needed done.

About 1832, Roderick Norton married Drucilla Burrell, seven years his junior and the daughter of Walter Burrell and Phoebe Pruitt. Before the child bearing years were over for Drucilla, she had borne 13 children with only one dying as an infant. “The Roderick Norton Family of Norton, NC,” by F. H. Norton, Omaha, Nebraska, written with permission as an addendum to “A History of The Norton Family of Cashiers Valley, NC,” Compiled by Trudy Adams, Birmingham, Alabama, states that Roderick was probably the first settler in the Norton community, although there is no direct proof of that. It is known that he and his family were living in Norton by the 1850s in a house at the corner of Norton Road and Yellow Mountain Road. For the second time in his life, he cleared land and farmed, which was about the only way to survive in that area at that time.

Roderick Norton’s eldest child was David Norton and he made a name for himself in several ways. In 1878, David Norton applied for the establishment of a post office in the community and in 1879 his application was approved and he became the first postmaster of Norton, North Carolina. In 1888, David opened the Central House, one of the first hotels in Highlands. During the Civil War, he served in the 25th North Carolina Regiment of the Confederate Army and his brother, Richardson was killed in that war.

Roderick was not a soldier in the Civil War but he did have at least one harrowing experience in his own home with escaped Union soldiers. That story was published in 1917 in a book, “Famous Adventures and Prison Escapes of the Civil War.” That experience will be detailed during the Cashiers Historical Society’s May 17th “Ramble to Cashiers Area Civil War Sites.” If you’re interested in being a participant, please call Jane Nardy at (828) 743-9002.

Do You Remember?

Posted on April 28, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Callie Beal (Standing) at Hillbilly Day 1954.

Isabel Hall Chambers, Lydia Sargent Macauly and Sarah Hall Paxton at Hillbilly Day 1954.

We were talking recently about Highlands in years gone by. Some suggested that our town’s progress and growth has effectively lost some of the charm that it once had.

What do we mean by that? Well, let’s step back and think about what we remember.

Many folks attended square dances at Helen’s Barn. How many of you left after the dance to go to Charlie Anderson’s drug store for a soda or a cherry Coke? Yes, Charlie started the drug store on the hill and stayed open until the Saturday night dances were over. This was before he sold the drug store to Clarence Mitchell. Mirror Lake Antiques now occupies the building.

Or how many remember that many shops, there weren’t that many to start with, closed for the winter and reopened about the time when Highlands Country Club opened the golf course and summer residents returned for the season. Back then the town shop owners and many others knew most of the members of the club. There were strong friendships that grew over the years.

Do you remember when Gene Mays brought the mail and Railway Express packages up from Walhalla, South Carolina? Or when those that lived on the Buck Creek Road could mail a post card that was carried by the rural route carrier down to the Post Office at Gneiss, which was on the Franklin Road, and have it delivered back to Highlands the same day.

How about more recent times? Leeann and Charlie Maybury moved from Florida and opened the Cheese Shop in the old Talley and Burnette Building, a dry goods store owned by Harvey Talley and Johnny Burnette now occupied by Paoletti’s Restaurant, on Main Street. It was across Main Street from Bill Dwyer’s Merry Mountaineers shop in what had been Louis Edwards’ wood work shop, later the Bird Barn and now a new building for the Acorns Shop.

I digress.

The Cheese Shop was famous for their piled high sandwiches, much like those of the Sports Page today. Another favorite was their loganberry fruit drink. No carbonation but so different from the other soft drinks. Worth Gruelle, of Raggedy Ann and Andy fame like his father Johnny Gruelle, favored the loganberry fruit juice. He would buy two glasses and walk across the street to see his friend Bill Dwyer and share the juice. Bill was in his second retirement with his wife Louise. He had been a newspaper comic strip artist that included Dumb Dora as well as doing cartoons for many national magazines. He also worked with Walt Disney on a number of animated feature films. He and Worth would sit on the bench in front of the Merry Mountaineer and have many interesting discussions.

Back then there were several town dogs that roamed Main Street and made friends with everyone. They never caused any trouble and gave the street a friendly atmosphere.

