1 
 
 
lo^ 
 
 iS y^" ^^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00025330259 
 
 This book may be kept out one month unless a recall 
 notice is sent to you. It must be brought to the North 
 Carolina Collection (in Wilson Library) for renewal. 
 
 4mftfm^aNi£S 
 
 Form No. A-369 
 
THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 THE COLLECTION OF 
 NORTH CAROLINIANA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 John L. Sanders 
 
 C813 
 D86b 
 c. 2 
 
SHEPHERD M. DUGGER. 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 
THE 
 
 BALSAM GROVES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN: 
 
 A TALE OF THE WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 MOUNTAINS. 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 INFORMATION RELATING TO THE SECTION AND ITS 
 
 HOTELS, ALSO A TABLE SHOWING THE HEIGHT 
 
 OF IMPORTANT MOUNTAINS, ETC. 
 
 < 
 
 BY 
 
 SHEPHERD M. DUGGER. 
 
 ILLUSTR.A.TKD. 
 
 BANNER ELK : 
 
 SHEPHERD M. DUGGER. 
 1892. 
 
Copyright, 1892, by Shepherd M. Dugger. 
 
 Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. 
 

 TO THE LOVERS OF 
 
 THE SUBLIME AND THE BEAUTIFUL, 
 
 AND ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO HAVE GRASPED MY MOUNTAIN PALM, 
 THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 -2 
 
 7 
 
 i 
 
 <^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 As the firm foundation of a house is less at- 
 tractive than the painted columns and modillions 
 which it sup2:>orts, so the first chapter of our 
 story is the stratum of understanding that under- 
 lies a more beautiful fabric of knowledge. It 
 locates the scenes in Western North Carolina, 
 on the great evergreen Grandfather Mountain, 
 whose highest point is the everlasting corner- 
 stone of three counties, Watauga, Caldwell, and 
 Mitchell. 
 
 The object of the author has been to supply 
 the great need of a book that would introduce 
 to the outside world a section of country which, 
 until recently, has been almost unknown and 
 obscure, but nevertheless is rich in soil, replete 
 with iron ore, and with fine forests of valuable 
 trees, checkered with rapid, flowing streams of 
 limpid water, decked with a thousand hills, 
 fortressed with ponderous mountains tall and 
 rugged, and pictured with wild and varied land- 
 scapes. 
 
 The writer was cradled in the loving arms of 
 
 i* 5 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 maternal toil in one of the first rude log cabins 
 constructed in the morning and evening shadows 
 of the beautiful mountains with which he has 
 grown up in love, and every scene described is 
 as familiar to him as w^ere the blooming vines 
 in which the humming-birds nestled around the 
 home of his childhood. 
 
 '' The Balsam Groves of the Grandfather 
 Mountain" is a story founded on facts. The 
 roads, streams, fountains, places, mountains, and 
 distances are real ; the picture of the character 
 Rollingbumb will be hailed with delight by 
 thousands of mountaineers, who will recognize 
 it as the likeness of a familiar friend ; the de- 
 scription of the Salmer estate on the banks of 
 the Linville will touch to tears a prominent 
 gentleman now residing in the city of Richmond, 
 Virginia ; and the genuine name William West 
 Skiles will thrill the hearts of many a North 
 Carolinian. 
 
 " The Western Gate- way to the Highlands," 
 following the story, is as fair a representation of 
 truth as the writer could possibly formulate ; and 
 " The Hotels in the Land of the Sky" is intended 
 to be such an unerring guide to health- and pleas- 
 ure-seekers that strangers will not be disappointed 
 when they visit the scenes. 
 
 The search for the body of Rev. Elisha 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 Mitchell, D.D., having been written by Hon. 
 Z. B. Vance, needs no comment. 
 
 For the ^' Journal of Andre Michaux" and its 
 introduction, we are indebted to the American 
 Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. 
 
 Three of the poems, viz., " The Land of the 
 Sky,'' "The Iron Horse is Coming," and 
 " Boone," have been furnished by our esteemed 
 friend, "The Bard of the Highlands;" while 
 " The Ballad of the Beech" has fallen from the 
 euphonious quill of " Chuckey Joe," our estima- 
 ble former associate from the city of Baltimore, 
 Maryland. 
 
 The table of North Carolina elevations has 
 been collected from heights ascertained and pub- 
 lished by State and United States officials. 
 
 In the ample field which our little volume 
 discloses, the most luxuriant rambler may range 
 at large, visiting streams and mountains in end- 
 less variety and extent, and, after his boldest 
 excursions, he can only wing his way in imagi- 
 nation among the splendid objects that are still 
 before him. 
 
 The Author. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 "THE LAND OF THE SKY." 
 
 Will you come to Grandfather, " The Land of the 
 
 Sky," 
 Where a banquet of glory is spread for the eye, 
 Where scenes of enchantment enravish the soul, 
 And reason to rapture surrenders control. 
 
 Where the mountains do rear their summits above 
 The storm and the cloud, to the regions of love; 
 Where waters go dashing down rocky declines. 
 And the hills are covered with evergreen vines. 
 
 Where boastino; musicians are wont to retire 
 
 When the bird of the mountain tunes his sweet lyre, 
 
 And lends to his melody wings that can fly, 
 
 To scatter his song through " The Land of the Sky." 
 
 Where fountains are gushing from every hill-side. 
 All sparkling and cold as a health-giving tide ; 
 An elixir of life more tempting to sip 
 Than the cup that presses the Bacchanal's lip. 
 
 Where the air is freighted with sweetest perfume 
 Wafted from the flower when full in its bloom, 
 And the breezes that float o'er mountain's tall peak 
 Give back the invalid the rose to his cheek ? 
 
 9 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Ye seekers of pleasure, oppressed by the heat, 
 Come to this region, 'tis a pleasant retreat ; 
 Ye ones that are feeble, why linger and die. 
 Come up to this beautiful " Land of the Sky." 
 
 By a. M. D., the Bard of the Highlands. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTERS I.— T. pages 
 
 The Balsam Groves of the Grandfather Mountain — A Story in 
 Five Brief Chapters, associating the Quaint and Uncultured 
 Pioneer Mountaineers with the Eefined and Learned of the 
 City 13-93 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 The Western Gate- Way to the Highlands — The Cranberry 
 Railroad — The Yale of the Watauga — Andrew Johnson — 
 Thomas A. R. Nelson — The Heroes of King's Mountain — 
 William G. Brownlow — Andrew Jackson — The Taylor 
 Brothers, Bob and Alf — Landen C. Haynes — The Stem- 
 Winder — The Doe River Gorge — Roan Mountain Station 
 and Cloudland Hotel — The Cranberry Iron-Mines — The 
 Future of Elizabeth town — A Railroad Poem 94-107 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 The Hotels in the Land of the Sky— Elk Park— Banner Elk 
 — Cranberry Hotel — The Cranberry Mines — Linville — Hax- 
 lan P. Kelsey's Nursery of Wild Flowers, Forest Trees, etc. 
 — Eseeola Inn — The Yonahlossee Road, the Grandest Drive 
 in the South — Grandfather Hotel — ShuU's Mills — Blowing 
 Rock, the Popular Summer Resort on the Crest of the Blue 
 Ridge — Boone (the Highest Court-House in North Caro- 
 lina) described in Elegant Yerse — Yalle Crucis (Yale of 
 the Cross) 108-143 
 
 CHAPTER YIIL 
 
 The Journal of Andre Michaux, the French Naturalist, who 
 travelled in the Mountains of North Carolina in July and 
 August, 1794, gathering Shrubs, Seeds, and Plants for the 
 
 11 
 
12 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Koyal Gardens of Paris — A Brief Sketch of his Life — An Ex- 
 tract from his Diary, including his Journey to Black Moun- 
 tain, Roan, Yellow, Grandfather, Hawk-bill, Table Rock, 
 etc., together with the Names of the Plants he collected: 
 highly Entertaining to all Persons interested in the History 
 of Botanical Discovery in America 144-160 
 
 A Dictionary or Altitudes showing the Heights of Im- 
 portant Places and Mountains in Western North Carolina 
 and East Tennessee 161-174 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Search for the Body of Rev. Elisha Mitchell, D.D., 
 written by Hon. Z. B. Vance — A Dispute between Dr. 
 Mitchell and Hon. T. L. Clingman as to which of the Two 
 Gentlemen had been First to determine the Altitude of the 
 Highest Peak East of the Mississippi River — Dr. Mitchell 
 resolves to settle the Matter by a Second Measurement and 
 the AflSdavits of his Former Guides — He is Lost on Black 
 Mountain — A Ten Days' Search by the Good Citizens — 
 The Body found in a Pool of Water — Its Removal, Inter- 
 ment, etc 175-187 
 
THE BALSAM GROVES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE GRANDFATHER. 
 
 A lowly thatched cottage in humble attire, 
 With chimney adaub and a broad open fire ; 
 A string for its latch-key, three strangers within. 
 And far away moved from the city's loud din. 
 
 The lay of my land and tlie lays of my story 
 are commingled in the zigzag windings of moun- 
 tain topograj^liy. 
 
 The general direction of the Blue Ridge is 
 from northeast to southwest, but on a sublime 
 spot in North Carolina it swerves and runs north 
 for the distance of three miles, and then turns 
 again by an acute angle towards its terminus in 
 the cotton-fields of Alabama. 
 
 The intelligent reader will now understand 
 that the part of the Blue Ridge generally spoken 
 of as the " South Side" here faces the west, and 
 
 2 13 
 
14 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 wliat would otherwise have beeu the " Western 
 Slope" of the great water-shed catches the 
 golden gleams of the rising sun. 
 
 This digression in the backbone of the Appa- 
 lachians is also characterized by a deep saddle- 
 like depression called "Linville Gap," in the 
 centre of which the forest is now broken by a 
 verdant meadow about a half a mile in length 
 from east to west, and half as broad. 
 
 The pommel of this elegant land-saddle, rising 
 to the south, forms the beautiful dome of Grand- 
 father Mountain, five thousand nine hundred and 
 ninety-six feet above the foam of the sea ; while 
 the rear of the equestrian fixture rises into the 
 less elevated but equally pleasing heights of Dun- 
 vegan, culminating in twin towers of stone man- 
 tled with ivy and plumed with ferns. 
 
 From the beautiful green turf on the eastern 
 declivity of the mead referred to gushes and 
 trickles the first streamlets of the Watauga, 
 which, being of the Indian vernacular, is said 
 by some to mean " Beautiful River," by others, 
 " River of Islands," and by still others, *' River 
 of Reeds." 
 
 On the western slope of the sweet-sodded 
 meadow, and not more than a stone's cast from 
 the sparkling source of the Watauga, rises the 
 rippling river of Linville, which took its name 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 15 
 
 from a family of that nomenclature who once 
 occupied its banks. 
 
 The Cherokee name for Linville is Eseeola; 
 and, while those conversant with Indian lore 
 have not defined the word, it probably had its 
 origin in the great cataract of that stream, now 
 designated as '"Linville Falls." 
 
 These two crystal rivers are so kindred at 
 their sources that each could easily be turned 
 into the other by a ditch ; and yet they flow in 
 opposite directions and retreat into different 
 climes, — the Linville passing through the min- 
 gled waters of the Catawba, the Wateree, and the 
 Santee to the Atlantic Ocean, while the Watauga 
 finds its way through the channels of the Hol- 
 ston, the Tennessee, the Ohio, and the Mississipj)i 
 to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 The Watauga, as it rushes and dallies to the 
 northeast, rumbles and tumbles over ledges and 
 boulders, under boughs of laurel and pine, re- 
 ceiving its pellucid tributaries from the green 
 glades of the Grandfather on the right, and 
 from the Ginseng and Crawley region, in the 
 foot-hills of Dunvegan, on the left. At the end 
 of three precipitous miles from its rise, its united 
 torrents have lost their leapings and blended 
 into a sweetly murmuring stream that splits in 
 twain a gradually widening valley, at the upper 
 
16 THE BALSAM GROVES OF - 
 
 end of which once lived a man by the name of 
 Tom Toddy, who obtained his bread by hus- 
 bandry, and his meat from the spoils of his gun. 
 His lone log cabin stood on the left bank of 
 the " Beautiful River," leaving space between 
 for a narrow yard and the dim road outside. 
 
 One lovely evening in the month of July, 1860, 
 when Sol was shooting his last golden arrows 
 across the mountain-tops from his rosy couch 
 beyond the horizon, two men and a lady, well 
 mounted on good steeds, called for admittance at 
 this humble cottage. 
 
 Mr. Toddy knew the older gentleman to be 
 the " Good" William West Skiles, an Episcopa- 
 lian clergyman who kept a school at Valle Crucis 
 (Vale of the Cross), ten miles below on the 
 Watauga. 
 
 Of the two whose faces were not familiar in 
 that quarter, the gentleman was Mr. Leather- 
 shine, who had been expelled from an institution 
 of learning in the eastern part of the State, and 
 afterwards received by Mr. Skiles at Valle 
 Crucis, because it was supposed that in that 
 sequestered spot there was no land for the 
 culture of wild oats. 
 
 The beautiful young lady, Miss Lidie Meaks, 
 was one of the faculty of St. Mary's School, in 
 the city of Raleigh. She was a medium-sized, 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 17 
 
 elegant figure, wearing a neatly fitted travelling 
 dress of black alpaca. Her raven black hair, 
 copious both in length and volume and figured 
 like a deep river rippled by the wind, was parted 
 in the centre and combed smoothly down, orna- 
 menting her pink temples with a flowing tracery 
 that passed round to its modillion windings on 
 a graceful crown. Her mouth was set with 
 pearls adorned with elastic rubies and tuned 
 with minstrel lays, while her nose gracefully 
 concealed its own umbrage, and her eyes im- 
 parted a radiant glow to the azure of the sky. 
 Jewels of plain gold were about her ears and 
 her tapering strawberry hands, and a golden 
 chain, attached to a timekeeper of the same 
 material, sparkled on an elegantly rounded 
 bosom that was destined to be pushed forward 
 by sighs, as the reader will in due time observe. 
 Modest, benevolent, and mild in manners, she 
 was probably the fairest of North Carolina's 
 daughters. 
 
 The host received his three guests with the 
 words, " We are poor, but you are welcome to 
 such as we have." When they had dismounted 
 and come near the door, Mrs. Toddy apologized 
 for the size and inconvenience of the domicile by 
 saying, " Come in, if you can get in." But Mr. 
 Skiles, knowing the embarrassment that strange 
 
 b 2* 
 
18 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 company brings upon the culinary labors of a 
 one-room cabin, replied that they would enjoy 
 the breezes of the yard, and view the entrancing 
 beauties of the great evergreen Grandfather, to 
 whose lofty sum mitt they were going on the 
 morrow. 
 
 In plain view, on the northern slope of the 
 mountain, was the upright, stupendous profile 
 of a man carved in rock and plumed with ferns, 
 and in the furrows of his face, worn by the 
 lapse of time, clung and crept the most beautiful 
 flowers and vines. Pointing towards this figure 
 with his cane, the minister said, '^ See the old 
 man of the mountains; when that is silvered 
 with frost or blanched with snow it has the ap- 
 pearance of great age, and hence the pioneers 
 called it the Grandfather, and the mountain of 
 which it is a part Grandfather Mountain." 
 
