WATAUGA COUNTY, NC - HISTORY - A History of Watauga County, North Carolina Chapter 10, Part 3 ==================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Sharon Williamson ==================================================================== A History of Watauga County, North Carolina John Preston Arthur Page 132 is also said that they made money in California, but spent it all buying a waterproof cloth with which to make a pipe to draw off the water in a creek above the point at which they had discovered gold, hoping to gather much from the bottom of the bed, not realizing that it was being washed down from above till too late. Legislative Representatives.(1)—Alexander B. McMillan, in 1850, and Benjamin C. Calloway, in 1852, both of what was and still is Ashe County, represented Watauga in the House, and George Bower, also of Ashe, in the Senate, but from and including 1854 Watauga has had its own citizens as representatives in the House: Senators Representatives 1854 George Bower of Ashe Jonathan Horton 1856 A. M. Bryan, of Ashe George N. Folk 1858 Joseph H. Dobson, of Surry Mark Holdsclaw 1860 Joseph H. Dobson, of Surry George N. Folk G. N. Folk having resigned, his place was filled by Thomas Farthing 1862 Isaac Jarratt, of Ashe William Horton 1864 Jonathan Horton, of Watauga William Horton 1865 A. C. Cowles, of Yadkin Charles Porter 1866 A. C. Cowles, of Yadkin William Horton 1868 Edmund W. Jones, of Caldwell Lewis B. Banner 1870 W. B. Council, of Watauga W. F. Shull 1872 J. W. Todd, of Ashe J. B. Todd 1874 A. J. McMillan, of Alleghany L. L. Greene 1876 Hervey Bingham, of Watauga W. R. Council 1879 J. Bledsoe, of Ashe W. R. Council 1881 F. J. McMillan, of Alleghany Thomas Bingham 1883 E. F. Lovill, of Watauga W. W. Lenoir 1885 J. W. Todd, of Ashe E. F. Lovill 1887 W. C. Fields, of Alleghany Thomas Bingham 1889 W. S. Farthing, of Watauga J. A. Crisp 1891 Benjamin P. Griggsby, of Ashe D. B. Phillips __________ Note: (1) From the "North Carolina Manual." Page 133 1893 W. C. Fields, of Alleghany E. F. Lovill 1895 W. H. Farthing, of Watauga L. H. Michael 1897 J. M. Dickson, of Ashe Thomas Bingham 1899 W. C. Fields, of Alleghany W. B. Councill, Jr. 1901 L. H. Michael, of Watauga William H. Calloway 1903 H. M . Wellborn, of Ashe Lindsay H. Michael 1905 S. A. Taylor, of Alleghany C. W. Phipps 1907 E. F. Lovill, of Watauga W. D. Farthing 1909 Robert L. Doughton, of Alleghany Smith Hageman 1911 John M. Wagoner, of Alleghany Smith Hageman 1913 E. S. Coffey, of Watauga John W. Hodges 1915 Robert L. Ballou, of Ashe A. W. Smith Superior Court Clerks.— The first clerk was probably appointed by Judge Anderson Mitchell, who held the first court. A fine cherry tree stands alone in the field near where the old barn stood. The fleas which attended as witnesses, jurors and spectators are still remembered for their cordial reception of their human rivals. The first clerk elected by the people was George M. Bingham, of cove Creek, but owing to an impediment in his speech, he resigned at the first term, Mr. _________ McClewee, an attorney resident of Boone at that time, being appointed to fill the unexpired term. This was probably in 1850. Then followed Col. J. B. Todd, Henry Blair, W. J. Critcher, appointed to fill the term for which Col. J. B. Todd had been elected in 1868, but which he could not fill because he could not take the "iron-clad oath" of Reconstruction. Owing to the destruction of the records when the court house was burned in 1873, it is impossible to give the dates accurately prior to that time, but from then on the records show that J. H. Hardin served from 1874 to 1882; J. B. Todd from 1882 to 1894; M. B. Blackburn from 1894 to 1898; John H. Bingham from 1898 to 1902; Thomas Bingham from 1902 to 1910, and W. D. Farthing from 1910 to the present time 1915. The registers of deeds were Rev. Joseph Harrison, from about 1850 to 1860, or thereabouts; Rev. D. C. Harman, till 1865; Joseph Harrison, till 1870; W. W. Presnell, from 1870 to 1886; Page 134 Eugene Blackburn, from 1886 till his death; when W. W. Presnell was appointed to fill out his term; then came M. B. Blackburn from 1888 to 1890; then Calvin J. Cottrell, from 1890 to 1894; then John W. Hodges, from 1894 to 1898; then J. M. May, from 1898 to 1908, followed by W. Roy Gragg, from 1908 till now, 1915. Sheriffs.