Of course, who can forget the wonderful Hillbilly Days that were sponsored by the Town? We don’t know who had more fun, our summer visitors and residents or locals and natives — probably a draw. Some of the folks thought that blue jeans and a red bandana was a sufficient costume. Others showed up in burlap feed sacks and pigtails. Everyone enjoyed the sporting events: log rolling, greased pole climbing and crosscut log sawing. When you thought you’d seen everything, someone would drive an old Model T down Main Street with candles stuck in the empty head light sockets, rags tied around four flat tires and being pushed by several young men in torn clothes when the motor quit. A square dance provided the evening entertainment with various local musicians and a caller.

This annual celebration came to end when some part time residents thought that we were making fun of locals and sought to bring culture to town in the form of a Brevard Music Festival style event.

Back then, not too far back, you had your choice for breakfast. Two restaurants, The Mountaineer and The Highlander served breakfast, lunch and dinner at reasonable prices: reasonable by local standards. You usually knew most of the customers and at breakfast time Main Street merchants could be found before they opened their stores or businesses, as well as contractors and plumbers.

And then there was The Condiment Shop? Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Edwards started her business on Church Street behind the Edwards hotel after WWII. Originally she picked the berries herself, canned them, and sold them to locals, visitors and summer residents. As her sales grew she went out into the surrounding area and paid housewives and their children to pick berries for her. She soon was shipping cases of jams, jellies and preserves. The business flourished from the 1950s to the late 1990s. During that time she had hired a number of women to keep up with the demand. Her daughter-in-law, Mozelle Edwards, and now her granddaughter, Beth Edwards Crisp, still make homemade jams and jellies.

So now we have pulled back the curtain for you to see a little about Highlands in earlier years.

What has changed?

Economics. In order to survive the merchants have extended the season to almost a year round economy. To do this, everything changed and the ‘little secret’ of yesterday has become common knowledge to the entire Southeast.

Walk in the Park

Posted on April 28, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Highlands Historical Society will be hosting its 11th annual Walk in the Park on June 24th and 25th at the Historic Village, and June 26th at the Martin-Lipscomb Performing Arts Center.

This year’s theme will be “Roads That Lead to Highlands.” The actors and actresses will portray key Highlands notables like Prioleau Ravenel Jr., who built the road between Highlands and Cashiers, and Prioleau Ravenel Sr., who built a carriage road to the top of Satulah Mountain and built the Walhalla Road. Some of the other notables will be Samuel Kelsey, Celia Hill, whose husband built Horse Cove Road, and John Jay Smith. The efforts of these past leaders to improve the access to Highlands made travel easier for visitors and seasonal homeowners on their jaunts to the mountains of Western North Carolina for the restorative nature of the environment and the cool summers.

Tickets will be $10 per person (free for students accompanied by an adult). Watch for more information in the June issue of Laurel and in newspapers.

For ticket information, call (828) 787-1050 for ticket information.

Cashiers Historical Society’s New Faces

Posted on April 28, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Cashiers Historical Society welcomes new Executive Director Lydia Doyle and Administrative Assistant Betty Morris.

The Cashiers Historical Society is pleased to welcome two new staff people. On April 1st Lydia Doyle took over as the new Executive Director and Betty Morris became the new Administrative Assistant.

Lydia comes to Cashiers from Athens, Georgia. She is an attorney with a Masters in Historic Preservation and has spent the last six years working with non-profits and local governments in Georgia to help them plan and grow for the future.

Betty is a long-time resident of Cashiers. She has served as the president of Rotary and Director at The Hampton School. She has been voted Educator of the Year and Business Person of the Year.

Both Lydia and Betty are thrilled to be with the Historical Society and look forward to a great 2011. For more information about the Historical Society please call (828) 743-7710 or email info@cashiershistoricalsociety.org.

An Historical Home of Distinction

Posted on April 28, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

When Professor Thomas Harbison first came to Highlands in the late 1880s, homes were simpler than they are today.

Large windows directed cool mountain breezes throughout the house to keep occupants cool. There was no running water and the kitchen stove required wood for cooking and to provide heat to chase away the crispness of the morning. Indoor plumbing was nothing more than an idea in most homes of that era.