 "Between the old man and the high top," 
 said Miss Meaks, " is a beautiful green tower, as 
 if supported within by a column of stone." 
 
 "Methinks," replied the clergyman, "that is 
 called the Haystack, from its marked resem- 
 blance to a mound of hay." 
 
 The dame, who was preparing supper over 
 the open fire within, was listening with awe to 
 the high-flown conversation without, and, as she 
 drew a shovelful of glowing coals from beneath 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIK. 19 
 
 the forestick to put under the oven of bread, 
 she muttered, " I don't know how to cook for 
 * big-bugs.' I've got nothin' fit for Equality/ 
 and I wish they'd a-stayed at home." 
 
 At this instant the attention of the party was 
 attracted by a passing hunter, by the name of 
 Rollingbumb, who, having some business with 
 Mr. Toddy, stepped into the yard with a great 
 wild turkey swung under his arm by a withe, 
 which, passing diagonally up his breast, formed a 
 cross with the leathern strap of his shot-pouch 
 that hung on the other side. He was a square- 
 shouldered man, six feet tall, with a long firelock 
 rifle on his shoulder, while from beneath his 
 buckskin moccasins peeped some blades of grass, 
 as if to complain of being ill-used. His face 
 was round, with great facilities for a beard, 
 though, like Julius Caesar, he never wore one. 
 His high forehead was half obscured by a brim- 
 less coon-skin cap, having the beautifully ringed 
 tail of the animal attached to the hinder part, 
 where it hung down his back, and rolled to and 
 fro at the will of a gentle breeze. He wore a 
 Turkey-red blouse, in native parlance, "hunt- 
 ing-shirt," the same being drawn close about 
 him by the long corners, which were tied to- 
 gether in front just below the waistband of his 
 homespun pants. Such was the development of 
 
20 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 hair about his chest and shoulders, that it grew 
 up and hung out over his shirt-collar in black 
 l^rofusion like a fringe. This feature of his 
 person was so significant that a deaf-mute, who 
 made himself understood by motioning, told that 
 RoUingbumb had killed a bear, by indicating 
 that it was done by the man with a hairy neck. 
 
 Mr. Skiles approached the hunter and asked 
 to see his game, whereupon he placed his thumb 
 under the withe and, passing it quickly over his 
 cap, laid the great bird on the ground. The 
 minister examined the graceful beard, which was 
 twelve inches in length ; the lady, spreading to 
 full width the tail, found it ornamented with a 
 border which, in the arrangement and brilliancy 
 of its colors, was like a miniature rainbow ; but 
 Leathershine examined the shot which had en- 
 tered one side and passed out on the other. 
 
 RoUingbumb, who lived but a mile farther 
 down the Watauga, now equipped himself to 
 continue his journey homeward; but, before 
 taking leave, he said pleasantly, in his rude 
 dialect, " Strangers, what mout yer names be ?'* 
 Leathershine, speaking quickly for the party, 
 said in reply, " They mout be Jones, or they 
 mout be Smith, or they mout be Vance." E,oll- 
 ingbumb, being a man of native intelligence, 
 and therefore understanding the import of the 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN, 21 
 
 sarcasm, turned his hawk eyes upon the critic 
 and said, in a firm voice, **I*m an unlearnt 
 man ; but if you fool with me, sir, 111 knock 
 you as flat as a pancake." 
 
 Mr. Skiles, being mortified at the conduct of 
 his student, took the hunter by the hand and 
 expressed regrets, both for himself and Miss 
 Meaks, that he had been thus insulted, while 
 Leathershine sat upon a stump and looked " like 
 the boy the calf ran over." 
 
 A few moments later, supper being-announced, 
 Mr. Toddy sat at the head of the table and his 
 wife at the opposite extremity of the small but 
 hospitable board, with her back towards the 
 fireplace, which was in the east end of the 
 cabin. The two more distinguished guests occu- 
 pied the side next the open door, while Leather- 
 shine, seated in front of them, cast " a lean and 
 hungry look" on the bear meat before him. 
 
 After a blessing had been asked, the host said, 
 " Help yourselves ;" and the hostess, in her course 
 of apologies for the plain repast and the rude 
 table furniture, said, "Poor folks have poor 
 ways." The minister assured them that they 
 should ever be thankful to the Master for such 
 as their table afforded ; and, indeed, he was right, 
 for, in addition to the flesh of Bruin, it contained 
 corn-bread, milk, butter, Irish potatoes, green 
 
22 TEE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 corn, and that choice variety of honey gathered 
 from the linden tree. 
 
 While the evening meal was being enjoyed 
 with a hearty relish, the children, three in 
 number, — George, ten years old, with his younger 
 brother and sister, — waited by the fire, and sang in 
 perfect harmony the beautiful lines below, which 
 their mother had often sung to them as a lullaby. 
 From the best information we can gather, these 
 ancient stanzas were composed in " Merry Eng- 
 land," and transmitted, through successive gen- 
 erations, from British soldiers who were captured 
 during the war for independence, and settled in 
 the new republic after the terms of peace were 
 concluded. 
 
 A sitting one cold winter's nigbt, 
 
 A drinking of sweet wine, 
 A courting of that pretty little Miss 
 
 That stole that heart of mine. 
 
 She is like some pink or rose 
 
 That blooms in the month of June, 
 
 Or like some musical instrument 
 That is newly put in tune. 
 
 Oh, fare you well, my dearest dear, 
 
 Oh, fare you well for a while ; 
 I go away, but I'll come back again, 
 
 If I go ten thousand miles. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 23 
 
 Oh, who will shoe my feet, my dear, 
 
 And who will glove my hands ? 
 Or who will kiss my ruby lips, 
 
 When you're in foreign lands ? 
 
 Your brother will shoe your feet, my dear, 
 Your mother will glove your hands ; 
 
 And I will kiss your ruby lips 
 When I return again. 
 
 Oh, don't you see that turtle-dove 
 
 A flying from vine to vine ? 
 A mourning the loss of its own true love, 
 
 As I shall mourn for mine. 
 
 In due time Mrs. Toddy replenished the dishes 
 with warm food, and, before reoccupying her seat 
 at the table, she set the ovens away from the 
 fire, shovelled up the dead coals with which the 
 supper had been cooked and threw them behind 
 the back log, just prior to sweeping the hearth. 
 
 Subsequently the guests, together with the 
 family, formed a social circle around the blazing 
 logs, which were not uncomfortable, and yet not 
 needed, except to light the conversation, in a 
 domicile where lamps were not a part of the 
 furniture. 
 
 Some inquiries, made by the strangers, about 
 the fauna of the country led the host to relate 
 rare hunting tales of his own experience, of 
 which we will give only one, as follows : He 
 
24 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 said that several years previous to that time, 
 while spending a night in the woods of the 
 Grandfather, he used a venison ham for a pillow, 
 first placing some dry leaves between it and his 
 head to protect his cheek from the raw flesh. 
 When the gloom of midnight had mantled his 
 couch of moss in darkness and Somnus scarcely 
 lifted his chest with breathing, he was ousted 
 by sharp claws passing over his bald scalp. As he 
 sprang to his feet and grabbed his gun, a panther, 
 that had now stolen his pillow, screamed forth 
 the signal of a victorious departure. 
 
 It was now time to retire, and the house con- 
 tained but three beds, all of which were in one 
 room, the only room, and generally occupied by 
 the family. But in those days the ladies con- 
 structed temporary bed-chambers by taking two 
 large curtains, each about the size of a counter- 
 pane, and either hanging them from the joists 
 or supporting them on frames, one along the 
 side of the bed, and the other at right angles to 
 it across the foot. These were generally made 
 of large-flowered calico, and decorated with such 
 ruffles and laces as the wealth and skill of the 
 times could employ. 
 
 Such luxuriant sleeping fixtures, however, 
 could be afforded only by the "bon-tons" of 
 log-house society, who were sometimes classed 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 25 
 
 by their jealous inferiors among the "big- 
 bugs." 
 
 Mrs. Toddy was not a "bon-ton," but sbe 
 rendered one bed private, nevertheless, by hang- 
 ing up two quilts in the manner that curtains 
 were hung by those who could afford them. 
 
 This sleeping apartment, in the northwest 
 corner of the cabin, was occupied by four per- 
 sons, — Miss Meaks and her hostess at the head, 
 and the two younger children, with their feet in 
 the opposite direction, at the foot. This eco- 
 nomical mode of sleeping, by which the taper- 
 ing ends of human anatomy are fitted together 
 like the teeth of a shark, is still practised in 
 some remote neighborhoods around Grandfather 
 Mountain. • 
 
 Another bed, opposite the first, though not so 
 close in the corner, was on a poorly tenoned 'stead, 
 which sent its old-fashioned turned posts up to 
 an extraordinary height, and, being loose in its 
 mortise joints, had twice wrecked with its occu- 
 pants and fallen side wise onto the floor. For 
 this reason a low bed, that was trundled endways 
 from beneath the one that was concealed by the 
 curtains, was prepared for Mr. Skiles and his 
 student. But when the minister was apprized 
 of the arrangement, he evaded the young man 
 by inviting Mr. Toddy to share his bed, saying 
 
 B 3 
 
26 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 that he wanted to tell his friends that he had 
 slept with a hunter whose midnight pillow had 
 been stolen by a panther. 
 
 This kind and complimentary invitation being 
 accepted, the original sleeping plan was disor- 
 ganized, and Leathershine slept on the perilous 
 bedstead with little George Toddy. 
 
 An hour later, when a stray splinter about the 
 smouldering fire caught ablaze and cast a glim- 
 .mering light upon the log joists above, the sleep- 
 less dame was soliloquizing about the hazardous 
 bed. '' If Mr. Toddy had slept with George," 
 thought she, "he would have turned himself 
 cautiously on the mattress, and thus saved the 
 'stead from falling ; but now it would be most 
 sure to tumble with the young man, in which 
 event he would think that the cabin had been 
 overturned by an earthquake, while iier own 
 chum and the bed-fellow of her husband would 
 leap from their slumber in fright." 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 27 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 HOSPITALITY. 
 
 The skies with luminaries shine, 
 
 Yet seven thunders roar; 
 Fatality her works design, 
 
 Through cycles evermore. 
 
 When George Toddy awoke in the morning, 
 the sweet-scented breakfast was cooking in the 
 ovens over the glowing coals on the hearth, and 
 the great wood fire was sweetly roaring to the 
 strong suction of the flue above. 
 
 The little birds carolling from the trees had 
 invited the minister from the couch of his morn- 
 ing dreams; and he had gone from the house 
 to view the safii'on streamers from the rising 
 sun, or to see the speckled beauties through the 
 crystal waters of the Watauga, or to give the 
 lady of the cottage room and ease of mind. 
 
 The young lady, who was now dressing behind 
 the curtain quilts, soon emerged and washed in 
 the wooden basin on the block outside the door, 
 wiped on the flaxen towel by the inside of the 
 threshold, smoothed her hair with the horn 
 comb, and, careful to ask for nothing that the 
 
28 TEE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 cabin might not afford, she only inquired where 
 she would be least in the way, and then took a 
 seat in the corner. 
 
 It was now past George's time to be up, but 
 he had been dreadino; to crawl over his new and 
 sleepy partner who was in front. The head of 
 the bed which they occupied was towards the 
 fire, and the door opened back against it. Be- 
 tween the foot-board and the wall beyond was a 
 space of about three feet, which gave room for 
 a tub that sat in the corner. 
 
 At length Leathershine awoke and, rubbing 
 his hollow eyes, gave a sleepy groan. On his 
 elbow he raised himself and looked wonderingly 
 at Miss Meaks, who kept her eyes steadily on 
 the cooking. He now put on his " studying- 
 cap" to solve the mystery of secret dressing 
 under the one-room government, and the aper- 
 ture behind the foot-board was selected as a 
 place where that task might be successfully per- 
 formed, provided he could land himself safely 
 into it. So, leaving one cover on George, he 
 rolled the rest up lengthwise on the front railing, 
 leaving between a kind of trough, in which he 
 lay full length on his back. Pressing his heels 
 firmly against the straw mattress, and lifting his 
 body with his hands, he drew himself forward, 
 his knees going upward like a measuring-worm 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 29 
 
 passing over a pair of trousers. One more 
 measure and his long legs dangled across and 
 beyond the foot-board. 
 
 While in this attitude, George discovered in 
 the lower part of the under-garment that clothed 
 the upper half of his person a large round hole, 
 that seemed to have been made by an accidental 
 fire in the laundry. 
 
 Leathershine was now in a position to pass 
 safely over into the place by the tub where he 
 could dress in seclusion ; but when, in the zenith 
 of his leap, his quick motion, exhilarated by 
 high hopes of success, threw the hole over the 
 bed-post, and as he kicked and dangled in the 
 air, the bed wrecked, and all went thundering 
 collaterally down to the floor. 
 
 Miss Meaks and Mrs. Toddy, thinking that a 
 tree had fallen on the house, turned quickly and 
 saw Leathershine sprawling on his face with his 
 palms extended. Mrs. Toddy, being conversant 
 with log-cabin etiquette, ran out at the door, and 
 Miss Meaks, catching on to the style, followed 
 her example. 
 
 " Halloo, here !" exclaimed Leathershine,'' is 
 that the kind of chinch dens you sleep on?" 
 said he, referring to the wreck. 
 
 " Help me set up the bed," said George, and, 
 after he had repeated the appeal, the young man 
 
 3* 
 
< 
 
 30 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 reluctantly assisted in replacing it upon its legs. 
 The two now passed out of the door, and as they 
 went towards the laughing river to wash in that 
 clear, passing medium the ladies were re-entering 
 the threshold of the cabin ; and when they came 
 near the hearth they discovered that the shock, 
 created by the fall of the bed, had thrown from 
 the chinks above the fire a number of articles, 
 of which the pegging-awl was in the skillet of 
 gravy, the hammer in the pan of cabbage, and 
 the old man's last, being the mould of a very 
 large foot, had broken through the lid into the 
 oven of bread. Also, a lot of falling shoe-pegs 
 had showered so thickly into the gravy and the 
 cabbage that it was impossible to determine 
 which one of those articles of food contained 
 the greatest number of the wooden fastenings. 
 
 When the breakfast-table was ready to be oc- 
 cupied, the coffee-pot, which alone had escaped, 
 the wreck unharmed, sat on the floor beside Mrs. 
 Toddy, who reached down and took it by the 
 handle whenever the cups were to be refilled. 
 At the close of the repast, each person had left 
 on his plate a nice little pile of pegs which he 
 had picked from his teeth while masticating fried 
 cabbage or bread overspread with gravy. 
 
 The host now took his firelock rifle from the 
 rack, picked his flint, poured fresh powder in the 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNT AIK 31 
 
 pan, and then, placing the long hunting-piece 
 upon his shoulder, started to guide his guests on 
 the grand climb. While the flowers were yet 
 cool with the dews of night and the long shad- 
 ows of the morning were falling towards the west, 
 the horses were being tied to the trees at the 
 place where Grandfather Hotel now stands near 
 Linville Gap. 
 
 Here their way was to the left by a rising foot- 
 path, which was overlmng with drooping violets 
 and shaded with spreading boughs from ever- 
 green and deciduous trees. Three beauteous 
 miles through umbrageous leaves and fragrant 
 wilds would take them to where morn casts her 
 first queenly robe upon the mountain-top and 
 Sol withdraws the last rosy curtain from the 
 frowning rocks to his ocean bed. 
 