— Michael Cook, 1849 to 1852; John Horton, 1852 to 1856; D. C. McCanless, 1856 to 1859 (January); Sidney Deal, till 1860; A. J. McBride, from 1860 to 1866;(1) Jack Horton, from 1866 to 1876; A. J. McBride from 1874 to 1882; D. F. Baird, 1882 to 1894; W. H. Calloway, 1894 to 1900; W. B. Baird, 1900 to 1904; J. W. Hodges, 1904 to 1908; D. C. Reagan, 1908 to 1912; E. R. Eggers, for part of Reagan's unexpired term; Asa Wilson, elected 1912, but resigned, and E. R. Eggers appointed by county commissioners to fill out term to 1914; W. P. Moody, elected in 1914. Sidney Deal lived where J. W. Farthing now lives, and was elected sheriff by the people in 1860, but joined the army, and the remainder of his term was filled by Jack Horton. Deal moved across the Blue Ridge after the close of the Civil War. Financial.—The debt of Watauga County is too small to be mentioned, there being only a few hundred dollars still due for the new court house. Real estate is assessed at about one-third of its real value. The tax rate for State and county combined is one per cent of assessed value, being twenty- seven and two-thirds mills for State and seventy-two and one-third for county, and $2.30 on each poll. This is equivalent about thirty-three cents on each hundred dollars. The towns have no debts and raise little or no money for street or other improvements, what is collected for any purpose being largely voluntary contributions in many cases from the more progressive citizens and licenses from "shows", etc. County affairs are keenly looked after not only by the county commissioners, but by many citizens __________ Note: (1)Some claim that A. J. McBride was sheriff during the Civil War, and others that Jack Horton held the office from 1862 to 1876. Owing to the loss of the records 1873, it is impossible to ascertain the exact facts now. Some claim that Sidney Deal was elected sheriff in 1860, and served till he entered the Confederate Army, while this is denied by others. Page 135 who are eager to find a seam in the political armor of anyone offending in the way of extravagance, carelessness or fraud. Every dollar collected is applied as the law requires. Watauga's Contribution to the Confederacy.—Company D, First Cavalry, was organized in Boone May 11, 1861; first captain Geo. N. Folk; first lieutenant Joe B. Todd; second lieutenant James Councill; third lieutenant J. C. Blair. Company B, 37th Regiment, organized September 1861, in Boone. First captain, Jonathan Horton; first lieutenant A. J. Critcher; second lieutenant, David Greene; third lieutenant, Jordan Cook. Company E, 37th Regiment, was organized at Sugar Grove August 8, 1861. First captain, W. Young Farthing; first lieutenant Paul Farthing; second lieutenant W. F. Shull; third lieutenant, Isaac Wilson, Jr. Company I, 58th Regiment, reorganized in Boone in July, 1862. First captain, William M. Hodges; second lieutenant, Jordan C. McGhee; third lieutenant, James Horton. Company D, 58th Regiment, organized at Valle Crucis July 7, 1862. First captain, Rev. D. C. Harman; first lieutenant, Ben. F. Baird, second lieutenant, W. P. Mast; third lieutenant, William Howington. Company M, 58th Regiment, organized early in the winter of 1863 from Ashe and Watauga. First captain, Leonard Phillips; first lieutenant, Geo. W. Hopkins; second lieutenant, Thomas Ray; third lieutenant, J. Riley Norris, with about fifty of the men from Watauga. Company A, 6th Cavalry Regiment; Captain B. Roby Brown, with twenty to twenty- five men from Watauga. There were other companies made from Ashe and Watauga by William G. Bingham and Thomas