WATAUGA COUNTY, NC - HISTORY - A History of Watauga County, North Carolina
			       Chapter 15, Part 3
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A History of Watauga County, North Carolina

John Preston Arthur


Page 259

Guyot or LeConte of the Smokies, or the Balsam Cone of the Black Mountains.
In any case the Great Smoky Mountains are the master chain of the Appalachian
system, the greatest mass of highland east of the Rockies (p. 58).  The most
difficult and rugged part of the Smokies (and of the United States east of
Colorado) is in the saw-tooth mountains between Collins and Guyot, at the
headwaters of Oconalufty River."

Who Measured the Highest Peak?– Dr. Arnold Guyot, of Princeton College (now
University), published an article in the Asheville News, July 18, 1860, to the
effect that Dr. Mitchell's measurments of this mountain failed to agree with
each other; that the location of the highest peak had remained indefinite,
even in the mind of Dr. Mitchell himself, "as I learned it from his own mouth
in 1856." At that time, 1860, the peak now called Mitchell's, or Mount
Mitchell, was called Clingman's, while the peak now known to some as
Clingman's was called Mount Mitchell.  Dr. Guyot says of this: "If the honored
name of Dr. Mitchell is taken from Mount Mitchell and transferred to the
highest peak, it should not be on the ground that he first made known its true
elevation, which he never did, nor himself ever claimed to have done, for the
true height was unknown before my measurement of 1854 . . . Nor should it be
on the ground of his having first visited it, for, though after his death
evidence which made it probable that he did [came out],  Nor, at last, should
it be because that peak was, as it is alleged, thus named long before, for I
must declare that neither in 1854 nor later during the whole time I was on
both sides of the mountain, did I hear of another Mount Mitchell than the one
south of the highest, so long visited under that name, and that Dr. Mitchell
himself, before ascending the northern peak in 1856, as I gathered it from a
conversation with him, believed it to be the highest.

Politics or Public Opinion?– Dr. Guyot further said in the same article that
General Clingman "could not possibly know when he first ascended it [the
highest peak] that anyone had visited or measured it before him, nor have any
intention to do any injustice to Dr. mitchell."  General Clingman in 1884 told

Page 260

Charles Dudley Warner ("On Horseback," pp. 94 to 96) that he had been the
first to discover the highest peak, and he also told this writer later that he
had made this discovery by climbing a balsam tree on what was then called
mount Mitchell, the southern peak, and applying a spirit level to the
surrounding horizon.  Thus, the superior height of the northern peak was
disclosed to him, and he then proceded to measure and claim it.  He told
others the same story.  Dr. Warner states that public sentiment awarded Dr.
Mitchell this honor because of his tragic death.  (Id. P. 95.)  But was that
all?  Here is what Hon. Z. B.  Vance, long Clingman's political opponent, said
in a letter to Prof. Charles Phillips, dated Asheville, August, 1857:(1) "Yet
there are some who believe that Clingman superintended the creation of these
mountains, and, therefore, has a right to know more about them than anyone
else.  The editor of the News [the late Major Marcus Erwin], who expects to go
to Clingman when dies (and perhaps will) . . . is already beginning the war
against the dead, as you will see by reference to that sheet of last week.  I
advised the Spectator men to keep perfectly quiet, and would give the same
advice to the doctor's friends elsewhere.  Let us prepare our case in silence
and wait patiently for the good feeling to operate among the mountaineers,
which is now going on admirably.  In the meantime the proper efforts might be
made to rectify Coke's map [which gave Clingman's name to the highest peak]
and to push up the influential journals at a distance/ a thing that the
faculty are better able to do than anyone else.  Only one thing remains to be
done, in my opinion, to make our proof complete–to have the gearings of the
High Peak taken from Yeate's Knob and compared with Dr. Mitchell's memorandum
thereof.  I hope steps will be taken to do this before long, as Clingman
intends doing it himself after the election.  I understand, though I have hot
seen it, that Mitchell's map also puts that peak down as Mount Clingman.  Is
it true? . . ."