 When they had overcome two-thirds of the 
 precipitous clamber, they came to a little bench- 
 like spot of earth which was clothed with ferns, 
 mosses, mitchella, and oxyria, and supj)orting a 
 mixed growth of black spruce {Abies nigra) and 
 balsam [Abies Fraseri), whose matted branches 
 form a beautiful green canopy. 
 
 Looking east from this point, the old man of 
 the mountains presents a bold and imposing fig- 
 ure, which in the magnitude and perfection of 
 his features is superior to the Sphinx of the 
 
32 THE BALSAM OROVES OF 
 
 Nubian Desert, and always entrances tlie be- 
 holder into dreams of wonder and admiration. 
 While Miss Meaks was admiring this mysterious 
 profile, Leathershine offered her a large rhododen- 
 dron bloom, which she received and fastened on 
 her bosom with a pin. The young man, deeming 
 that she wore it strictly for the sake of the 
 giver, was seized with a sudden emotion which 
 seemed to have no hope of reciprocation from a 
 lady who was so far his superior both in intel- 
 lectual and moral development. 
 
 The party now continuing their journey were 
 soon confronted by a high, steep rock, which 
 seemed to cross their way like a wall through 
 which there is no entrance. At its base, how- 
 ever, the track turned to the right, and passing 
 round by ascending curves and zigzags continued 
 its course towards the toj). 
 
 About midway up the cliff is an overhang like 
 a cornice, below which the rock is perpendicular, 
 but above this it retreats with the pitch of a 
 Gothic roof. At the top of the upper half, 
 rhododendrons annually hang out their scarlet 
 florescent garments in gay profusion ; but from 
 the multiple crevices in the perpendicular part 
 below grow beautiful grasses, ferns, and wild 
 flowers, always kept green and moist by a little 
 water escaping from above. 
 
THE SPHYNX OF THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN, 
 
 NEAR GRANDFATHER HOTEL. 
 (from a Photograph by Nat. W. Taylor, Elk Park, N. C.) 
 
 Page 32. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOVNTAIK. 33 
 
 From the base of tliis cliff gushes and sparkles 
 the coldest perennial spring, isolated from per- 
 petual snow, in the United States. Its highest 
 temperature is 42°, and half a pint from its 
 unpolluted channel quenches the greatest thirst 
 created by an exhaustive climb. 
 
 Our acquaintances were resting at this foun- 
 tain, and, having no cup, they were drinking from 
 a concave piece of bark pealed from an oval 
 knot on a tree, when they saw two men ap- 
 proaching along the path by which they had 
 ascended. The eyes of the unknown persons 
 were steadily fixed upon the ground, for between 
 the rocks of this particular place are numerous 
 holes and crevices so dangerous to careless feet 
 that every step requires investigation. 
 
 As they came into a spot of sunshine which 
 fell through a narrow vista in the trees, the 
 younger and better dressed of the two turned his 
 eyes upward to see what part of the sky was 
 then occupied by the glorious orb, when Miss 
 Meaks discovered in his face what she thought 
 to be the familiar features of a long-lost friend. 
 The beautiful rhododendron bloom that em- 
 bossed her bosom now rose and fell with a deep 
 sigh that pushed forward the elegantly rounded 
 prospect behind it ; but when his brow returned 
 to the shade of his brim, she doubted her im- 
 
34 THE BALSAM GBOVES OF 
 
 pression, and said in silent soliloquy : " Impossi- 
 ble that he who knows not my love could be 
 here. No more shall my heart leap and my lips 
 tremble to the deceitful refraction of light in 
 woods like these. The warm palm I once re- 
 fused will never return, alas ! to reclaim me from 
 my folly. Farewell, good-by, my Charlie; I 
 shall never see you again until I drink the water 
 of Lethe, and return from the Elysian fields not 
 knowing that I ever did you wrong !" 
 
 The aj)proaching couple had now come to a 
 curve in the path which placed between them 
 and the seated party the lap of a fallen tree 
 and a little cluster of mountain maple, through 
 whose tangled brush only glimpses of their 
 movino; forms could be seen. The one who was 
 guiding the other now said, in a voice distinctly 
 audible to those who were listening near, " The 
 spring is under the big mossy rock before us." 
 
 " Ah !" rejoined the traveller, " when we get 
 there, I will drink to her I once loved, but now 
 only remember ; and if the water is as icy cold 
 as you say, it will be a most suitable beverage 
 for the occasion ; for then I will say, ' Here is 
 to that cold heart that drove me wandering from 
 my country ; that stole the sweet sleep from my 
 midnight pillow and gave me for it insomnia; 
 the heart that charged me with all the flattery 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN: 35 
 
 belonging to the untrue of my sex ; and wliile 
 this portion from the living fount of Grand- 
 father shall quench the last smouldering spark 
 of love for her that lingers in my bosom, may 
 some messenger of the gods bear her the news 
 that Charlie was true.' " 
 
36 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE LOVEES. 
 
 The rocks that brave the blasts of time 
 
 Without a pulse or motion, 
 Support the forms, reflect the sounds, 
 
 That tell the heart's commotion. 
 
 The words that close tlie previous chapter 
 were understood by none of those at the spring 
 save one, and she had changed her position to 
 conceal some gracious drops that stole down 
 over two roses that had thrice flourished and 
 faded in a few brief moments. After the 
 stranger had expatiated upon the destitution of 
 his heart as set forth in the promised health, he 
 hummed a love-tune, advanced rapidly, and 
 suddenly emerged from behind the bramble not 
 more than a rod from Miss Meaks. Here he 
 raised his eyes, and drew back with shadows of 
 confidence and doubt displacing each other upon 
 his face as he tried to determine whether the 
 form before him was really the object of his 
 love, or her apparition. Observing on her part 
 an inclination to rise, he advanced with an ex- 
 tended hand, and expressed his pleasure and 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 37 
 
 surprise in a manner that could be appreciated 
 only when accompanied by his noble person and 
 voice. 
 
 He was a tall, commanding man, with a grace- 
 fully flowing moustache, aquiline nose, evenly 
 set teeth, mobile chin, high forehead, and the 
 elongated corners of his dark-brown eyes 
 stretched away under dark brows around fair 
 temples, from which beautiful black hair re- 
 treated above his ears. 
 
 The words that Miss Meaks uttered in return 
 for his were only of that social cast which is 
 characterized by the meeting of friends, but 
 their confiding tone and feeling delivery in- 
 spired new confidence in his " heart's attorney ,'' 
 and added fresh fuel to that smouldering spark 
 which no draught could ever have extinguished. 
 
 Introductions now went round, revealing the 
 fact that the arrivals were Mr. Charlie Clipper- 
 steel and his guide, Mr. Wiseman, the latter 
 being from the foot of the great Koan, some 
 twenty miles to the west. They had camped 
 the previous night about two miles from the 
 source of the Linville, on the banks of that 
 stream, where they had left their blankets and 
 a light tent. 
 
 The six persons now united at the spring 
 were within the border of one of the most beau- 
 
 4 
 
38 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 tiful, tlie most bewildering, and the most ex- 
 tended evergreen forests in the whole South. 
 Here the tall and densely growing balsam and 
 S23ruce extend their branches in united clusters 
 that support the snows of winter and exclude 
 the rays of the summer sun. Beneath these are 
 many ancient trunks of fallen trees which are 
 completely concealed, and only revealed by a 
 soft, deep, bright, yellowish green moss growing 
 over them and following their shapes. Up 
 through this rich carpet, from their roots in the 
 decaying wood, grow delicate ferns and young 
 balsams of a fern's height and higher that wave 
 and tremble to feeble breezes that stray off from 
 the stronger ones that moan in the trees above. 
 This robe of green not only mantles the old logs, 
 but spreads its soft covering unbroken from one 
 object to another, hugging the spreading bases 
 of the trees, and clothing the rising rocks and 
 sticks that help to form the extending landscape. 
 This lovely scene extends up and over the moun- 
 tain, broken only by great cliffs equally beauti- 
 ful in the flowers of their crags, until it covers 
 an area as large as the city of New York. 
 Such were the exquisite beauties along the wind- 
 ing step-way by which our acquaintances were 
 about to continue their ascent. 
 
 Mr. Skiles and the two country gentlemen 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 39 
 
 now led the way, bat were met and detained by 
 a most wonderful man, while the three younger 
 persons still lingered at the spring, where 
 Leathershine was puffing with jealousy and 
 whiffling around like a " fice in high rye/' The 
 reunited lovers gave him no recognition, and, 
 observing that his " cake was dough," he joined 
 the minister and the guides, who were enter- 
 tained some distance away by what seemed to 
 be a resurrected giant of prehistoric ages. 
 
 When Clippersteel observed that those in 
 front were about to advance, he said : " Miss 
 Lidie, I offer you my hand, as in the days of 
 yore, to help you up the rocks and steps of a 
 path which, my guide informs me, leads through 
 flowery beds and mossy dales like these." 
 
 " I accept your offer with thanks, Mr. Charlie ; 
 but you are not ready to go : you have not 
 drunk the health you promised," she said, hand- 
 ing him the concave bark with a smile. 
 
 " Pardon me, my friend," said he ; " it cost me 
 four years in a foreign land to travel to the frigid 
 zone of my heart, where the snows tliat ended 
 the summer of love were lighted only by the 
 flitting meteors of the borealis race. But your 
 unexpected presence here to-day, which I could 
 not avoid, has placed that icy region again un- 
 der the burning sun of the tro|)ics. Already the 
 
40 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 snows have gone, and their place is occupied by 
 the water lily, perfumed with the spices and the 
 cloves and spreading its sweet petals upon my 
 bosom. How can you drive such love as mine 
 from its mortal habitation and leave my bosom 
 empty with all but wondering pain ? My heart 
 is thirsty, and you are its living fountain. Let 
 me drink and water a desert that will soon flour- 
 ish with the green bay-tree and the balm of 
 Gilead." 
 
 " O God,'' she cried, " pardon the weakness of 
 woman," and burying her face in his bosom, her 
 lachrymal lakes overflowed and anointed his gar- 
 ments with drops that were to him the myrrh of 
 the soul. " It is pursuit," she said, " and not 
 possession, that man enjoys, and now therefore 
 the tender regard you have for me is ready to 
 be cremated upon the pyre of my broken spirit, 
 and nothing but an urn of ashes left to its mem- 
 ory." 
 
 "Never," replied Charlie, "never until God 
 himself is buried, and the dark marble of ob- 
 livion erected for his tombstone, shall my per- 
 son or my angel forsake fair Lidie Meaks." 
 
 When Clippersteel had thus vowed his eternal 
 love and his lady had confessed her devotion, 
 their friends had gone far out of sight up the 
 mountain. The gorgon who had lately met 
 
TEE ORANDFATHER MOUNTAIN, 41 
 
 them and excited their curiosity was a native by 
 the name of Skipper John Potter. He was 
 exercising the occupation of gathering balsam 
 of fir, which, being a much valued medicine, I 
 will acquaint the reader with its production, as 
 follows : The resin of the balsam tree {Abies 
 Fraseri) is carried in the bark, and, when this 
 becomes overcharged with the aromatic substance, 
 it deposits its surplus just beneath the surface in 
 small protuberances called blisters, because they 
 resemble little bladders caused by fire or over- 
 work upon the hands. These vary in size from 
 a mere pimple to a bulk as large as a com- 
 mon marble, and the balsam is collected by 
 tapping the larger ones at the bottom with a 
 knife, and bringing a pressure to bear upon 
 the top, while the thick fluid runs slowly from 
 the incision and goes down into a little tin 
 vessel, whose lip is firmly pressed against the 
 bark below. 
 
 All over Grandfather is a scattered growth of 
 black spruce {Abies nigra) which the natives 
 call tamarack. It is so much like the more 
 abundant balsam that casual observers pass them 
 for one and the same ; but the resin of the 
 spruce is carried partly in the wood; is not 
 medicinal, and does not blister the bark. Also, 
 the needles of the foliage are flat and of a yel- 
 
 4* 
 
42 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 lowish-green cast, while those of the balsam are 
 round and emerald. 
 
 Skipper John Potter was a large man, six feet 
 and a half tall, and his feet, which were always 
 bare in summer, were huge and long in propor- 
 tion. His big bony toes when fairly spread by 
 his weight were connected near their base by red 
 membranes like those of a web-footed fowl. The 
 garments of his person consisted of white home- 
 woven linen pants a span shorter than his legs ; 
 a shirt of like material, with a broad turn-down 
 collar, and a home-spun jean coat of a very 
 short cut, as if made for the convenience of 
 wading high water or to overtop the weeds of 
 the forest. A retreating chin, a head flat on top 
 and sheltered by a hat plaited of rye straw, 
 characterized his upper extremity. His long, 
 straight back was always leaned forward from a 
 starting-point at his hips. He had evenly set 
 teeth ; and when he laughed, his mouth spread to 
 his ears; while two good-humored streaks, one 
 extending from each corner of the great vocal 
 orifice, passed round and met on the back of his 
 head. When he talked, it seemed that the thun- 
 ders had been endowed with the powers of speech. 
 He was too wise for a fool and too ignorant to 
 create an offence. His knowledge was so limited 
 that the lack of it was by him unmissed. He 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 43 
 
 often misunderstood the meaning of words, and 
 when he attempted to reproduce one that he had 
 heard a superior use, he generally missed it en- 
 tirely and got one of similar sound. For in- 
 stance, when he heard John Smith say that he 
 was going to have his land transferred, he told 
 Tom Jones that John Smith was going to have 
 his land transmogrified. 
 
 Those whose admiration had been excited by 
 Skipper John had prevailed on him to go with 
 them on the journey ; and as they toiled up the 
 mountain, while Clippersteel and Miss Meaks 
 were yet behind, Mr. Skiles placed his hands 
 upon his hips and, leaning against a tree, ex- 
 claimed : " Oh, my spine !" when Skipper, 
 embracing the opportunity to recommend his 
 medicine, said in tones of thunder : " Ef you'll 
 take a dost or two of my balsam, you'll have no 
 spine." 
 
 The happy couple behind overtook those in 
 front at a cliff called Harmon's Kock, because it 
 gave shelter to Maiden Harmon, a res|)ectable 
 citizen of Sugar Grove, when on his annual trips 
 to Grandfather to replenish his brain with in- 
 spiration and gather balsam for family physic 
 through the ensuing year. From this point, a 
 five minutes' walk took them to the top, where 
 the radius of the entrancing panorama is led on 
 
44 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 by mountains, and hills, and vales, and streams, 
 and crags, and ravines, until, like the stars that 
 form the milky way, they lose their identity 
 and blend into a circle of ethereal blue. So ex- 
 tended was the view on that beautiful day that 
 the heavens lost their concave form, and stretched 
 away over blue domes and fading valleys to a 
 horizon in the dim distance of the inseparable 
 land and sky. The beautiful clouds, the ships 
 of the ethereal sea, in whose electric berths the 
 giant thunders were sleeping, now sailed only 
 mountain high over the valleys, presenting a 
 side view to the tourists ; and, as they caught the 
 rays of the sun in their rigging or allowed his 
 beams to pass through between them to the 
 beautiful earth below, the landscape was leop- 
 ardized for miles around with a moving robe of 
 light and shadow. 
 