Sutherland, who joined a Virginia regiment of cavalry, there being about twenty-five men from Watauga. There were five full companies that went from Watauga, each of which must have contained 150 men, from first to last, and parts of three additional companies that had Page 136 at least 100 Watauga men, besides the men from Watauga County who joined other regiments. By Moore's Roster, Watauga County actually furnished 671 men, and the Home Guard at Camp Mast must have contained 250 men. Col. W. W. Presnell, adjutant of the Nimrod Triplett Camp of Confederate Veterans, estimates that there must have been 900 men from this county in the service of the Confederacy, but there were most likely nearer 1,000. Col. Presnell estimates that there were at least 100 men from Watauga County who went through the lines and joined the Federals, or remained in Watauga and worked for them in Watauga County during the closing months of the war. He also says that Companies D, B, and E were in the eastern or Virginia army, while the other companies were in the western army.(1) Population and Other Facts.—The population since 1850 follows: 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 3,400 4,957 5,287 8,160 10,611 13,417 13,423 But for the pigeonholing of a bill which Marcus Holtsclaw had passed by the House of Commons in 1858, the court house would have been changed from Boone to Brushy Fork, Holtsclaw having been elected over Thomas Greene and William Horton by one vote on the issue of making that change. But Joseph Dobson, of Surry, represented Watauga in the Senate that year, and he put Holtsclaw's little "bill to sleep." That our pioneer ancestors spun, wove, knitted, made rope, tanned hides, dyed, made shoes, boots and moccasins; made pails, buckets, cradles, bee-gums, ladles, chairs, plows, sleds, wagons, knives, guns, and almost every tool then in use goes without saying, for they were cut off from the world and markets of all kinds. Dyes were obtained from yellow oak, from hickory, which dyes yellow, butternut dyes brown, black walnut __________ Note: (1) By joint resolution No. 56, of the General Assembly of North Carolina, 1915, the State Historical Commission was authorized to correct and amend More's Roster of Confederate troops from North Carolina so as to include all who were actually in the service of the Southern Confederacy, the present list being faulty and incomplete. Page 137 dyes dark brown, sumac dyes yellow, alder dyes reddish, dogwood dyes red, madder dyes red, bedewood dyes purple, dye-flowers and snuff weed dye yellow, copperas dyes yellow, and burnt copperas red. To "set" dyes they used laurel leaves, copperas, alum, salt, etc. Honey and maple sugar and syrup were the sole "sweetening" we had before sorghum came in shortly before the Civil War. Reaping hooks preceded scythes and cradles many years. Grain was threshed out of cloths by the use of flails made of hickory saplings beaten soft two feet from the large end. Soldiers of Mexican War.—The government does not place "monuments" over the graves of dead Mexican soldiers, presumably, else George Wright, whose body lies near that of Moses Yarber, would be similarly honored. He has a son living in the Beech Mountains who doubtless could furnish full information for a tombstone, but, jemooney Christmas! just think what it would cost! How many other dead Mexican soldiers are buried in these mountains is unknown, and the government does not seem to care. A few are still living, here and there, among them being Benjamin Pritchard, now living on Roaring Creek, still neat and soldierly, and Nehemiah P. Oaks, who lives within a mile or so of Elk Park. Pritchard was born on the Blue Ridge, near the McKinney Gap, about 1825, and remembers that on one occasion a Mexican threw every man in his regiment in wrestling contests. Then Pritchard was sent for threw the Mexican three straight falls. He was a member of Captain John Blalock's company, of which