Thankfully homes have improved. Today’s homes, even those with historic character, include the modern conveniences of running water, multiple bathrooms and comfortable oversized furniture. This month’s featured home is one of the gems of yesteryear which has been beautifully restored to retain its historical ambience, while providing all of the conveniences that the family of the twenty-first century expects.

Those of you familiar with Highlands’ history are familiar with the name Professor Thomas G. Harbison, famed scientist, botanist and educator. He built this home in 1921 down the Walhalla Road at the base of Satulah Mountain. Nestled between decade old rhododendron and mountain laurels, on approximately three-and-a-half acres, the house catches the cool mountain breezes, making it seldom necessary to use the central air system that was recently installed. A wide central hall that runs the length of the house connects to each of the comfortably appointed rooms.

The kitchen with its oversized Viking range and its Delft tile central island makes meal prep a pleasure. The adjoining Keeping Room with its native rock fireplace is a favorite gathering place for the family. There’s plenty of room around the large harvest table for family meals or a lively board game.

Across the hall is the more formal Library or Living Room. The large windows fill the rooms with light even on the dreariest days. When the chores are done or it is time for a brief rest, you may want to lounge on either of the comfortably appointed porches with swings and rocking chairs or amble on down to one of the rock patios. It’s so soothing to hear the water trickling across the property and the birds singing in the trees. The landscaping that surrounds the house would make Dr. Harbison proud.

When friends and family come for a visit, there is plenty of room for everyone with five bedrooms and a sitting room upstairs. Grandchildren especially love the adventure of bed time on the sleeping porch where the katydids lull them to sleep. With three baths in the house, the Harbisons would think that they had gone to heaven.

A thoughtful restoration means that the house is ready and waiting for you. All you have to do is bring your clothes and you are ready to enjoy the Highlands life. The house is listed with Harry Norman Realtors (828) 526-8300. Contact Carol Matthews at (828) 342-1625 or carol@carolmathews.com for more information. A gem of this quality doesn’t come along often.

Highlands History: Adam Had ‘Em

Posted on March 25, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

James Rideout

Adam had ‘em. The poet, probably Ogden Nash, said it all in those three little words. But James Rideout, a retired Union soldier, general store owner, and colorful Highlands resident in the late 1800s, had his own tale to tell about fleas.

Speaking to the Highlands Literary Society in 1907, a year before his death, he told a yarn about his lifelong adversaries, Pulex irritants, as he called them, better known as fleas.

Rideout said they were well named for they were always flea-ing. “When you put your finger where he was, he wasn’t.”

He mused that if a flea were as large as the critter he irritated, “He could pluck a man out of Highlands and with one leap land on Shortoff Mountain and pick the poor man’s bones.” He could drain a horse dry. Firing a rifleball at his thick hide would be a fool’s errand… the shot bouncing off like rubber. Given the flea’s nasty and assiduous ways, Pulex irritants could and would handily depopulate the mountainside in nothing flat.

Rideout held Noah accountable for the flea’s resurfacing after the flood. Noah overlooked the Flea Family that had buried itself in the fur of an unsuspecting canine as it debarked the ark. Ever since the days when Adam had ‘em and Noah towed ‘em, all God’s creatures remain nothing more than a mobile restaurant for the indomitable, abominable flea.

So this time of year, when the pests begin to break out of their winter wraps and casings, think back a century ago to James Rideout and his distain for those filthy, foul, blood-feasting fiends and our constant companions, the fleas.

It’s Spring, and it won’t be long before the bills will be posted: Flea Circus coming soon to a dog near you! As James would say, “Time to Rideout of town!”

Cashiers History: Col. John Haywood Alley, Jr., of Whiteside Cove

Posted on March 25, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

John H. Alley [1814-1902] was not born in the Cashiers Valley area, but as early as 1835, he ventured into nearby Whiteside Cove to dig for gold. A couple of years later, having risen to the rank of First Lieutenant in the U. S. Cavalry, Alley was sent to Whiteside Cove to round up the Cherokee for their removal west. On his first cove visit, he had been greatly impressed with the Norton family as well as the rich soil and the beauty of the cove. On his second visit he decided he’d like to settle there some day. After the Trail of Tears was completed in Oklahoma, Alley left the military and turned his horse east and made the journey back to the North Carolina mountains. There in the cove he married Sarah Whiteside Norton on December 16, 1845. His wife was the daughter of Barak Norton and she had been the first white child born in the cove

[Note: Sarah’s middle name, “Whiteside” was an old family surname and had nothing to do with the mountain.]