 While the party was admiring the exquisite 
 beauties of the scene, Clippersteel asked the 
 more intelligent of his hearers if they had ever 
 heard of the interesting diary kept by Andre 
 Michaux when, in the eighteenth century, he 
 journeyed in the Highlands of North Carolina. 
 Both Mr. Skiles and Miss Meaks, and even our 
 acquaintance, Leathershine, answered that they 
 knew nothing either of that journal or its author. 
 
 " Andre Michaux," said Clippersteel, " was sent 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 45 
 
 to this country in 1785 by the royal government 
 of France to collect seeds, shrubs, and trees for the 
 royal gardens ; and at that time seems to have 
 had an earnest loyalty. But after the French 
 revolution broke out he evidently became a very 
 zealous republican, a true Frenchman, as will ap- 
 pear from his ardent language upon the spot now 
 occupied by ourselves ; for thus reads a portion of 
 the journal," said he, producing a memorandum 
 
 '' ' 1794. August 26.— Started for Grandfathei 
 Mountain, the most elevated of all those which 
 form the chain of the Alleghanies and the Ap- 
 palachians. 
 
 " ' 1794. August 27.— Eeached the foot of the 
 hio;hest mountain. 
 
 " ' 1794. August 28. — Climbed as far as the 
 rocks. 
 
 '' ' 1794. August 29. — Continued my herbori- 
 zation. 
 
 " ' 1794. August 30. — Climbed to the summit 
 of the highest mountain of all North America, and 
 with my companion and guide sang the hymn 
 of the Marseillaise, and cried, *' Long live America 
 and the Eepublic of the French! Long live 
 Liberty! etc."'"* 
 
 " But was he not mistaken as to the highest 
 mountain ?" inquired Mr. Skiles, profoundly. 
 
 * See an extract from the journal, beginning on p. 152. 
 
46 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 " Indeed, he was in honest error, for the range 
 of the E-ockies was not known to him ; and in 
 those days, when the unknown heights of the 
 North Carolina mountains were compared by the 
 effect of their environments upon the aesthetic 
 mind, or by the length of the rivers that trickle 
 from their feet, Grandfather was conceded to be 
 fair Luna's nearest neighbor and friend. In 
 truth, there can be no better proof of its surpass- 
 ing beauty, to-day, than the fact that a man of 
 Michaux's taste gave vent to his greatest enthu- 
 siasm upon its summit ; for he had travelled in 
 Persia ; he had seen the Alps, under whose frowns 
 Caesar battled with the Gauls ; he had journeyed 
 from the White Mountains of New Hampshire 
 to the Blacks in North Carolina, and his eyes 
 had been cultured to the flowers of the king's 
 garden.'' 
 
 Just at this instant a buffeting breeze lifted 
 Skipper's light hat from his crown and gave him 
 a lively southward race for its recovery; and 
 every time that one of his big feet went forward, 
 the heel of the other flew up behind and hit him 
 on the hip, while his great hands were extended 
 forward in pursuit of the structure of cereal 
 straw. 
 
 Our two lovers, Lidie and her Charlie, now 
 descended the northern slope of the mountain a 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 47 
 
 short distance to an immense cliff, and occupied 
 one of the four or five natural steps that round 
 off to the dangerous brink. This perpendicular 
 rock, which faces the west, is about four hun- 
 dred feet high, and in its crags grow ferns, an 
 wild pinks, and on its brow clusters and blooms 
 the little evergreen shrub, Leiophyllum buxi- 
 folium. 
 
 Here Lidie found in the recent resignation of 
 her heart visions of roses blooming about the 
 door of her future mansion, with humming-birds 
 nestling in the vines, and the voice of him she 
 loved falling upon her ears like apples of gold 
 in the acoustic halls of peace. And how changed 
 seemed the fortunes of him by her side, who 
 tut an hour ago was whirling in the storm that 
 had blown him to despair. Yet all in his bosom 
 was not peace. Even the narrow rulings of 
 destiny gave him pain, for, had he not been de- 
 layed by the rains of a single day, he would 
 never have won the diadem of his soul. " O 
 great Jehovah," thought he, " can my happiness 
 be real, or am I dreaming? If I am in the 
 deceitful arms of Morpheus, may I never awake 
 to sustain the regrets of my fancy ; or, if I have 
 fallen from some high cliff, where, bleeding with 
 unconscious wounds, my dying hour is sweetened 
 with these visions, may that hour last, and the 
 
48 TEE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 red current flow throughout the countless ages of 
 eternity." 
 
 His muse was here broken by a gentle female 
 voice that said, " What cold wave of silence is 
 passing over your brain ?" 
 
 " I was tracing the wilds through which I 
 came," was the reply. 
 
 These words were the prelude to a low, sweet, 
 musical conversation, ornamented with smiles 
 and softened by the tenderest emotions of the 
 human heart. 
 
 No one to eavesdrop was near, and the trem- 
 bling ferns could never blab the touching story ; 
 but the envying Echo, who steals the pathos from 
 all sweet words and returns only the hollow 
 bones of speech, deserves our notice. 
 
 " She was a nymph, but only now a sound, 
 Yet of her tono-ue no other use was found 
 Than now she has, which never could be more 
 Than to repeat what she had heard before. 
 
 " This change impatient Juno's anger wrought, 
 Who, when her Jove she o'er the mountains sought, 
 Was oft by Echo's tedious tales misled. 
 Till the shy nymphs to caves and grottos fled. 
 
 " Her flesh consumes and moulders with despair, 
 And all her body's juice is turned to air ; 
 So wondrous are the effects of restless pain. 
 That nothing but her voice and bones remain. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN, 49 
 
 "Nay, even the very bones at last are gone, 
 And metamorphosed to a thoughtless stone ; 
 Yet still the voice does in the woods survive; 
 The form's departed, but the sound's alive." 
 
 Those conversant with mythology will re- 
 member that " Echo by chance met Narcissus in 
 the woods, and so admired his beauty that she 
 fell in love with him, courted and embraced 
 him ; but he broke away from her arms and fled. 
 Narcissus afterwards fell so deeply in love with 
 his own beauty that the love of himself proved 
 his ruin. His thirst led him to a fountain, 
 whose waters were clear and bright as silver ; 
 and when he stooped to drink he saw his own 
 image, and gazed at it, insomuch that he fell 
 passionately in love with it. He continued a 
 long time admiring this beloved picture-; but at 
 length the unhappy creature perceived that the 
 torture he suffered was from the love of his own 
 self. 
 
 " 'My love does vainly on myself return, 
 And fans the cruel flame with which I burn ; 
 The thing desir'd I still about me bore, 
 And too much plenty has confirm'd me poor. 
 Oh, that I from my much-lov'd self could go; 
 A strange request, yet would to God 'twere so.' 
 
 "In a word, the power of love was greater 
 than he could resist, so that by degrees he 
 
 c d 5 
 
50 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 wasted away and consumed, and at last, by the 
 favor of the gods, was turned into a daffodil, a 
 flower called by his own name." 
 
 The hapless ghost of Echo now lurked in the 
 solid face of a cliff that was neighbor to the one 
 occupied by our lovers, and, envying them be- 
 cause she were not Lidie and Charlie her long 
 lost Narcissus, she mimicked their conversation 
 as follows : 
 
 '* Down in yonder lonesome woods is a flowery 
 bed of green, where I am soon to be tried by the 
 ordeal of forbearance. Already on that sacred 
 spot nature's tear-drops are falling thick and 
 fast ; for, in presence of those on yonder height, 
 how can I give thee the cold * good-by' that they 
 will expect, or the w^arm * adieu' they would not 
 understand ? Oh, gracious Pan, thou god of the 
 beautiful woods, conceal thy uncomely form by 
 the spring on our return ; blow the sweet melody 
 of thy cithern through the trees and entertain 
 our companions till we pass on to that solemn 
 shade. There, under the sighing pines on a 
 mossy carpet kneeling, I will lay the blue- veined 
 violets of confidence on the roses of my true- 
 love's promise, and, binding them with the ten- 
 drils of the woodbine, will leave her to join 
 her friends in that lonely dell and my guide 
 to overtake me by the brook of Klonteska." 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN, 51 
 
 " Not SO, Charlie ; if you depart so soon from 
 the paths I travel, your vows and your actions 
 will not seem to flow in the same gentle stream." 
 
 " Pardon me, my dear Lidie ; my words to you 
 have always been tuned to the emotions of my 
 heart, and there is no discord in the sweet chime 
 of faith and feeling which I now enjoy. Fain 
 would I have withheld my j)i'omise to meet a 
 comrade traveller on the great Koan to-mor- 
 row, could I have foretold the events of to-day. 
 But the cause of my delay, sent in a note by my 
 guide, will obtain his pardon, for, on the night 
 before we clambered together the eternal snows 
 of Mont Blanc, I dropped into the ventricles of 
 his sympathizing heart the secret of my wan- 
 derings. When we beheld the wild flowers 
 growing so near the glacier {iner de glace) that 
 they leaned their almost frozen corollas against 
 the accumulated ice and snow of ages, I said, 
 ^ These delicate blossoms are sickly from the low 
 temperature which the glacier imparts ; and as 
 they woo in vain this congealed mass to melt and 
 warm them into a brighter existence, even so did 
 I implore the angel of my joys to enter the gate- 
 ajar of my heart and give me a life of bliss by 
 her side.' Only yesterday he knew that the 
 sweet home of love once in my bosom, where all 
 the happy dreams of life had been cherished, 
 
52 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 was but an empty urn, from whose future every 
 hope of joy on earth had vanished." 
 
 *^ Oh, speak not thus, Charlie ; disturb not the 
 clear, sweetly flowing river of the present by 
 turning in a troubled current from the stream 
 of memory." 
 
 Here the conversation was broken by the re- 
 mainder of the party arriving from the top, and 
 as Mr. Skiles neared the awe-inspiring brink he 
 drew back and exclaimed, *' Oh, what a danger- 
 ous abyss !" Whereupon Skipper John informed 
 them " that Rollingbumb once killed a bear on 
 top of that ' abscess,' and, tumbling him over the 
 brink, all of his bones were broken by the fall." 
 
 All were soon seated upon the rock, where they 
 looked well to the west, and, while talking of the 
 many attractive objects in that direction, they 
 determined that, as Mr. Skiles was out on a 
 week's vacation, they would continue their jour- 
 ney to Linville Falls, which are from Linville 
 Gap about eighteen miles. 
 
 From the base of the great ]3recipice which they 
 occupied the mountain continues its descent by 
 steep declivities, and so precipitous are they that 
 a person might stand at many points and grasp 
 the topmost branches of trees that have their 
 roots in crags far below. A bewildering mile 
 this rugged green extends, and then scatters and 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 53 
 
 terminates in tlie deciduous trees of a fertile 
 slope that leads down to tlie Linville Valley. Here 
 the landscape is dotted with the conical tops 
 of giant hemlocks [Abies Canadensis) towering 
 above and spreading beneath, so as to partly 
 obstruct the view of the intervening birch and 
 completely obscure the undergrowing rhododen- 
 dron. 
 
 Through this tangled mass lay the first j&ve 
 miles of the narrow road soon to be travelled by 
 the party on their way to the beautiful cataract. 
 
 Retracing their steps to the top, Chppersteel 
 gave his guide a liberal sum to start, without 
 further delay, to the Roan with an appropriate 
 note to his friend. 
 
 They now turned upon their heels and took a 
 last glance at the dim and distant outline that 
 once bounded the vision of Michaux, who had 
 long since passed to silence and pathetic dust in 
 far-off Madagascar. 
 
 To the southwest of Grandfather, the great 
 Blacks — the highest American mountains east of 
 the Mississippi — present themselves in a line of 
 blue domes at right angles to the vision, and often 
 support the clouds that empty their liquid burdens 
 or gather new lading upon their lofty crests. 
 The renowned Mitchell's Peak is the highest of 
 this group, and on its summit the Rev. Elisha 
 
 6* 
 
54 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 Mitchell, D.D., is buried ; and whether the virgin 
 snows mantle his grave with their trackless 
 iin defiles, or seolian breezes whisper between it 
 and smiling moons, or the serene sunshine steals 
 the noontide zephyr from the umbrageous firs, 
 or the great storm king anchors his sable ship 
 of gloom upon it, and turns loose the guns of 
 thunder from its fiery portals, he sleeps the same 
 under the sod of eternal fame.* 
 
 From the top of Grandfather almost the 
 entire northwest is crossed by the long line of 
 the Clinch Range, through whose depressions, in 
 beautiful autumn weather, glimpses can be seen 
 of the more distant mountains in Kentucky and 
 West Virginia. 
 
 To the northeast is White Top, on which 
 three States — North Carolina, Virginia, and 
 Tennessee — corner and join. It is a massive 
 oval mountain, showing the side view of an 
 oblong bald, with a background of evergreen on 
 land slightly more elevated than that denuded 
 of trees. 
 
 The most distant mountain seen in the east is 
 the dim Pilate in Stokes County, North Carolina. 
 It culminates in a hazy tower of stone, which in 
 
 * Beginning on page 176 is a full account of his death, 
 written by Hon. Z. B. Yance. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 55 
 
 shape and proportion, as presented by the visual 
 angle, is like a large gravestone set in the top 
 of an Indian mound or a knoll. 
 
 Midst the cotton-fields of South Carolina rises 
 to view the immortal King's Mountain, on whose 
 summit, October 7, 1780, the gallant Ameri- 
 cans, under Colonels Campbell and Sevier, killed 
 and captured the entire British command under 
 Ferguson. 
 
 Near the south end of the Blacks, the beholder 
 observes the bald of Hickory-Nut Gap, three 
 miles beyond which is Bound Knob Hotel, 
 where the already beautiful scenery is greatly 
 enhanced by the most intricate railroad contriv- 
 ance in the South. 
 
 The reader will understand that I have men- 
 tioned only a few of 
 
 A thousand mountains and a million hills, 
 With intervening rivers and rills, 
 And tints that blue and clouds that fly, 
 Within the scope o' the natural eye. 
 
 Our acquaintances, having completed the pan- 
 orama a second time, now turned their backs 
 upon the summit with such parting compliments 
 as "Good-by, Grandfather !" "Farewell, ye sweet 
 groves ! I will love you when I am far away." 
 Arriving at the spring, the concave bark, full 
 
56 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 to the brim, was circulated with free polite- 
 ness ; aud Clippersteel, being the last to drink, 
 raised it to his lips and said, ^' Here is to De 
 Leon, who searched for this * fountain of youth,' 
 which he never found; may his soul be at 
 peace and the sympathies of all mankind with 
 his memory." 
 
 They soon descended to Linville Gap, and, 
 after an appropriate parting with the guide from 
 the Watauga, Mr. Skiles said to Mr. CUpper- 
 steel, *' Get on my horse ; we will ride and 
 walk alternately, and neither of us- will be tired 
 at night." The person thus addressed declined 
 at first to set the devout man on foot, but be- 
 ing assured by him that he would not be dis- 
 comfited by the change, the offer was accepted. 
 Mr. Skiles, however, was prevailed on to ride 
 first, and Leathershine having hastened to 
 mount Miss Meaks, as if he owned that right 
 by previous attendance, all went down the merry 
 Linville. 
 