A. T. Keith was a lieutenant. Blalock had to resign because of bad health, and when the men elected a man named Constable, who lived on Cane Creek, captain, Keith also resigned, feeling that he had been slighted. John Payne was the colonel and Montford Stokes lieutenant-colonel of the regiment, which was the First North Carolina. Nehemiah P. Oaks was born on the Humpback Mountain, December 28, 1828, and belonged to the same company and regiment. He was also a member of the 13th Tennessee Cavalry, and draws two pensions. Pritchard also draws a pension for service in the Mexican War. Page 138 Assessments for Taxation in 1915.—It will be interesting to compare the assessments of property this year with those for the years following the building of a railroad through this county. The increase in population between now and then will also be of interest. Total real estate assessment in 1915 amounts to $1,783,983.00 Total personal property assessments for 1915 948,866.00 ____________ Total assessments $2,732,849.00 The highest average assessment per acre was in Cove Creek, $14.17. The lowest average value per acre was Elk Township, $3.91. The Weather.—It is colder in Watauga both summer and winter than in any other county in the State, probably, with the exception of Ashe, Alleghany, Avery and Haywood. The "cold Saturday" was February 8, 1835. The date of the Big Snow cannot be fixed, except that on the 2nd and 3rd days of December 1886. But old people remember hearing of a snow that was so deep that all fences were obliterated from the landscape and deer were slaughtered by the score. On the 5th day of June, 1858, corn knee-high was killed in this county and all fruits and vegetables, while white-oak trees between Boone and Jefferson were killed outright, some of their stumps being still visible. There was a frost at Blowing Rock July 26, 1870, while on February 13, 1899, the thermometer went to fourteen degrees below zero. On the 15th of May, 1835, there was snow while land was being laid off for corn and sugar water was being boiled for maple syrup on Brushy Fork. Agricultural.—Patch farming was the rule for years, only small clearings being possible because of the sparseness of the population. Corn could not be raised at all for many years till the land was opened up to the sunlight. Owing to the stumps and roots, it was difficult to plough the ground at first, and the planting was done with the hoe. Gradually the land became warm enough to produce and mature corn or maize. Cabbages Page 139 and all root crops flourished from the first settlement. Buckwheat and rye did well long before wheat, oats and other small grain began to thrive. Stock were fed on Irish potatoes and buckwheat, as is still the case in some places. Long, red Irish potatoes were carried in the arm as are ears of corn, and horses get fat on them. Hogs were kept in the mountains all winter, as the mast rarely failed. When a very cold or snowy time came, corn was carried to these hogs, beds were made for them in sheltered places, under cliffs, and in caves of rocks, but for many it was literally a case of "root hog or die." Col. W. L. Bryan has a bronze medal and a diploma which were awarded to him at the Columbian Exposition for the best buckwheat. If a colony of Swiss could be induced to try their lot with us, they could demonstrate the fact that on our mountain slopes, properly terraced, we could raise grapes, fruit of all kinds, and goats and cattle without number. Cheese factories have been already established at Sugar Grove, June 5, 1915, and elsewhere. The factory at Sugar Grove was the first established in the South. It is already thriving. With a little harder work and more scientific methods, wealth would follow agriculture in Watauga. Mountain Forests.