One child had been born to the couple and another baby was on the way when this Rutherford County native was called away to participate in the Mexican War. His commander during both the Cherokee removal and the Mexican War was General. Winfield Scott, a famous leader who weighed so much that if he were living today, he would be a contestant on “The Biggest Loser.” During their marriage, Col. Alley and his wife, Sarah, had fourteen children with ten of the children living to adulthood. All were born and raised in the cove, first sharing the home with the Norton in-laws and later living in a substantial house built by Col. Alley. His house was at the base of Whiteside Mountain with a magnificent view of the white face of the mountain. The house is still there and the view is as stunning as ever.

Col. Alley was 47 years old when the Civil War started and he joined the Confederate Army. During the first year he sustained severe injuries to his leg that eventually led to amputation. He recovered enough to be appointed the head of the North Carolina Confederate Home Guard. Close to the end of the war, a group of Union Bushwhackers from “Kirk’s Raiders” came to the Alley house, terrorizing the family and almost killing Col. Alley. That story will be part of a Cashiers Historical Society’s “Ramble to Cashiers Area Civil War Sites” on May 17th, 2011, and will be told by a descendant of Col. John Haywood Alley, Jr. If you wish to be part of this ramble, please call Jane Nardy at (828) 743-9002.

Fool’s Rock

Posted on February 22, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

In 1901, Gus Baty, twenty-six years old, had an attack of foolhardy manlitude, as men are prone to experience on occasion. He wanted to catch the eye of a pretty girl, Irene Edwards, who was picnicking on Whiteside Mountain. The event nearly cost him his life and the lives of the two who set out to save him. In the end, any hope of romance careened over the cliff’s edge as gracelessly as Baty. The only recognition awarded that day was to his rescuer, Charlie Wright, who won a Carnegie Silver Medal for heroism.
As the story goes, Baty was prancing around Fool’s Rock, showing off for Edwards. He misjudged his footing, lost his balance, fell off the rock, slipping under it and shooting like a rocket down a vertical incline. A mere two inches from the bottom end of a sixty-foot drop was a scraggly rhododendron, its roots clinging to a crack in the ledge. A random branch snagged Baty by an arm and a leg and dangled him on the tip of a perpendicular rock. There was over a thousand feet of nothingness between him and the ground below.
Wright, one of the picnicking party, leaned over the edge and saw that Baty’s fall was broken by the rhododendron and that he was still moving. Wright and his buddy, Will Dillard, crawled slowly out onto the first slope, clinging to bare rock. When the hand and foot holds all but disappeared and the slope grew steeper, Dillard halted, leaving Wright to attempt the rescue alone.
Reverend Belk, who originally reported the event to the Charlotte Daily Observer, wrote, “Had he (Baty) missed that bush or passed one foot on either side of it, he would have fallen fully 1,000 feet before ever touching a thing.”
Wright flattened himself out against the steep rock and yelled to Baty, “Be still, Gus, I’m coming to you. Don’t move. It’s Charlie.” Wright’s feet dangled over the edge as he lowered himself inch by inch toward Wright, his fingers raw and numb, clawing and clinging to the rock.
Baty was badly injured, bleeding, a sharp stick impaling his head, his knee seriously bruised and delirium setting in. Wright was in close enough range to reach behind his back and carefully remove the stick. He said, “Gus, don’t think of your pain… be cool and do as I tell you.”
Wright called to Dillard, “I must have help.” Dillard, his resolve returning, crawled out on the rock face and together, he and Wright managed to drag and shove Baty up the steep incline to a ledge. At that point, lines and halters had arrived and Baty was harnessed and lifted to safety. As soon as he was on solid ground he promptly fainted, finishing off any hope of romance with Edwards and reminding everyone that Fool’s Rock was aptly named.
Wright eventually received the Carnegie Silver Medal, but not until a skeptical investigator was led to the edge of Whiteside and peered over the side. “Shaking like an aspen leaf,” his own words, he filed his report and Wright earned his medal.
To learn more about this and other historical events of Highlands, check out Heart of the Blue Ridge by Randolph Shaffner or visit Highlands Historical Society, Inc., 524 North 4th Street, P. O. Box 670, Highlands, NC 28741-0670, email: highlandshistory@nctv.com, website: www.highlandshistory.com.