 Miss Meaks ventured to ride by Mr. Skiles, 
 but Leathershine was so goaded with jeal- 
 ousy, and so anxious to get the advantage of 
 his formidable rival, that every time the nar- 
 rowness of the road crowded them into sinde 
 file, he pressed his horse in by hers and ten- 
 dered his undying love. In vain did she use 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 57 
 
 silent contempt, in vain she changed the conver- 
 sation. 
 
 '' Please, Mr. Clippersteel," said she, " lead 
 my horse over this difficult road." Delighted 
 at the opportunity to be of service, he took the 
 rein, when Leathershine, being close by the 
 lady's side, placed his open hand beside his 
 mouth, as if to turn the full force of his breath 
 upon the object of his love, and leaning quite 
 over whispered in her ear. 
 
 " Get up and ride, Mr. Clippersteel," said the 
 minister, alighting from his steed. 
 
 Charlie first conducted Miss Meaks's horse a 
 little to the front, Leathershine being immedi- 
 ately on the opposite side, and then, stepping 
 back to Mr. Skiles's steed, })laced his foot in the 
 stirrup. 
 
 Leathershine, seeing that he was about to be 
 superseded by one who seemed to be in more 
 popular favor, took Miss Meaks's horse by the 
 rein, and giving his ankle a twist spurred him 
 in the side, at the same time hurrying his own, 
 and the two went in a sweeping gallop around a 
 curve of the road. 
 
 " Thar," roared Skipper, " he's got yer gal an' 
 gone with 'ur." 
 
 As Clippersteel lit in the saddle, he heard his 
 intended say, " Let loose my rein. What do you 
 
68 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 mean?" and being impelled by a sudden feeling 
 of rescue and revenge, he gave the horse a thud 
 with his spurless heel, and went thundering down 
 the road like a tornado, leaving the minister and 
 Skipper in the desolated country behind. 
 
 4 
 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 59 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 TRAPPING A BEAR. 
 
 In verse I'll not disclose what did betide, — 
 
 The scene's too varied, wild, and warm, and wide. 
 
 From the dome of Grandfather, a high arm 
 leads off, south of west and parallel with the 
 Linville, for the distance of two miles, and then 
 drops abruptly down into a deep pass called 
 Grandmother Gap, beyond which rises Grand- 
 mother Mountain, the queen-consort of the 
 reigning Grandfather. 
 
 Along the centre of this elegant spur is a suc- 
 cession of three beautiful cones, which are only 
 a few feet lower than the highest point and rear 
 their gray crests through dark mantles of rho- 
 dodendron and firs. 
 
 In the year 1890, a Baltimore bard, who signs 
 his name " Chuckey Joe," named one of these 
 peaks — the one nearest the main top — " Yonah- 
 lossee," which, in the language of the Cherokee 
 Indians, means " Passing bear." This name was 
 suggested by the fact that bruin's favorite trail 
 
60 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 crosses the great mountain, througli the depres- 
 sion, between this height and the next one to- 
 wards the southwest. 
 
 In the fall of the year, when Rollingbumb did 
 much trapping for bear in this pass, he made his 
 head-quarters down in the deciduous woods, on 
 the northern slope of the mountain, in a rock 
 cavern which had been formed by a large slab 
 of stone sliding down over a cliff and leaning 
 up against it, leaving beneath a long chamber 
 with a triangular opening at each extremity. 
 When this was occupied by the hunter, he closed 
 the three-cornered thresholds by building a blaz- 
 ing fire in one and suspending the skins of 
 wild beasts in the other. 
 
 The rock that formed the shelter, and also the 
 cliff that extended from either end of the cavern, 
 were grown over with mosses and lichens, while 
 clinging here and there in the crevices were 
 beautiful ferns, orchids, and wild pinks. 
 
 Only a few rods away, the east end of the 
 cliff led down to a hollow, in which great 
 bowlders, that had come down from higher alti- 
 tudes, were piled one upon another. Some of 
 these were carpeted with a soft moss, and the re- 
 mainder had on top of them an accumulation 
 of soil that supported wild turnip, dog-tusk 
 violets, beth, mandrake, leeks, ferns, seneca, 
 

THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 61 
 
 spikenard, angelica, ginseng, wild-gooseberry 
 bushes, and many otlier plants and shrubs that 
 flourished and bloomed in the most brilliant 
 profusion. 
 
 Beneath this rich robe and the bowlders which 
 it mantled was a subterranean brook, whose in- 
 visible falls and cascades rumbled like " muffled 
 drums," as their waters passed on to some crystal 
 outburst below. 
 
 When Rollingbumb passed out from between 
 the adamantine walls of his sylvan chamber and 
 concealed his gigantic steel-traps beneath the 
 leaves and moss of bruin's passway, the grabs at 
 the ends of the chains were not fastened to im- 
 movable objects, as might be supposed, because, 
 in that event, a monstrous bear, when captured, 
 would have been better able to extricate him- 
 self than when the great sharp-fanged transitory 
 prison was allowed to move to the bent of every 
 overpowering exertion of its captive. 
 
 When bruin suddenly finds his paw in steel 
 shackles, against w^hich all his weapons of car- 
 nivorous warfare are powerless, he invariably 
 turns at right angles from his trail, and seldom 
 goes more than two or three rods before the 
 grabs become intangled, as seen in the cut, and 
 he comes to an abrupt halt. But after biting off 
 all the shrubbery within the length of his cable, 
 
62 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 and turning everything around him topsy-turvy, 
 he generally disengages himself, and then, snort- 
 ing with rage and jingling his metallic fetters, he 
 continues his clumsy flight, making signs that 
 can be followed as readily as the path of a whirl- 
 wind, until the grabs catch under a root or over 
 a bough, and he is hindered as before. 
 
 Thus clambering through his painful and pro- 
 voking prison bounds, he seldom gets more than 
 a fourth of a mile from his trail, when the 
 hunter, going to his traps and finding one of them 
 missing, follows it up, and slays poor bruin in 
 the manner illustrated. 
 
 On the opposite side of the Linville from the 
 Grandfather is the spring-flowered and autum- 
 nal tinted Flat-Top Mountain, which also runs 
 parallel with that beautiful stream, and has a 
 splendid pinnacle west of the centre. It is 
 noted for its fertile soil, for the abundance and 
 variety of its wild herbs, and for its beautiful 
 groves of oak, chestnut, sugar-maple, and other 
 deciduous trees. 
 
 The last scene of our story occurred at the 
 point where a line would pass if drawn from 
 the top of Yonahlossee, through the valley of 
 the Linville, to the pinnacle of the Flat-Top. 
 
 The party had passed the place where Clipper- 
 steel and his guide had camped the night before, 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 63 
 
 and Skipper, liaving been paid to carry tlie tent 
 and blankets, had tliem rolled up and laid on his 
 shoulder. The minister gazed after the flying 
 steeds with a dumfounded face, while Skipper 
 stood by, w^ith an obelisk of mud on the big toe- 
 nail of his left foot, and said in an ecstatic voice, 
 that might have been heard by the man in the 
 moon, " I'll bet ye a gill of balsam ag'inst a dol- 
 lar that them fellers '11 fight over that gal, yit." 
 
 When Clippersteel passed round the curve 
 behind which his true love and her captor had 
 gone, he saw them going at full speed, so far 
 down a long stretch of road that the laurel hang- 
 ings seemed to crowd in almost to its closing. 
 In his hot pursuit, he snatched a branch from a 
 rhododendron and, larruping the horse with the 
 broad leaves, the animal leaped forward with 
 increased alacrity ; and Leathershine, observing 
 that the management of two horses was un- 
 equally matched against the skill and speed of 
 a single rider, dropped the rein, and, continuing 
 his flight, was soon lost to view under the over- 
 hanging boughs of the forest road. 
 
 Lidie Meaks was an expert in the overland 
 accomplishment of horseback riding, and would 
 have prevented this equestrian tornado, but 
 Leathershine getting the horses under speed 
 before she apprehended his intentions, all her 
 
64 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 skill was required to keep the saddle and evade 
 the lowering boughs. 
 
 When Leathershine dropped the rein, she 
 checked the speed of the horse and caracoled in 
 the road, but her spirits were borne down with 
 fear lest her Charlie would believe that the fires 
 of jealousy burning upon the youngster's heart 
 had been blown by the bellows of her own 
 bosom. Guided, however, by a clear conscience, 
 she galloped towards her champion, and when 
 she met him each saw on the other's face spots 
 of sunshine and shadow, like those produced on 
 a harvest-field by the passage of broken clouds. 
 Comprehending her fears and knowing her in- 
 nocence, Charlie said, in a tranquil voice, *' Be of 
 good cheer, my dear Lidie, for in the game of 
 snatch we are often taken by the one we least 
 admire." 
 
 "Thank you," she said, panting for breath 
 and regaining a smile; "and believe me," she 
 continued, " I never saw that fellow until a week 
 ago ; and although he seemed to be fond of my 
 company, I never thought of his presuming to 
 claim my regard until this hour, during which 
 he has kept my horse crowded into the woods 
 and my ears inflated with wind." 
 
 " Had not the coward fled," said Clippersteel, " I 
 would have tested the thickness of his cranium." 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 65 
 
 " Let me implore you," answered Lidie, " for 
 the sake of the good man whose pupil he is, that 
 you treat him as beneath your notice, and I will 
 stay beyond his ken." 
 
 " Hello," shouted Skipper, arriving Avith the 
 tent on his shoulder and the pyramid of mud on 
 his toe-nail ; " you've got yer gal back, I see." 
 
 Lidie turned her head to conceal the humor- 
 ous expression which the remark created upon 
 her visage ; and Charlie answered him with a 
 look that was half laughter. 
 
 Mr. Skiles now inquired after his student, and, 
 being informed of his flight, he said, solemnly 
 and reverently, " I have often j)rayed God to 
 gather his wild oats into the garner of repent- 
 ance." 
 
 After Clippersteel had apologized to the clergy- 
 man for driving his horse through the nimble 
 storm of passion's fleet despair, the journey was 
 continued, and, though the fugitive was often 
 looked for, onlv the tracks of his horse were seen. 
 
 Close beside them and often crossins; their 
 way was the rippling river of Linville, singing 
 its song of joy to the youthful Linville Valley, 
 or murmuring its sweet story to the myriads of 
 speckled beauties that played on its sparkling 
 sands. Here it is that the angler casts his rod 
 over the home of the piscatorial tribe and brings 
 
66 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 forth his elegant prize, fluttering his finny prat- 
 tle against the rhododendron boughs that hang 
 like green -spangled awnings over the glassy 
 pools. 
 
 Late in the afternoon, when the green leaves 
 were rustled by a bracing zephyr, the dim high- 
 way — so little used that it was partly grown 
 over with wild herbs — was leading the party 
 through a forest of large trees with but little 
 underoTOwth. Here was a lone rhododendron 
 blooming at the foot of a tall oak, yonder a 
 cluster of azalia that fired the forest with its 
 flaming flora. 
 
 Suddenly they came to a fence, and going 
 straight forward, while the road turned to the 
 left, they passed through a gate into a broad, 
 beautiful meadow, which was divided into two 
 nearly equal parts by the pathway that led 
 through it before them. To the left of this 
 little meadow passage the mead rolled its green 
 sward gently down to the Linville Kiver, beyond 
 which was a hill of laurel and pine that led up 
 by steeps and land-saddles that wove them- 
 selves into a more distant prospect of elegant 
 ridges. 
 
 On the opposite side of the grassy track was 
 a cosey carpet of horizontal turf that led back 
 to a hill of equal green, which, being a part of 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 67 
 
 the same enclosure, swept down and blended 
 into the level that terminated its descent. 
 
 Directly before them, and about the centre 
 of the large enclosure, arose, as if by magic, an 
 elegant white mansion. Of its two fronts, one 
 overlooked the rolling sward that divided it 
 from the river on the south, while the other 
 caught in the modillions of its Corinthian entab- 
 lature the first kisses of the rising sun. 
 
 Surroundino- it was a commodious vard, en- 
 closed by a picket fence of such low structure 
 that it gave almost a complete view of the pinks, 
 roses, and other perennial blossoms that adorned 
 the within. 
 
 Two gravelled walks, one leading from each 
 front through the beautiful flowers, terminated 
 at as many gates, of wdiich the one on the east 
 stood ajar to receive those who were about to 
 enter its portal. 
 
 This was the residence of Colonel Salmer,* a 
 gentleman of fortune, who had swapj)ed the song 
 of the mockino'-bird in South Carolina for the 
 
 * During the war between the States, this mansion 
 was burned by Colonel Kirk's men when on their raid 
 to Camp Yance. The property is now owned and occu- 
 pied by Geo. E. Watkins, formerly of the U. S. Navy, 
 who has built an elegant dwelling near the spot where 
 the first one stood. 
 
68 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 nesting place of the snow-bird in the beautiful 
 land of the sky. 
 
 From a window within, tlie lord of the man- 
 sion recognized Mr. Skiles as the shepherd of 
 the little flock to which he belonged, and, going 
 out to meet him, received his hand with a cordial 
 clasp. The Colonel was then introduced to Mr. 
 Clippersteel and Miss Meaks, while Skipper 
 John looked upon the formality with surprise, 
 and evidently believed it to be some angelic per- 
 formance, the sanctity of whose mysteries none 
 but those in close communion with the Deity 
 could understand. 
 
 An inquiry about Leathershine being now in 
 order, it was ascertained that he had been there 
 an hour before, but, having learned through 
 Colonel Salmer that a Mr. Franklin lived near 
 the falls, he had gone thither to spend the night. 
 
 The arrivals were now conducted to seats in 
 the south 23ortico, which commanded an elegant 
 view of many objects, the least comely of them 
 all being the dim road; for here I may say that, 
 from where we saw it last, it led down to where 
 the fence made a right angle, and then turning 
 between that enclosing structure and the river 
 continued thus until it passed the house. 
 
 Skipper being helped to a chair leaned his 
 stupendous form against one of the supporting 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 69 
 
 columns that stood nearest the steps. His great 
 wide mouth swung open like a fly-trap made of 
 two clap-boards, and his knees extended quite 
 up to the sides of his flat head, while resting on 
 a round of the chair below were two massive feet, 
 whose hard bottoms, seared by long and severe 
 exposure, bade everlasting defiance to the chest- 
 nut-burr and the thorn. 
 
 The landlord, thinking that he had seen him 
 before, scrutinized him with a curious eye, and 
 only wondered what manner of man had been 
 brought to his house ; but when his light-hearted 
 wife tripped through the hall and burst into his 
 presence, she drew back like an unarmed man 
 meeting a grizzly on the great solitudes of the 
 West. Her eyes twinkled beneath a scowl as 
 she scanned him with a recovering glance. She 
 then advanced with shy steps, and gave the 
 minister her hand and received an introduction 
 to his friends. 
 
 By this time Clippersteel had perceived that a 
 rusty j^air of number sixteen feet, supporting a 
 form of proportionate size and bearing, would be 
 unwelcome visitors between the lily-white sheets 
 of * Mrs. Salmer's sleeping apartments ; and as 
 soon as he could politely excuse himself he pre- 
 pared his tent-bearer a resting-place by spreading 
 the tent below the house, by the laughing river. 
 
70 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 Wlien Clipper had placed Skipper securely in 
 the little pavilion and returned to the portico, 
 Mr. Skiles and Miss Meaks had been conducted 
 to their rooms, and Mrs. Salmer had withdrawn 
 to the culinary department. But the Colonel, 
 remaining in what Skipper called the '' porti- 
 kiazer,*' invited his returning guest to a seat, and 
 asked him how he liked the country. 
 
