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Written on The Walls
Issue: April 2023
Graffiti adorning the walls of the Zachary-Tolbert House provides a charming snapshot of a busy, loving household. Charlie Zachary, seen in the photo on the left in his Army uniform from the Spanish American War, is one of the cast of characters.
If you or your children were to write or draw on the walls of your home, there would probably be “unpleasantness” of some kind. It is considered to be graffiti and it is usually erased or painted over.
There is an exception – the graffiti found in the Zachary-Tolbert House in Cashiers. Graffiti found in a historic house such as the Zachary-Tolbert House is rare and offers important insight into the family, their guests, and the events of the time.
Visitors to the house museum will find walls with graffiti left over the years by each family and many guests. The writings include business transactions, measurements, dates of goods sold, poetry, secrets to be deciphered and while much is unknown – who wrote what and when for example, except for a message left on April 10, 1870.
According to Jane Nardy, Cashiers Historical Society historian and a direct descendant of the Zachary family, graffiti was found on the walls of the ZT House in the late 1990s when the society was faced with the task of restoring and stabilizing the newly acquired historic house. The house had sat on a stone foundation for over 100 years and had sunk into the earth. With the floors sagging, the solution was to remove interior walls temporarily. A large crane raised the house off the ground a few feet to enable the replacement of the stone foundation. When the workmen removed the interior boards, they noticed something in the dim interior of the house- graffiti!
After the restoration was completed, an intern from Western Carolina University made an index of the graffiti found. One special message was discovered. On a wall was the following- “Charlie Zachary took his first step on the 10th day of April 1870.” On April 13, 1869, Mordecai and Elvira (Keener) Zachary’s tenth child, Charles Franklin, was born in the house his father Mordecai built and it was in that same house that his first step was taken and recorded on the walls of the house.
The Cashiers Historical Society encourages visitors to examine for themselves the graffiti found on the walls of the ZT House as well as the other three buildings and grounds. The preservation of each building and the grounds is the commitment CHS has in preserving the tradition and the history of the Cashiers’ area for today and tomorrow. CHS is a 501(3)(c) organization.