Georgetown Goldmine

Posted on February 22, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

There were lots of mining enterprises in Jackson County during the 1800s. Included in the minerals mined were copper, kaolin, mica, corundum and gold. The only gold mine mentioned in The History of Jackson County was Georgetown Goldmine, a placer mine which was located a few miles east of Cashiers Valley in Fairfield on Long Branch of the Horsepasture River. The primary evidence of Georgetown Goldmine comes from the Cashiers Valley Store Account Ledger of Alexander Zachary. Lori Holder, a graduate student at Western Carolina University, transcribed the ledger and wrote a fascinating introduction that reads like a novel, set in Cashiers Valley in the 1840s and 1850s. Much of the following comes from Lori Holder’s writings.
Zachary would occasionally accept payment for his goods in work at the Georgetown mine. Eli Shelton paid two dollars and eighty five cents of his store debt with 7 ½ days work at the mine. James Ledford’s 1846 account noted on two separate credits that he had worked nine days mining for which he had received eighteen ounces of gold in payment toward his debt. The store ledger entries indicated that most of the production occurred in the summer, mainly in June and July. Of the sixty mine workers listed in the ledger, half were also listed as patrons of the Zachary store.
In the Jackson County, North Carolina Heritage Book, on pages 44 and 45, is found an autobiography of Andy J. Wood where he tells that he worked five to ten years in gold mines throughout this county, sometimes making as much as fifty dollars a day. On one day he made forty-three dollars in just three hours. According to Mining and Mineral Production in Jackson County, North Carolina, Two to three hundred thousand dollars worth of gold was extracted from the streambed at the Georgetown mine during the time it was worked. [mid 1830s until late 1890s] There’s a nice write-up on page 22 of The Cashiers Area, Yesterday, Today and Forever about Georgetown Goldmine. It quotes the late Cashiers resident Walter Fugate,”There was a feller in here the other day asking me if I could tell him where Georgetown was. And I said I could and I did. It’s all covered up by Fairfield Lake now. Gold was discovered there and a little mining village was built named Georgetown. If you take the trouble to go there to the foot of the cliffs on Bald Rock Mountain, you can still see them old races they used to wash the gravel through in their operation.”’

Winter on the Plateau

Posted on January 3, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

Ice Skating on Mirror Lake

The Highlands’ summer population has missed out on a lot of wonderful winter activities the snow-laden hills and frozen lakes have provided. Mill Creek, once called Mill Pond, appropriately named for three nearby wood and grain mills, provided the ideal winter playground for Cub Rice and his pals. They’d hike up to Sloan’s Gate on Satulah then slide all the way down to Mill Pond on improvised sleds with wagon wheel rims for runners.
Further out, at the Norton Farm, children from the Crisp, Picklesimer, and Potts families would tackle the lower slope of Shortoff, Car hoods were their sleds of choice. Volkswagens served as one-seaters, Ford Falcons would accommodate a duo and the wide slide of a 1962 Caddie would carry up to six passengers. Granny’s hand stitched quilts would keep buns from sticking to the frozen metal.
As if sledding on wheel rims and car hoods didn’t have a high enough white-knuckle factor, some of the tobogganers made a practice of sledding at night with only the light of a hilltop bonfire to guide them. One evening, Chuck Crisp hit Felix Speed’s (but not speedy enough) cow. It broke the poor cow’s leg, but insurance paid for damages and there were a few steaks and rib roasts in the bargain. Though it was in a kinder, gentler time, one can imagine today being arrested for reckless driving of an unregistered automobile hood with intent to barbecue.
When the temperature plummeted, ice-skating was a popular pastime on local lakes. In late January of 1940, Mirror Lake was covered in a sheet of ice fifteen inches thick. Thousands of skaters came up from surrounding communities and states to enjoy the impromptu winter skating fest. Stores enjoyed record sales. All around the lake bonfires glowed. The fires and strings of lights reflected off the icy surface to create a magical evening of spins, thrills and occasional spills.
While many choose the warmer climes to the plateau winters, for those who stay to tough it out, nature has many rewards.
To learn more about the seasons and stories of Highlands, check out historical accounts compiled by Ran Shaffner in Heart of the Blue Ridge, Faraway Publishing or visit the Historical Society website at: www.highlandshistory.com.