 " It is beautiful indeed," was the answer ; " and 
 what estimate would you set upon it, if a hun- 
 dred farms in this valley were prepared and 
 occupied like yours ?" 
 
 '' It would be the Eden of the world, sir, and 
 the pittance for which the land could now be 
 bought would scarcely be recognized in the esti- 
 mation of its value." 
 
 " I concur in your opinion ; and I venture to 
 say further, that the fifteen miles of country that 
 I have seen this evening, embracing yonder 
 stream from here to its source, is worth more for 
 the real comforts of life than ten times its area 
 elsewhere in the most fertile fields of the South." 
 
 " Experience has taught me that your position 
 is true, and, while my friends call it monkish in 
 me to have withdrawn from the allurements of 
 city life to this tranquillizing retreat, I answer 
 them with the following beautiful story of Cin- 
 cinnatus : 
 
TEE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 71 
 
 " When that model of Roman genius and integ- 
 rity had received a letter from the senate, asking 
 him, for the sake of the republic, to return to 
 the dictatorship, which he had resigned, he re- 
 plied as follows : 
 
 " ' If you could see the nice cabbage that I have 
 planted to-day, you would never say republic to 
 me again.' In like manner I say to my friends, 
 ' If you were to drink from the cool, pellucid water 
 of my spring ; feast on the rich milk from the 
 fat cattle that graze my fields ; breathe the sweet 
 air from the Balsam Groves of the Grandfather, 
 and view their glorious aspect, and see the red 
 roses that have taken the place of blanched lilies 
 on the cheeks of my wife and darling boyj you 
 would never say city to me again.' " 
 
 The spring of which the Colonel spoke was 
 reached by a diagonal path passing through and 
 beyond the front yard to the right, Avhere the 
 smoothness of the landscape was broken by some 
 ,rocks that jutted from the slope, and seemed to 
 wall the subterranean channel through which 
 the little stream came from some higher source. 
 Here was the dairy, which was made of hewn 
 logs neatly joined together and painted white. 
 Its form was that of an oblong square. The 
 plates crowning the side walls and the roof sup- 
 ported by them, passed over and beyond the end 
 
72 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 wall next the hill, forming an extended gable 
 that sheltered both the spring and the entrance 
 to the little edifice. 
 
 Large slabs of stone walled in the crystal 
 fountain, and extended their collateral joinings 
 on the side towards the approach, forming a seat 
 for two persons. 
 
 After a delicious supper of savory dishes, its 
 elegant serving by the accomplished landlady, 
 the sending of a portion of the same to Skipper, 
 who lived in the tent, and the interesting and 
 varied conversation participated in during the 
 consumption of the repast, Clippersteel and his 
 beloved went down to the spring and occupied 
 the seat above referred to. 
 
 The tiny streamlet, trickling from its source 
 through the apartments of the dairy, chirped 
 like young birds claiming their mother's pro- 
 tection at night, as Clippersteel said to his in- 
 tended, "Look towards those willows by the 
 rippling stream ; see how the glow-worms and 
 fire-flies streak and spangle the twilight." 
 
 "I was just asking myself," she replied, 
 " whether or not our lives would end so beauti- 
 fully as the closing of this day." 
 
 ."Only those who live after us can tell the 
 solution of that problem. Useful lives and 
 beautiful days often have endings quite different 
 
TEE GRANDFATEER MOUNTAIN. 73 
 
 from the zeniths of their glory ; and the changes 
 that take place in the skies of a single clay may 
 elegantly illustrate the human career. For in- 
 stance, I have seen the sun burn his way through 
 twelve hours of ethereal blue, and then set in a 
 cloud that soon obscured the sky with darkness 
 and gloom, and the red lightning, darting its 
 fiery shuttle through the loom of thunder, wove 
 a curtain that mantled the earth in terror and 
 death. Then I have seen days that were dark and 
 dreary, when the bellowing thunder drove the 
 wild beast to his shelter in the rocks, and the 
 pelting rain thrown by the angry hand of the 
 storm demolished the crops of the land and left 
 the sinewy hands of toil empty with hunger and 
 pain. Then the clouds drifted away, and Sol 
 impressed his good-night kisses upon the moun- 
 tain-tops in token that he would rise from a 
 saffron bed on the morrow. Again, there has 
 been many a succession of beautiful days accom- 
 panied by as many glorious eves, when Venus 
 and the moon, contesting for the prize of beauty, 
 hung their golden scale in the west to weigh the 
 admiration that each received from the world, 
 and the chestnut sunshine that painted the 
 blooming fields was broken only by gentle 
 showers, that struck not the earth with madness, 
 but gave it a warm kiss, from whose loving 
 
74 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 impress there sprang up a beautiful robe of 
 green." 
 
 " Wliat a 23rofusion of beautiful words you 
 utter, Charlie. You have painted three pictures 
 of human life from the cradle to the grave. 
 May our lot be neither the first nor the second, 
 but let it be like the continuation of beautiful 
 days. May our lives be a season of perpetual 
 sunshine to the heart, when the mind neither 
 reverts to tire past nor reaches to the future, but 
 is content with the pleasures of the present; 
 and if tears must come, may they fall in the 
 prepared soil and ripen the fruits of the soul ; 
 and at the end we will not contest for the prize, 
 but will be content to share alike the glories of 
 the world to come." 
 
 " You have a tenderness about you, my dear 
 Lidie, and a nobleness of heart which I never 
 heard expressed before. Your sweet words, drop- 
 ping like vocal roses from the gardens of lan- 
 guage, heighten, if possible, the joy of the 
 thought that you are soon to be mine. Your 
 silvery accents, to which the trickling streamlet 
 beside us plays a sweet accompaniment, tell me 
 to rob life no longer of the bliss for which I 
 sigh ; and now, as you have no parents' consent 
 to obtain, no sisters to invite, but only a lone 
 brother far in the West, I propose that our 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 75 
 
 nuptials be performed at the great falls, to- 
 morrow.'' 
 
 Lidie, remaining silent for a time, heaved a 
 sigh, and then said, " I fear that Prudence would 
 censure my acceptance, for I am in the far-off 
 mountains, without a wedding garment, or even 
 a few friends to celebrate the occasion." 
 
 " The foaming falls will lend you from their 
 white spray a queenly robe, the benign woods 
 will deck it with flowers more gorgeous than the 
 artist can paint, and the harmonious melody 
 produced by the combined musical agents of 
 flood and forest will do honor to the occasion.'' 
 
76 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE WEDDING. 
 
 The falls that pour their foaming floods, 
 
 And set the wind in motion, 
 That wave the boughs and flaunt the carls 
 
 On heads of true devotion, 
 Could they but sing the song of pain 
 
 That's mingled in my story. 
 Their name would fill the vaulted skies, 
 
 And be enrolled in glory. 
 
 The beautiful homestead depicted in the last 
 chapter is now in Mitchell County, but at the 
 time of our story it was in the county of Wa- 
 tauga, and more than twenty miles from the 
 court-house. However, it w^as only eight miles 
 south of a place that was and is called the " Old 
 Field of Toe," a muster-ground in use before 
 the war, where lived a magistrate who was depu- 
 tized to issue marriage licenses. 
 
 When Clippersteel had conducted his lady in 
 out of the night air from the seat by the spring, 
 he consulted the landlord for a few moments, 
 after which he wrote a note to the justice, enclos- 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 77 
 
 ing a license-fee, and then passed out and down 
 towards the tent. 
 
 As he tripped down through the lawn with 
 the peert and nimble spirit of Hymen playing 
 in his bosom, he sang the following lines : 
 
 Lovely Emma, sweet Emma, 
 
 Would you think it unkind. 
 If I were to sit by you 
 
 And tell you my mind ? 
 My mind is to marry, 
 
 And never to part ; 
 The first time I saw you 
 
 You wounded my heart. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Oh, her breath smells as sweet 
 
 As the dew on the vine ; 
 God bless you, lovely Emma, 
 
 I wish you were mine. 
 
 He was now near the little white pavilion, 
 where Skipper's deep slumbers Avere betokened 
 by the loud, nocturnal winding of his nasal horn. 
 His peculiar errand, and the feeling engen- 
 dered by it, had intensified that inherited super- 
 stition which dwells even in the bosom of the 
 wise. Forms of fear gathered in the quiet 
 willows bv the stream, and the nasal voice of 
 Skipper sounded like groans from some cavern 
 
 7* 
 
78 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 of the earth in which the bones of dead men 
 were mouldering. 
 
 " On the lawny sands and shelves 
 Trip the peert fairies and the da2:)per elves." 
 
 Witli his heart slightly unnerved and danc- 
 ing to the music of Hymen's lute, Clippersteel 
 bounded into the tent and stirred the snoring 
 man from his lethargy. 
 
 " Have you ever been to the * Old Fields of 
 Toe' ? " inquired he. 
 
 "Yes, sar," answered Skipper, pressing the 
 knuckles of his front fingers against his eyes; 
 "I went thar to the big balluginary " (bat- 
 talion) " muster." 
 
 It was now agreed between Clipper and Skip- 
 per that, if the latter should have the license in 
 the tent by daylight on the morrow, he was to 
 receive, as a partial compensation, enough money 
 to buy him a new fur hat, which in those days 
 meant a high stiff hat, plushed with fur on the 
 outside, and having a crown flat on top. 
 
 This was the style of masculine head-gear that 
 a gentleman had on when a jester accosted him 
 with the following interrogation : 
 
 " Halloo, stranger ; are your cows all dead ? " 
 
 " No, sir," replied the man ; " and why do 
 you ask that question ? " 
 
 \ 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 79 
 
 " Why, sir/' replied the merry-Andrew, " I see 
 that you have your wife's churn on your head." 
 
 In case of a successful trip on the part of 
 Skipper, he was to receive, also, sufficient money 
 to purchase himself a pair of boots, of which the 
 fronts were to be red, from the tops down nearly 
 to the ankles. 
 
 Skipper was soon plodding his way through 
 the valleys and over the heights, and, as the 
 moping owl complained to the fair moon that 
 rolled up the eastern sky, he meditated upon the 
 future as follows : " I'll stick a feather from the 
 red rooster's tail in my fur hat, and put my red- 
 topped boots on the outside of my pants, and go 
 to see Peggy Sigemore, and Betz Kite, who 
 kicked me and called me an old balsam climber, 
 will wish that she had me for a beau." 
 
 As these happy thoughts of sudden distinction 
 passed through his mind, he was so transported 
 with joy that he answered the hoot of the owl with 
 the following hymn, which he sang to long metre : 
 
 " The squir'l he has a bushy tail, 
 The possum's tail is bare, 
 A rabbit has no tail at all, 
 But a little bit-a-bunch of hair. 
 
 " The raccoon up the chestnut-tree, 
 The possum in the holler, 
 A purty gal at our house. 
 As fat as she can waller." 
 
80 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 Next morning, when twilight still spread her 
 dusky pinions over the land, and the moon, hang- 
 ing just above the western horizon, cast a pale 
 glare on the saffron-gild from the sun, Clipper- 
 steel re-entered the tent, where his precursor, 
 having returned, was again wrapped in the re- 
 storing arms of Morpheus. In his right hand, 
 which rested on his brow, was the marriage 
 document, while around one of his great toes, 
 at the other extremity of his long person, was 
 a bandage of green leaves tied on with a string of 
 hickory bark and bloodied from a wound within. 
 Seeing that all was well, he left the man for an 
 hour to his peaceful slumbers, and then returned 
 with a waiter heavy laden with hot coffee and 
 wholesome food, and as he entered the tent 
 Skipper arose, and, extending his hand, said : 
 
 " I got 'um, goody ; her's yer licengers." 
 
 " And here," said Clippersteel, ^' is your 
 money," passing him a handful of silver dollars. 
 Skipper smiled behind his ears, and his short 
 coat danced up and down to the roaring chuckle 
 that inflated his ribs. 
 
 *' Did a snake bite your toe ?" inquired Clipper- 
 steel. 
 
 " No, sar," replied Skipper ; " I stump' the 
 nail off 'en it," and, putting his hand in his pant's 
 pocket, he drew out the great bloody toe armor, 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 81 
 
 and, handing it to Clippersteel, said, " Thar it is. 
 I'll give ye that to remember who brought yer 
 licengers." 
 
 " Thank you. Skipper," was the reply ; " it is 
 a nice souvenir, and I shall ever keep it among 
 my most valued treasures." Skipper thought 
 that he had never before heard a toe-nail called 
 a " susandear," but, not doubting the authentic- 
 ity of the word, he adopted it into his vocabu- 
 lary, and ever afterwards applied the name to 
 toe-nails that had been knocked off by accident. 
 
 The blue sky that adorned the wedding-day 
 was decked w^ith a bright sun that had risen a 
 few degrees above the horizon when the party 
 filed through the gate, by the tent, and turned 
 down the murmurins: stream. Ridino; in front 
 was the lone Mr. Skiles. Next in order was the 
 bride and groom, the latter occupying a horse 
 procured from a Mr. Dellinger, who was neigh- 
 bor to the host and hostess. Third in rank was 
 Mrs. Salmer and the Colonel, who were mounted 
 on two splendid bays from their own stalls, while 
 the rear was brought up by a servant riding a 
 long-eared donkey and bearing on his arm a 
 large basket of lunch. 
 
 Skipper, who had gone in advance, was so elated 
 by his connection with the affair that he told 
 every yeoman he met by the way what was 
 / 
 
82 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 going to take place at the falls ; and these early 
 settlers, whose amusements were few and far be- 
 tween, looking upon the outdoor wedding as a 
 public affair, dropped their ploughs and hoes in 
 the fields, and putting on their best garments 
 went towards the scene. 
 
 In consequence of the above, Mr. Skiles soon 
 found an equestrian partner in the person of a 
 Mr. Buchanan, who had quit the irksome mono- 
 tone of his plough for the exhilarating pastime 
 of nuptial festivities. 
 
 Before the equestrians reached the falls, 
 Skipper, whom they had jDassed on the way, had 
 gathered to his side a company of twenty persons 
 or more, made uj) of both sexes, in about equal 
 numbers. The women wore homespun dresses, 
 which they had made for themselves, by carding, 
 spinning, and weaving the fleece of the sheep, 
 and, finally, cutting and fitting the fabric to their 
 persons. Their head-gear consisted of plain 
 calico bonnets, while their waists and bosoms were 
 set about with fillets of red ribbon that flaunted 
 to the gales of the woods. 
 
 Each man was armed with his long fire- 
 lock rifle, which, when stood upon its breech, 
 extended from the soles of his feet to the 
 crown of his head. These were carried as a 
 means of killino; the abundant deer and other 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 83 
 
 game that frequently crossed the roads and 
 paths. 
 
 In the party was a moustaehed man, middle- 
 aged and handsome, by the name of Clark, who 
 seemed to have descended from some professional 
 family that had strayed into the far-off mountains 
 and retrograded from their former learning and 
 dignity. 
 
 Beside him was his daughter. Miss Ada, a 
 blooming girl of sweet sixteen, whose form was 
 cast in neat proportion's mould. Her queenly 
 hands, tapering and fair as the lily, were 
 gloved with a pair of red mits of her own knit- 
 ting, which exposed the ends of the fingers and 
 the first joints of the thumbs. 
 
