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Culitivate a Place in Your Heart
Written By: Luke Osteen | Issue: September - 2022
Following the collapse of its earthen dam and the draining of Lake Toxaway, the little Toxaway community staggered, but wouldn’t collapse.
But I didn’t get into details about how my family’sAmerican experience had practically ensured that he’dend up in that little community nor did I detail the hardthings that led him to leave.Our story began in 1774 in Savannah, Georgia, with the arrivalof William and Nancy Osteen. The important thing to realizeabout this is that the Irish arriving in Georgia in the mid-1700swere overwhelmingly convicts, transferred from filled-to-bursting debtor’s prisons.They were received with the same degree of hospitality thatwe offer to undocumented Hispanics found wandering west ofNogales. In fact, Benjamin Franklin wrote that in gratitude forthe welcome addition of all these convicts delivered to theseshores, the colonists should gather all the rattlesnakes theycould find and ship them to the court of George III.All of that animosity vanished when the colonies declared theirindependence and suddenly needed to field an army.North Carolina filled out its quota of troops and officers for theContinental Army by offering free land to any man enlisting.This land turned out to be this far corner of Western NorthCarolina, and the fact that it belonged to the Cherokee didn’tseem to matter – especially after the Cherokee allied themselveswith the British.William and his brother Joseph quickly took advantage ofthis offer, seeing how they continued to be ostracized by mostcitizens of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.The Osteen brothers served the entirety of the war and wererewarded a plot of land that would eventually end up in theheart of Pisgah National Forest (you can still find Fate Osteen’sCove, next to the Fish Hatchery on Forest Service topo maps).Their descendants would live on that plot for the next 150 years(managing to be Union sympathizers during the Civil War),acting as farmers and woodsmen of the vast chestnut forests allaround them.I’m afraid the limits of page layout are going to have to makeme tell the remainder of this tale in our October Issue – Ipromise, I’ll tie this all together.I’m not the sort of writer who composes stories with a definablemessage, but in this instance, I’d ask that you cultivate a placein your heart for forgiveness and hospitality to the stranger. Youtruly cannot predict who’ll end up fighting for your rights orwhose heirs will be telling you stories in a magazine found onthe Southern curl of the Appalachians.
by Luke Osteen