Cassie Riley Zachary

Posted on January 3, 2011 by thelaurelmagazine

The mountain woman you’re about to meet was as unusual as her name. Cassie Riley Zachary was born in 1888 to James Albert Zachary and Nancy “Nannie” Jane Bradley, who lived on Whiteside Cove Road, Cashiers. The first one and a half decades of her life were spent in Cashiers and later in life she would tell of the panic she felt the first time she saw an airplane flying high above. She was in the cornfield and on hearing and seeing the plane, she quickly squatted down, hoping to avoid detection. Her brother Wade ran and hid under the house.
A hint of the bounty the magnificent American Chestnut trees provided was revealed in Cassie’s description of the family, at the beginning of fall, driving the farm’s livestock down Highway 64 to “Lonesome Cove” to fatten them up on the new crop of fallen chestnuts. When it was time to butcher the livestock, they would be herded back to the farm.
In about 1904 Cassie’s father moved his family to the Brevard area, where Cassie married George Washington Smith in 1909. Standing well over six feet tall, Cassie was a big raw-boned woman – not fat but slim and strong with large hands and feet. She was usually seen wearing brown leather men’s sturdy shoes. Her health was excellent–never had arthritis and at an advanced age she was so limber she could gracefully bend down in the garden to tend her plants and flowers. She did fall on the front porch and scratched her leg, which resulted a “staph” infection. She successfully cured her wound with applications of Sue Bee Honey. Cassie’s hair came down to her knees and at bedtime she braided it into two pig-tails. When she got up, she combed it a long time before putting it up on her head in a loose bun. Her grandson, Ray Smith, remembers his grandmother washing her hair in Glovers Mange Cure, which you could smell all the way into the yard.
Cassie’s husband, George W. Smith, was a self taught electrician but his favorite way to support his family was to distill liquor, a skill he passed on to some of his children. He raised chickens in his barn and they concealed his still which was tucked back in a corner beyond the flapping, clucking chickens. What he wasn’t skilled at doing was hiding from the revenuers who kept George locked up in jail for long chunks of time, leaving his family in bad financial condition. One time when he was in the Brevard jail, he got a son to slip him part of a hand saw, a small file and some metal from which he made a key and let himself out of his cell. Later, he was caught and put in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.
Late in life when Cassie had outlived all of her six children except for one, she went to live in Michigan with her daughter, Georgia, who Cassie called “Tom.” The old wound on her leg got “staph” infection again, and Georgia put Cassie into a nursing home. Hearing that his beloved grandmother was far away, alone in a nursing home, grandson Ray Smith immediately drove to Michigan and brought Cassie Riley back to her home to live out her days in familiar surroundings, cared for by family members. She died in September 1981 at the age of 93 and was laid to rest beside her husband, George, at Cathy’s Creek Baptist Church Cemetery.