 Her golden hair was like a shower of primrose 
 petals falling, and her cheeks were finished with 
 the artistic touches of Aurora's rosy hand. Her 
 eyes were like the corolla leaves of the blue- 
 veined violet, her nose was a posy to her face, 
 and her pearly teeth sparkled with nectarean 
 dew. " She was a flower born to blush unseen 
 and waste its sweetness on the desert air." 
 
 In those days it was customary for a gentleman 
 to propose his escort to a lady in the following 
 manner. Walking up to her side, he said, " Do 
 you love chicken ?" which nowadays would be 
 equivalent to asking if she were a Methodist. 
 
84 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 If she answered " Yes," he then presented his 
 arm with the words, " Have a wing," whereupon 
 she put her arm through his. But if the answer 
 was " No," he was refused, or, in the parlance of 
 the times, she had " kicked" him. Such scenes 
 usually occurred in large crowds that were going 
 the distance of ten miles or more, to or from 
 church, on the Sabbath day, and the fellow who 
 got " kicked" was always greatly derided by 
 most of those who witnessed the chagrin of his 
 disappointment. 
 
 On the present occasion, when all were bound 
 for the falls, a fellow, with the blood-red top-knot 
 of an imperial woodpecker in his hat-band, 
 stepped up to the side of Miss Ada; bijt just as 
 he would have propounded the Methodist ques- 
 tion, her father gave him a disapproving glance, 
 by which his heart failed him, and he passed on 
 to the side of a bunty girl with a flaxen head and 
 a frisky air, and, looking her in the face with a 
 grin, he said, *' Aggie, do you love chicken ?" 
 
 *' I don't love roosters," was the pert reply. 
 
 The answer beino; new and thorou^'hlv orio-inal, 
 the fellow was for a time completely dumfounded 
 for something to say, but finally he got his mouth 
 off, and said, " Will you let one walk with you 
 to the wed'en ?" 
 
 " Yes, if he don't crow too loud," she replied. 
 
LINVILLE FALLS. 
 
 Page 85. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN, 85 
 
 The heterogeneous gathering was now on the 
 west bank of the river, at the top of the cataract, 
 where the stream passed transversely over a 
 saddle of rock, and dropping off, at the lower 
 skirt, fell the height of a tall tree into a pool of 
 matchless depth and beauty. But since that time 
 the ledge has broken down, so that the water 
 leaps and cascades alternately through a curved 
 and partly concealed grove, and finally termi- 
 nates in a clear fall of only about thirty feet, as 
 seen in the cut. 
 
 The pool, however,, which is about fifty yards 
 wide and twice as long, with the corners slightly 
 rounded, has lost none of its original beauty, 
 unless it is in the diminished magnitude of the 
 white breakers that rufile its dark bosom. The 
 long way of this beautiful lake is at right 
 angles to the fall, and its outlet is through a 
 narrow channel at the east end. 
 
 The party, having satiated their sesthetic 
 vision from the top, now started for a landing at 
 the bottom, and there never was a wilder way 
 than theirs. The little track wound, and still 
 winds, through and under laurel and ivy, around 
 and over cliffs, and then turns down a slope of 
 forty-five degrees, and runs as straight as a gun- 
 barrel for the distance of fifty yards. This 
 visible section of the path, canopied by the 
 
 8 
 
86 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 lapping boiighs of the rhododendron and calmia, 
 is crossed by many rocks and tree roots, which, 
 having been divested of soil by clambering feet, 
 look like the rounds of a long ladder leading 
 down to the subterranean falls and glittering 
 stalactites of a cave. At the foot of this shaded 
 vista, the way turning down the stream to the 
 right passes up into and down through crevices, 
 where the overhanging rocks, being of the Meth- 
 odist persuasion, sprinkle the heads of the pass- 
 ers-by with clean water. And, indeed, it seems 
 quite thoughtful in these stones to prepare the 
 traveller at this point for death, because the next 
 fifty yards of his path are the most dangerous 
 that the writer has witnessed in all North Carolina. 
 Here the south side of the pool is bounded by 
 a perpendicular rock that walls an unknown 
 depth of water, and then rises from ten to thirty 
 feet above its surface ; and we do not exaggerate 
 in the least, when we say that the track is on 
 the very brink of this ledge, and in some places 
 barely w^ide enougli for the feet. The fears of 
 the tourist are to some extent removed by the 
 laurel hangings above and a fringe of light 
 vegetation on the brow of the rock below, but 
 the latter would not support the weight of a 
 falling babe, and the former might be missed by 
 the clutch of one who had lost his footing. If 
 
THE GRAND FATHER MOUNTAIN. 87 
 
 ever a lady tumbles over this precipice, she will 
 most probably be lost, and a gentleman could 
 save himself only by good swimming. 
 
 Our wedding party, now quadrupled by the 
 country people, followed this hazardous track 
 to where it spreads into a bench of rock about 
 as wide as the floor of a bedroom and several 
 times as long. If we imagine this seat occupied 
 by a giant of suitable size, his calves will rest 
 against the perpendicular wall of the pool and 
 his feet will be washed by its breakers. Before 
 him, the white torrent pours down into the boil- 
 ing pot, while immediately on the right of the 
 foaming cataract rises a great ledge of stone, 
 from whose summit a Niagara leaper might 
 make a most beautiful dive into the pool, one 
 hundred feet below. 
 
 This ledge is only the upper end of a long 
 w^all that extends down the stream and rears its 
 battlements in front of a low oval knob, in the 
 rear of which is a scattered growth of dead 
 and living pine, with scarcely anything beneath 
 except short bunches of calmia. 
 
 The back of our imaginary giant is supported 
 by the smooth face of a cliff" about thirty feet 
 high, which breaks at the top into a succession 
 of ivy-mantled crags that rise almost perpen- 
 dicularly for several hundred feet, to where they 
 
88 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 are crowned with a grove of Carolina pine [Abies 
 Caroliniana). While these crags are exceed- 
 ingly beautiful in elevation, they are also equally 
 picturesque in their longitudinal extension far 
 down the stream, where the rocks rear their gray 
 crests above their evergreen mantles, and, with 
 their surroundings, blend into a scene as wild 
 and varied as can be woven of the warp and 
 woof of mystery and repose. 
 
 The country gentlemen, having leaned their 
 rifles against the cliflP, stood with their women 
 folks, anxiously awaiting the expected event. 
 In due time the bride and groom, attended by 
 Colonel and Mrs. Salmer, were arrayed for mar- 
 riage. 
 
 Their backs were in the neighborhood of the 
 guns, while their faces were towards the great 
 pouring column, wliose white wings and boiling 
 pedestal sent forth a breeze that set all the near 
 flora and other equally movable objects in 
 motion, — bush, weed, and flower, as well as 
 ribbons, tresses, whiskers, and moustaches, and 
 even the leaves of the minister's book were all 
 dancing to the wind of the falls. As Mr. Skiles 
 composed the fluttering pages beneath his thumbs, 
 he drew so near and spoke so loud, in order to be 
 heard above the roar of the waters, that his 
 manner, elsewhere, would have been suitable 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 89 
 
 only to those who were partially deaf. The 
 charming bride, with dove-like eyes, looked 
 steadily upon the minister ; and, as he proceeded 
 with the beautiful Episcopal service, there never 
 was a bliss more wild and warm and boundless 
 than that which thrilled her heart. " If any 
 man," said the clergyman, ^' can show just cause 
 why they may not lawfully be joined together, 
 let him now speak or else hereafter forever hold 
 his peace." 
 
 To the great surprise of all present, a sneer- 
 ing voice, on a different key from the thunder- 
 ing of the falls, was heard to say, " I object." 
 This came from none other than Leathershine, 
 who had resolved to avenge his defeat by vexing 
 the occasion with this obnoxious objection, based, 
 as we shall see, upon an odious falsehood ; and, 
 the better to accomplish his design, he had con- 
 cealed himself in the green of the steeps, so as 
 to appear at a time when the groom could not 
 contravene his purpose nor do him violence. 
 
 " What is the ground of your objection ?" 
 inquired the minister. 
 
 " She is engaged to me" w^as the reply. 
 
 No one can describe the trembling pallor that 
 seized the person of poor Lidie Meaks. With 
 eyes full of overflowing fondness, she looked upon 
 him she loved, as if to say, " I am innocent." 
 
 8* 
 
90 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 Her chin dropped upon the flowers that adorned 
 her bosom ; every nerve and muscle of her frame 
 lost its energy, and she sank at the feet of the 
 groom, not in the fashion of one who falls under 
 the influence of excessive excitement, but like 
 a pure woman borne down by the weight of a 
 calumny perpetrated upon a warm life that no 
 sin had ever tarnished. 
 
 The copious pool, so near the fainting bride, 
 was yet so far that not a drop of its pellucid 
 contents could be had with which to bathe her 
 brow. 
 
 But the groom quickly produced from his 
 pocket a little bottle of brandy, which he 
 carried, as a precaution, in case of accidents, 
 and spreading a portion of its contents over her 
 pallid face, the signs of restoration soon became 
 apparent. The country folks had gathered 
 round like the p)eople of a city rushing to the 
 scene of an accident, when those at disadvantage 
 look over the shoulders of those in front to get 
 a view of the within. 
 
 By this time Leathershine had run down the 
 lake, and was ascending the heights at a point 
 below, when Clippersteel, darting through the 
 crowd, snatched a rifle from its leaning-place, 
 and was aiming a shot that would have de- 
 spatched the retreating coward, had not Mr. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 91 
 
 Clark grabbed the muzzle of the gun and borne 
 it downward until he had gone out of sight. 
 
 A few minutes later the infamous dude 
 mounted his horse, and, riding directly to 
 Valle Crucis, packed his trunk and fled before 
 Mr. Skiles had returned. 
 
 The tumult was now ended ; the bride was 
 able to sit upon a shawl which had been offered 
 by a good mountain matron ; and an hour later 
 the marriage service was closed with the follow- 
 ing prayer : 
 
 ^' O eternal God, creator and preserver of all 
 mankind, giver of all spiritual grace, the author 
 of everlasting life, send thy blessing upon these 
 thy servants, this man and this w^oman, whom 
 we bless in thy name ; that, as Isaac and Re- 
 becca lived, faithfully together, so these persons 
 may surely perform and keep the vow and 
 covenant betwixt them made (whereof this ring 
 given and received is a token and j^ledge), and 
 may ever remain in perfect love and peace to- 
 gether, and live according to thy laws, through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." 
 
 Hanging on a limb, at the top of the cataract, 
 was the basket of lunch, and those for whose 
 comfort it had been prepared, now climbing in 
 single file for its rich morsels, w^ere followed by 
 the riflemen, with their ruddy consorts and lasses. 
 
92 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 As the mountaineers were departing for their 
 homes, Mr. Clark and his daughter accepted a 
 cordial invitation from Mrs. Salmer to take kmch. 
 
 The dinner was taken to a convenient spot, 
 where a number of large rocks laid round in 
 circular form, and spread within their circumfer- 
 ence on the cloths in which it had been folded. 
 
 Skipper, having now remained with his older 
 friends, looked on from a distance, as if uncertain 
 as to how near the food his welcome extended ; 
 but when Clippersteel observed his doubtful atti- 
 tude, he took him by the arm and seated him on 
 a bowlder, suitable to his size, within the circle. 
 His valuable service to Mr. Clippersteel and the 
 wound ujion his great toe having elicited general 
 sympathy, Mrs. Salmer helped him to the first 
 round, as she did the rest, and then bade all wait 
 on themselves. 
 
 Under the cloths, in the corner nearest to 
 Skipper, was a flat rock that so pressed its 
 bosom against the white covering as to form a 
 neat little elevation, which was occupied by a 
 large, highly-flavored cake, of a rich, yellowish 
 cast, the same being cut from the centre to every 
 second or third convolution that ornamented its 
 circumference. 
 
 When Skipper had quickly gulped down 
 what had been given him, he took a piece of 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 93 
 
 cake, when Mrs. Salmer, looking upon him 
 with a degree of allowance, thought, " Poor, 
 ignorant fellow doesn't know which end of the 
 meal to begin at." 
 
 The Adam's-apple on Skipper's neck had 
 not played up and down more than twice, when 
 he seized a second piece of the rich composition, 
 and then a third ; and the lady in charge, be- 
 coming alarmed lest none should be left for the 
 rest, laid a drum-stick on a biscuit, and said, — 
 
 "Here, Mr. Potter" (calling his surname), 
 " have this nice chicken and biscuit." 
 
 ^'Oh, no," said he; "eat that yerself; this 
 punkin bread's good enough fur me." 
 
 Those who had previously suppressed their 
 hilarity at Skipper's mistakes were now unable 
 to conceal their glee, and all burst into such 
 explosions of laughter that great mouthfuls of 
 masticated bread and butter flew against the 
 surrounding rocks like showers of shot from a 
 fowling-piece. 
 
 Mr. Clippersteel settled with his lovely wife 
 in the city of Paleigh, where he had formerly 
 resided, and the murmurs heard in that family 
 were like the voice of a sunlit tide embracing 
 the tinted shells of the shore in love. 
 
 END OP THE STORY. 
 
94 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE WESTEKN GATE-WAY TO THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 The East Tennessee and "Western North Caro- 
 lina Railroad, which is more generally known as 
 the Cranberry Kailroad, leads through one of the 
 most unique and beautiful regions in America. 
 The first ten miles of this admirable narrow 
 gauge, extending from Johnson City, Tennessee, 
 to Elizabeth town of the same State, lies through 
 the broad, fertile valley of the lower Watauga, 
 a country productive in men so eloquent as to 
 convert the very language of common life into 
 poetry. 
 
 It was in and around this favored spot that 
 Andrew Johnson, though born in North Caro- 
 lina, began that political career that crowned 
 him with the garlands of the nation. 
 
 Here was born and reared Thomas A. R. 
 Nelson, the able jurist, who, soon after the late 
 rebellion, wrote the prophetic poem on East Ten- 
 nessee beginning with the following beautiful 
 lines : 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN, 95 
 
 EAST TENNESSEE. 
 
 East Tennessee ! secluded land 
 
 Of gentle hills and mountains grand, 
 
 Where healthful breezes ever blow, 
 
 And coolest springs and rivers flow ; 
 
 AYhere yellow wheat and waving corn 
 
 Are liberal poured from plenty's horn, — 
 
 Land of the valley and the glen. 
 
 Of lovely maids and stalwart men ; 
 
 Thy gorgeous sunsets well may vie. 
 
 In splendor, with Italian sky ; 
 
 For, gayest colors deck the clouds. 
 
 As night the dying sun enshrouds. 
 
 And heaven itself doth wild enfold 
 
 Its drapery of blue and gold. 
 
 And, pillowed in the rosy air. 
 
 The seraphs well might gather there. 
 
 And, in the rainbow-tinted west, 
 
 Be lulled by their own songs to rest ! 
 
 Thy bracing winter, genial spring. 
 The ruddy glow of rapture bring ; 
 Thy summer's mild and grateful heat. 
 From sweltering suns gives cool retreat ; 
 While frosty autumn, full of health, 
 Fills crib and barn Avith grainy wealth. 
 And challenges the earth to dress 
 Its leaves in richer loveliness ! 
 