In the same letter Senator Vance speaks of certain certificates from Big Tom
Wilson and others, but their contents are not disclosed.  There was also
published in the same paper a copy 
__________ 
Note: (1) Published by R. D. W. Connor, secretary N. C. Hist. Com., in 
Charlotte Observer, p. 11. Jan. 24, 1915.

Page 261

of an address to solicit from citizens of North Carolina and friends of Dr.
Mitchell funds for the removal of his body to the highest peak and the
erection of a monument there.  Five thousand dollars was asked for, but
nowhere in that address can be found any claim that Dr. Mitchell either
discovered or measured the highest peak.  Its language is: "in view of the
fact that he was the first to visit these mountains and to make known their
superior height to any east of the Rocky Mountains, and that he spent a great
portion of his time and finally lost his life in exploring them," the
subscriptions were asked.  As the result of this appeal, is also published a
subscription list containing the names of only ten subscribers, with William
Patton at the head for $100.00, and the entire amount aggregating only
$195.00.

Big Tom Wilson was with Dr. Mitchell on his first trip, when it is claimed
that he measured the highest peak, and his certificate should settle the
controversy.  But where is it?  Where is the data showing the comparison of
the "bearings of the High Peak from Yeates' Knob with Dr. Mitchell's
memorandum thereof?"  Did Mitchell's geography or map concede the highest peak
to General Clingman?  We are in the dark as to these matters.  But we have
Judge David Schenck's report of an interview with Big Tom on the subject.

The Crucial Question.– Did Dr. Mitchell ever visit the peak which now bears
his name?  "Big Tom" Wilson is the only witness, and upon his testimony rests
the validity of the claim that he did.  What is that testimony?  Simply this:
that the search party with Wilson first "examined the area of ground on
Mitchell's Peak, where the doctor went, and ghen going to the trail he [the
doctor] was directed to take, and, finding no sign, they commenced the descent
towards the south side by the east prong.  They had not gone more than a
quarter of a mile until Adniram D. Allen found an inpression in the moss . .
."  This was the first trace of the doctor, and, after following it some
distance, they went back to "examine where the track first left the peak . .
.and found that the doctor had taken a ‘horse trail' by mistake for the trail
which led to ‘Big Tom's'" This is every shred of evidence concerning the peak
in the interview between Wilson and judge David Schenck on the 26th day

Page 262

of September, 1877, and which was published in the Charlotte Democrat of
November 2, 1877.  From it can be deducted only that there was no "sign" of
the doctor's having been on "the area of ground on Mitchell's peak," but that
when "they commenced the descent towards the south side," the very side on
which stood the peak which had always been called Mitchell's, they found the
first sign in the moss "not more than a quarter of a mile away."  There is no
evidence that they went to the south which he was going when they found his
track in the moss.  What is meant by "where the track first left the peak" and
that he took "a horse trail by mistake for the trail which let to Big Tom's"
is all that even vaguely points to the fact that the doctor had been on the
northern, or highest, peak.

Dr. Kemp P. Battle's Error.-- In an article on Dr. Mitchell, written by Dr.
Battle, the last survivor of the University Faculty of June, 1857, and
published in the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, March,
1915, he refers (p. 161) to "Letters from the Raleigh Register in reply to
General Thomas L. Clingman, who claimed that Dr. Mitchell was never on the
highest peak of the Black Mountains, but that he, Clingman, was the true
discoverer.  He caused W. D. Cooke to designate on his wall-map the highest
peak as Mt. Clingman.  On the death of the Doctor he gracefully surrendered
his claim.  It is now conceded that Dr. Mitchell was right.  He is confirmed
by the United States Geological Survey of 1881-‘2, the highest and final
authority."  Dr. Battle is right in saying that Gen. Clingman "gracefully
surrendered his claim," but it is not "conceded that Dr. Mitchell was right,"
and the United States Survey simply ascertained the highest peak among the
Blacks, but did not and could not prove Dr. Mitchell had ever been upon that
spot.

Clingman's "Speeches and Writings."– North Carolina has not yet reared any
monument to this one of her greatest sons.  But in his "Speaches and
Writings," published by himself after the Civil War, he has erected to his own
memory a monument more eloquent that "storied urn or animated bust," and more
enduring than bronze effigy or marble cenotaph.