The Fruits of Unrequited Love

Posted on December 6, 2010 by thelaurelmagazine

In the July 9th, 1931 edition of the Brevard News is found an article describing a murder and suicide.
“Charley Bryson, 40 years of age and a widower, fired six shots into the bosom of Edna Hinkle, 18, early Wednesday morning, killing her instantly, and then went to his home a mile away, sent his five motherless children from the house, laid down upon a couch, and sent six bullets into his own breast, dying instantly. The first tragedy occurred at Sapphire, where both were working–Miss Hinkle in the house and Bryson on a plumbing job.
Sheriff Patton and Deputy Tom Wood were called to the scene of the double tragedy, made investigation, held a formal inquest, and returned to Brevard about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Disposition of the bodies await decision of members of the two families.
Miss Hinkle was a member of the junior class in the Rosman High school in the coming term, where, friends claim, she intended to pursue her studies when school started again. She was considered one of the most beautiful and lovable girls in the upper end of the county. (Note: Sapphire, Transylvania County, was barely a mile away from Jackson County.) Her father, Henry Hinkle, moved to Salem, S.C. a short time ago.
Bryson was well known throughout this and Jackson counties, and had friends by the hundreds who are shocked beyond expression at the awful double tragedy in which he alone took an active part. He was a son of Robert Bryson and a brother of Harry Bryson.
It is said that Bryson had been in love with the young girl for almost two years. Some friends of the slain girl say that she was not interested in Bryson, and repulsed his efforts at courtship. The theory most generally advanced for the tragedy was that of a mad love which had no response from the girl. It is said that she was most studious in her school work and ranked among the leaders of the sophomore class of Rosman High last year. She has several brothers and sisters who are with the parents at their new home in South Carolina.”
Oral history, censuses and death certificates provided more information. Bryson had been married to Bessie Burgess who died of breast cancer in 1929, leaving behind five children. Charley Bryson and Edna Hinkle were both employed by Dr. Parsons at his Sapphire Hotel, and it was on the steps of the hotel that Edna died.
Edna is buried at the old Bohaney Church Cemetery and Charley Bryson is buried beside his wife, Bessie Burgess Bryson at the Lower Zachary Cemetery in Cashiers. Thanks to Paula Rhodarmer for letting me use her story. J

A Thousand Forests

Posted on December 6, 2010 by thelaurelmagazine

There was a bumper crop of acorns this year compared to last year’s poor yield. We welcome those chubby little round leathery nuts that have been foresting the earth for millennia. They have many stories to tell.
Woden (Norse god for whom Woden’s day or Wednesday is named) and Thor, his son (for whom Thursday is named) have an acorn connection. Thor sought shelter from a storm under an oak tree, and was protected from lightning. Of course, he commanded thunderbolts, so that wasn’t such a big trick. Nevertheless, acorns became the symbol of safety. Homeowners from some cultures keep an acorn on their windowsills for protection. An ornamental acorn dangling as a blind pull is a variation on that same theme.
Some say carrying an acorn in your pocket is good luck and will ensure a long life. Perhaps that refers to the tenacity and longevity of oaks. A German folktale claims that a farmer, who had promised his soul to the Devil, tried to outsmart him by striking a deal. He asked for a reprieve until after his first crop of acorns was harvested. He planted a row of oaks. They grew but yielded no crop until they were mature, decades later. Thus the farmer had many years of enjoyment before his debt came due.
Acorns are also thought to be useful in love divination. A man and a woman each place an acorn in a bowl of water. If the acorns float close together, it is a perfect match.
Because acorns are so heavy, oaks have to rely on scatter-hoard instincts of certain animals to propagate. While birds and squirrels can miraculously remember where they have deposited their stashes, some acorns escape consumption and take root far enough away from the parent tree to avoid overcrowding.
Certain cultures including Asian and Native American eat acorns. Because the nuts contain a lot of tannin, a digestive irritant to humans, they have to be soaked to leach it out of the meat. Once tannin-free, the high-fat nuts are dried and ground into flour then made into breads. Acorn jelly and acorn noodles are part of the Korean diet.
So love those little acorns that crunch under your soles and rain in a cacophony of tiny thumps on your roof in the fall. They are a boon to animal and human, air and earth. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn… Ralph Waldo Emerson. J