—In his address before the American Geographical Society in New York in April, 1914, Prof. George Cobb, of the University of North Carolina, said that seventy-six per cent of this section is still forest cover, or a little more than three million acres of forest land is found in the sixteen mountain counties; that the mountains of North Carolina are the oldest forest land on the continent, and the botanists and plant geographers are agreed that the deciduous forests of eastern North America have been derived from the forests of these mountains, in which they reach their greatest development; that while the hardwoods of the northern United States have migrated from the mountains since the last glacial period, it seems equally certain that the coniferous growth on the Balsams and other high mountains was forced south at the time of the greatest extension of the ice sheet, and is able to survive now only in the cooler atmosphere of our high mountains, where the mean annual temperature is forty-eight degrees, and, in the valleys they Page 140 enclose, fifty-four degrees Fahrenheit; while the rainfall of the region, most of which comes in the growing season, is seventy inches, being greater than that of any other portion of the United States, except Puget Sound region. The United States has recently acquired an immense reserve in the neighborhood of Blowing Rock. The Lenoir timber lands were sold in 1915 for $40.00 per acre. They are near the Grandfather. Banks and Banking.—Watauga has three banks, one, the Watauga County Bank, Boone, was organized in 1904 with $10,000.00 capital. This was increased in 1908 to $12,000.00, in 1914 to $16,800.00 and in 1915 to $17,000.00. It has never declared a dividend of less than twelve per cent, since George P. Hageman became cashier, and once declared eighteen per cent. The Blowing Rock Bank was organized about 1904 with $5,000.00 capital, which has been increased to $16,000.00. It has thriven also. The Valle Crucis Bank was organized in 1914 with a capital of $8,000.00. The cattle industry requires much money, and all kinds of stock thrive in this county. Altitudes.—The following heights have been taken from S. M. Dugger's "Balsam Groves of the Grandfather Mountain" (p. 286); Blowing Rock, 4,090; Boone, 3,332; Valle Crucis, 2, 726; Shull's Mills, 2,917; Cook's Gap; 3,349; Banner Elk, 3,900; Beech Mountain, 5,522; Hodges Gap, 3,376; Hanging Rock, 5,237; Sugar Mountain, 5,289; Grandfather, 5,964; Dunvegan, 4,924; Howard's Knob, 4,451; Bald of Rich Mountain, 5,368; Sugar Loaf, 4,705; Snake Mountain, 5,594; Elk Knob; 5,555; Flat Top, 4,537; Deep Gap, 3.105; Elk Park, 3.180; Cranberry, 3.160; Montezuma, 3,882; Linville, 3,800; Yonah Lossee Road, from 4,000 to 5,000; Beacon Heights, 4,650; Grandmother, 4,686; Linville Gap (Guyot), 4,100; United States, 4,081; McCanless Gap, 4,250; White Top, 5,530; Toe River Gap, 5,188; High Pinnacle, 5,690; Mount Mitchell, 6,711; Clingman's Peak in Blacks, 6,611; Roan Mountain High Knob, 6,313; Big Yellow, 5,500; Cold Spring Mountain, 5,915; Caney Fork Divide, 6,370; Double Spring Mountain, 6,380; Enos Plott Balsam, 6,097; Amos Plott Great Divide, 6,278; The Pillar of the Smoky, 6,255; Mt. Henry, 6,373; South Peak, Page 141 6,299; Thermometer Knob, 6,157; Mt. Guyot, 6,636; Mt. Alexander, 6,299; Mt. LeConte of the Bullheads, 6,612; Mt. Stafford, 6,535; Mt. Curtis, 6,566; Master Knob, 6,013; Mt Love of the Smokey, 6,443; Clingman's Dome, 6,619; Mt. Buckley, 6,599; Mt. Collins, 6,188; Thunderhead, 5,520; Devil's Court House in Whitesides, 6,049; Rocky Bald of the Nantahalas, 5,822; Tusquittee Bald, 5,314; Watauga is probably the highest county in general altitude of North Carolina, being over 3,000 feet above sea level. Mount Washington, of New Hampshire is 6,286. There are, therefore, twenty- three peaks in North Carolina which are higher. There are twenty-three other peaks over 6,000 feet, but less than 6,286. There are seventy-nine which exceed 5,000, but fall short of 6,000 feet. It should be borne in mind, however, that all these measurements are barometric, and therefore, inexact, according to Horace Kephart's "Southern Highlanders."