Ordinary Living in Cashiers North Carolina

Posted on November 2, 2010 by thelaurelmagazine

The following excerpts were taken from two letters written by Cashiers Valley resident Alexander Zachary in 1881 and 1882 to his son, T. R. Zachary, in Kansas. They will give you an idea of what kind of daily life was led in this little hamlet 125 years ago. Pictured is a copy of the envelope that held the 1882 letter. At the bottom of the Cashiers Valley postmark is the name “E. J. Bennett”. That was Elizabeth J. Bennett, the Cashiers Valley postmaster, as listed in the appendix of The History of Jackson County on page 583. This is the first time I’ve seen the name of the postmaster on the postmark stamp.
“December 9, 1881. I am not so well as I would wish to be. Some six weeks ago, your mother and I gathered apples. I got very hot, sat down and cooled off too quick that gave me a very bad cold and sore throat. I have hardly got over it yet altho’ I am very harty. I would like for you to be here with me. I think it would be an advantage to us both. Your wife seems to want to get away from that country [Rush Co. Kansas] and I don’t suppose she is to blame from what you say yourself. If you was here and could put up with light work and good living you could live at the Courtney farm or perhaps in the house with us. I can support you and your family and never miss it. We have plenty of everything that we want. We have fifty or sixty chickens ready for the pot. We can’t eat them all without help. Alf [son Alfred Zachary] will soon have his steam saw mill running and about three hundred logs ready to saw J. M. [son, James Madison Zachary] is in the south at work at his trade [dentist].”
“July 18 1882. We’re doing the best we can. If we are not making much, we are seeing a good deal of 5 horses and 8 boarders and looking for more. I want about 12 and then I’ll stop taking them in. There may be a good many who want to come but we are not fixed up for any more and still have a place left for ourselves. They are paying me $4 per week. I tell them I will feed them and bed them and if they want to be waited on too, that will be extra.
“Mr. Cunningham has been here near 3 months with his family. Since he has been here he has bought a pair of horses and sent and got his carriage. They are very agreeable boarders all right. We have 2 ladys from Augusta, Ga. We have beef and mutton. I bought a load of corn, chickens and ducks, so you see we can not lack something to eat. We have always had plenty and hope we always will. I would tell you what we had for dinner but there was such a variety I don’t think I can. The poorest dish we had was dewberries all white with sugar. “
“I want someone with me to do my cutting wood and the likes. I have quit farming since your mother died. We do just as well as what I did then. I generally make a little corn and buy a little and that does me as well. I have been preparing already to save for this winter. I have sold Buck and Bill. You know them and how old they are. I sold them to Taylor Bryson on short time for $60. I like to have forgotten to tell you that I have a lot of grass steers to brake this fall. You had better come on and brake them. I have 8 good pastures containing from 6 to 50 acres each – more than any other man in the county. I have 1 ½ acres in corn and a garden. The corn looks well but the garden is nothing to brag about and the moles have been the worst I ever saw. I am trapping them.
Goodbye for the present. Write soon. Your affectionate father, Alex Zachary.” J

Talking Turkey

Posted on November 2, 2010 by thelaurelmagazine

In Western North Carolina, Thanksgiving comes easily. It’s not difficult to reach in and find gratitude for this beautiful season between the overwhelming colorscape of the leaves and the austere majesty of a soon to be snow-covered world. We breathe a prayer of thanks, sometimes not even realizing it, as we watch the mountains bridging the distance between the sweetness of the land, and the increasing steel of the wintering sky. We are truly blessed here, with a changing Nature that, all year long, adorns our lives and reminds us of our own seasons.
And in the midst of all this cornucopia of delights, stands the turkey. Today, we may see the turkey as a comical bird, destined for dinner, a clumsy, big, and funny-looking mess of feathers and wattles who gobbles at us before we gobble right back. But this large bird has been part of Thanksgiving since our forefathers arrived, and officially since 1863, when President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a day of giving thanks. Yes, Tom T. had much better press in the olden days.
Benjamin Franklin was so impressed with the turkey, that he lobbied for it to be our national bird. The eagle, he maintained, was, by nature, a rogue and a robber. But the turkey was the avian symbol of America’s bounty. Many of us would say this is a good thing, since today the Bald Eagle enjoys federal protection. Had things been different, we might be eating them with our cranberry sauce and cornbread dressing, while turkeys marched majestically in Thanksgiving Day parades, their tender lusciousness protected by the law of our Land.
It’s also a good thing for North Carolina. Our state is a massive turner-out of turkeys. 61 million are produced each year in North Carolina, more than any other state in the union. It’s followed by Arkansas and Michigan. And there is a reason for such astronomical numbers: nine out of every ten homes will eat turkey on Thanksgiving, and half of all families will do so on Christmas day.
So as we count our blessings here in the western region of our state, home and stage to such natural wonders, let us give thanks to the turkey. Captive bred birds, raised for size and tenderness, are flightless, but wild their wild cousins can break 55 miles per hour in short bursts through the air, and can manage a very respectable 25 on the ground. Let us, from time to time, remember them that way – strong, fast… and delicious! J