 Enchanting land, where nature showers 
 Her fairest fruits and gaudiest flowers; 
 Where stately forests wide expand, 
 Inviting the industrious hand, 
 
96 THE BALSAM GBOVES OF 
 
 And all the searching eye can view 
 Is beautiful and useful, too ; 
 Who knows thee well, is sure to love, 
 Where'er his wandering footsteps rove, 
 And backward ever turns to thee, 
 With fond, regretful memory. 
 Feeling his heart impatient burn k 
 
 Among thy mountains to return ! < 
 
 In this fertile valley Colonels Shelby and 
 Sevier collected and marshalled the troops with 
 which they joined Colonel Campbell, of Vir- 
 ginia, in winning the glorious victory over the 
 British at King's Mountain. 
 
 Here William G. Brownlow, the Fio^htino: 
 Pastor, preached, and at the same time ran a 
 forge and a casting-furnace on the Doe Biver, 
 only a few miles above its confluence with the 
 Watauga, just below Elizabethtown. 
 
 At his forge the blacksmiths purchased a 
 good quality of wrought-iron, from which they 
 made the hoes, harrows, and ploughs of the 
 times ; and from his furnace, which was simply 
 a primeval manufactory of cooking utensils, the 
 ladies obtained the long-legged black iron pots 
 that ornamented the broad, anti-stove hearth- 
 stones of East Tennessee homes. 
 
 On the left bank of the Doe Kiver, within 
 
 the corporate limits of Elizabethtown, is an his- 
 toric sycamore that is destined to catch the eye 
 
o 
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 o 
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 n 
 
 m 
 
 r; 
 
 N 
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 00 
 
 m 
 
 o 
 
 z 
 
 
TEE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 97 
 
 and receive the touch of thousands of American 
 citizens. Its branches are as flourishing as the 
 State in whose soil it grows, and its leaves are 
 fashioned to the patterns of the dallying nooks 
 in the rippling stream, to whose joyful song 
 they dance and tremble. Its beautiful bark, 
 always brightly spotted by the partial dropping 
 of its annual incrustations, looks as though it 
 were mantled in the robes of the leopard. Even 
 its parting boughs seem to have been passed 
 through the cased arms of skins from the car- 
 nivorous beast. 
 
 Beneath the umbrageous foliage of this beauti- 
 ful tree, within the mirthful sound of the laugh- 
 ing Doe River, where every breeze was sweet 
 with the odor of neighboring cedars, Andrew 
 Jackson (Old Hickory) , the royal hater of John 
 Quincy Adams, held the first Supreme Court ever 
 convened in the great Commonwealth of Ten- 
 nessee. 
 
 Three miles below the place of the great 
 
 soldier's sylvan court were born and raised the 
 
 Taylor brothers, Bob and Alf, who, being rival 
 
 nominees for Governor of Tennessee in 1886, 
 
 reproduced " The War of the Bed and White 
 
 Boses." In this political unique, Bob proved 
 
 to be of the House of York, even for a second 
 
 term, and the House of Lancaster, though de- 
 ^ g 9 
 
98 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 feated for the gubernatorial chair, has since been 
 twice elected to Congress. 
 
 I cannot better continue my description of 
 the Watauga Valley than by quoting the mag- 
 nanimous oration which Landen C. Haynes, the 
 maternal uncle of the Taylor brothers, delivered 
 under the following circumstances : 
 
 At a grand banquet given to members of the 
 bench and bar, during a session of the Supreme 
 Court, held in Jackson, Tennessee, soon after the 
 war between the States, General N. B. Forest 
 arose and said : " Gentlemen, I propose the health 
 of the eloquent attorney from East Tennessee" 
 (turning to Haynes), " a country sometimes called 
 the God- forsaken." 
 
 Mr. Haynes responded as follows : 
 
 "Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I plead 
 guilty to the soft impeachment. I was born in 
 East Tennessee, on the banks of the Watauga, 
 which in the Indian vernacular means beautiful 
 river, and a beautiful river it is. I have stood 
 upon its banks in my childhood and looked 
 down through its glassy waters, and have seen 
 a heaven below, and then looked uj) and beheld 
 a heaven above, reflecting, like two vast mirrors, 
 each in the other its moons and planets and 
 trembling stars. 
 
 " Away from its banks of rock and cliff, hem- 
 
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 I- 
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 UJ 
 
 I 
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 u. 
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 CO 
 
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 m 
 
 UJ 
 
 X 
 I- 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 99 
 
 lock and laurel, pine and cedar, stretches a vale 
 back to the distant mountains as beautiful and 
 as exquisite as any in Italy or Switzerland. 
 
 " There stand the great Unaka, the great Roan, 
 the great Blacks, and the great Smoky Moun- 
 tains, among the loftiest in America, on whose 
 summits the clouds gather of their own accord, 
 even on the brightest day. There I have seen 
 the great spirit of the storm after noontide go 
 and take his evening nap in his pavilion of 
 darkness and of clouds. 
 
 " I have then seen him aroused at midnight 
 as a giant refreshed by slumber and cover the 
 heavens with gloom and darkness, have seen 
 him awake the tempest and let loose the red 
 lightnings that ran along the mountain-tops for 
 a thousand miles swifter than an eagle's flight in 
 heaven. 
 
 " Then I have seen them stand up and dance, 
 like angels of light in the clouds, to the music 
 of that grand organ of nature, whose keys seemed 
 to have been touched by the fingers of the 
 Divinity, in the hall of eternity that responded 
 in notes of thunder resounding through the 
 universe. 
 
 "Then I have seen the darkness drift away 
 beyond the horizon, and the morn get up from 
 her saffron bed like a queen, put on her robes 
 
100 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 of liglit, come forth from her palace in the sun, 
 and * stand tiptoe on the misty mountain-top/ 
 and while Night fled before her glorious face 
 to his bedchamber at the pole she lighted the 
 green vale and beautiful river, where I was 
 born and played in childhood, with a smile of 
 sunshine. 
 
 "Oh, beautiful land of the mountains with 
 thy sun-painted cliffs, how can I ever forget 
 thee !'' 
 
 Mr. Haynes had a countenance as broad and 
 brilliant as the land of his birth, and a voice as 
 sweet and musical as Watauga's murmuring tide. 
 If he had lived in the days of Greek or 
 Koman triumph, and had displayed his silver- 
 tongued eloquence at the foot of Helicon or in 
 the valley of the Tiber, his countrymen would 
 have dropped a wreath of glory upon his brow 
 and proclaimed him first of the nation. 
 
 It is most probable that he had never seen 
 the great evergreen Grandfather, through whose 
 ferny filters trickle the first sparkling stream- 
 lets of the pellucid river that he immortalized, 
 for if he had ever beheld its beautiful clouds 
 shedding their vernal showers upon the myriads 
 of speckled beauties in the Watauga, the Elk, 
 and the Linville, or " looping their wind-swung 
 folds" around the giant arms of the majestic 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 101 
 
 balsams high on the mountain-top, he would 
 have set it as a gem in the exquisite eulogy on 
 his native land. 
 
 The passenger-train that curls its column of 
 smoke through and beyond the beautiful vales 
 of the Watauga is called by the quaint but 
 appropriate nomenclature of the stem-winder, 
 because, in winding the many graceful curves 
 of the road where brooks pouring down over 
 the rocks throw spray in at the windows, and 
 the passing gales blossom with the sweet odors 
 of the woods, it bears a marked resemblance to 
 the tempered steel of a time-keeper in playing 
 its part within the glittering gold and among 
 the intricate movements of the best jewelled 
 stem-winder in the pocket of the millionaire. 
 
 Six miles above Elizabethtown, the stem- 
 winder stops at Allentown, a handsome station, 
 where the " Spring Lake Inn" and the Hampton 
 Hotel are situated beside a clear and unusually 
 voluminous limestone spring, which is the nearest 
 calcareous neighbor to the free-stone fountains 
 of the Highlands. 
 
 One mile beyond Allentown, the iron steed 
 dashes through one of the five tunnels on the 
 line, and bursts into a grand canyon called the 
 Gorge. Here the Doe Eiver, a rumbling, tum- 
 bling, rollicking, frolicking stream, in dancing and 
 
 9* 
 
102 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 dallying along tlie countless ages of time, has 
 cut its way down through the Azoic rocks to 
 the depth of a tliousand feet, and so nearly 
 perpendicular are the walls on either side that 
 a suspension bridge could be constructed, with 
 usual decorum, across the chasm at the top. 
 Through this unique and beautiful gate-way to 
 the Highlands of Western North Carolina, the 
 road-bed has been prepared, for the distance of 
 four miles, by cutting a niche out of the rocks, 
 about fifty feet above the river, on the left 
 bank ; and as the stem-winder " wheels its dron- 
 ing flight" through crag and canyon, by rushing 
 ra]3ids and foaming falls, through bracing air 
 and views sublime, it passes by great towers and 
 walls, and temples, and cathedrals, and castles 
 " of stone, ornamented with spires and domes and 
 turrets and battlements, and enriched with a 
 profusion of wild pinks that grow in the crevices 
 and impart a glowing harmony to the gray 
 columns and 23ilasters and obelisks and pinnacles 
 and porticos of stone behind them. Passing 
 this colossal structure of Nature's masonry, the 
 stem-winder follows the rumbling waters of the 
 Doe to Roan Mountain station and hotel, which 
 are connected by a hack line and a telephone 
 with Cloudland Hotel, twelve miles away on the 
 bald of the great E-oan Mountain. 
 
PARDEE'S POINT, IN DOE RIVER GORGE. 
 (from a Photogras>h by Nat. W. Taylor, Elk Park, N. C.) 
 
 Page I02. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 103 
 
 Leaving the banks of the Doe, the train winds 
 through the alternating valleys and ravines of 
 Shell Creek, crossing the State line and con- 
 tinuing two miles beyond to its terminus, where 
 the Cranberry Iron and Coal Co. are operating 
 the greatest mine of magnetic iron ore this side of 
 cold, piney Sweden. Such are the agencies that 
 have driven the crouching panther from the 
 Highlands, and the rhododendron blooms that 
 waved over his lair now drop their crimson 23etals 
 upon the heads of fair men and maidens who sit 
 beneath the shades and woo the sweet flowers to 
 the rescue of their love-stricken hearts. 
 
 Returning to the banks of the Watauga, we 
 call attention to the fact that the Bristol, Eliza- 
 bethtown, and North Carolina Kailroad will soon 
 be completed to the last-named town, which 
 renowned and historic spot has recently been 
 purchased as the site for a co-operative manu- 
 facturing city. Among its owners are a num- 
 ber of the wealthiest and most influential gentle- 
 men in America, who look forward to the early 
 extension of railroads from Elizabethtown and 
 Johnson City, across the Blue Bidge, to connect 
 with the Bichmond and Danville system and 
 other lines of the Atlantic slope. 
 
 The completion of the unfinished link in 
 the Charleston, Cincinnati, and Chicago between 
 
104 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 Johnson City, Tennessee, and Marion, North 
 Carolina, is anticipated with impatient interest ; 
 and the Cranberry narrow gauge is on the eve 
 of being extended across the fertile Valley of 
 the Linville, and then along beneath the frown- 
 ing rocks of the Grandfather to Lenoir ; while 
 the Co-operative Town Company dwell with 
 especial emphasis upon the continuation of the 
 Bristol, Elizabethtown, and North Carolina up 
 the Watauga Valley, through the region of 
 Mountain City, to the top of the great water- 
 shed, and thence down to the present terminus 
 of the Yadkin Valley road at Wilkesboro. 
 
 With implicit faith in the early building of one 
 or all of these connections, our friend, the Bard 
 of the Highland, has presented us with the fol- 
 lowing beautiful production of his genius : 
 
 THE lEON HOESE IS COMmG. 
 
 There's news on the wind, 'tis wafted from the shore 
 
 Like a faint voice from the ocean's mighty roar; 
 
 The iron horse is coming, oh, tell it once more. 
 
 On the Atlantic coast the iron horse will start, 
 
 And dash through the mountains like a winged dart ; 
 
 Throufi^h the old ISTorth State and the State of Tennessee 
 
 The iron horse will travel and travel in glee. 
 
 Yes, the iron horse is coming, and that's good news ; 
 
 It will cure hard times and drive away the blues. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 105 
 
 Awake from your slumbers, ye good mountaineers, 
 You'll hear the mighty whistle in two or three years ; 
 Ring the bells of welcome, let your cheers go round. 
 Our wealth will come forth, our wealth is in the ground. 
 
 What a resurrection of ores to the sight ; 
 And our gems will sparkle like stars of the night. 
 And joy will kindle in the good farmer's eye 
 When he can buy so cheap and can sell so high. 
 His cabbage, potatoes, his turnips and fruits. 
 His bacon, beef, butter and milk from his brutes, 
 His cider and wine, and his crout in his kegs, 
 His honey and feathers and poultry and eggs, 
 And everything he grows, his grain and his hay, 
 Will bring good prices, and prices that will pay ; 
 And everything he buys from a railroad store 
 Will come much lower than he ever bought before : 
 His clothing and coffee, his sugar and flour, 
 Will all testify to the iron horse's power. 
 And all the day long, through the hot summer days, 
 While out in the field, 'neath the sun's burning rays. 
 The farmer will whistle the iron horse's praise. 
 And in front of his door the bird in her bower 
 Will tune her sweet lays to the iron horse's power; 
 How the merchant will smile when the railroad comes 
 And brings cheaper goods to his customers' homes; 
 When he gets connected with the business world, 
 He'll hang out his sign like a flag unfurled : 
 " Come one and all, great and small, rich and poor, 
 Everything is first-class in my railroad store." 
 And the laboring man, the abused of the earth, 
 By cheap labor kept poor, and poor from his birth, 
 The only man that knows what money is worth. 
 Can rejoice when he hears the iron horse neigh : 
 
106 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 " One dollar instead of fifty cents a day." 
 
 The iron horse is coming, he's a steed that's fleet, 
 
 He'll trample hard times 'neath his great iron feet. 
 
 Methiiiks I hear the train dashing o'er the plain, 
 
 Eoaring and thundering like the mighty main. 
 
 On through Carolina's undulating hills, 
 
 Xow through the deep cuts and now along the fills, 
 
 Across each swamp and river by trestle or bridge. 
 
 And on to the foot-hills of the great Blue Eidge, 
 
 And panting and climbing and leaping its spurs, 
 
 And fretting and foaming in his cast-iron gears. 
 
 And snorting and groaning his burden to bear, 
 
 And prancing and puffing and snuffing the air. 
 
 At length he reaches the top of the mountain. 
 
 And slakes his thirst in a cold crystal fountain ; 
 
 Nor ever did steed of iron or of flesh 
 
 Quaff water from a stream more cooling and fresh ; 
 
 Nor ever did hills that echoed to thunder, 
 
 Present more romance and grandeur and wonder. 
 
 On dashes the steed as fast as a pigeon 
 
 Through a rugged, rich, and beautiful region ; 
 
 And the passengers glance with wonder-bleared eye 
 
 At the hill-strewn landscapes, as backward they fly, 
 
 That deck so profusely this land of the sky. 
 
 The steed dashes on with thrilling locomotion, 
 
 Piling up mountains 'tween him and the ocean ; 
 
 And the breath from his nostrils rolls back on the air, 
 
 And hangs like a cloud quite pensively there. 
 
 Or shoots up a column all curling and black. 
 
 That winds like a serpent far over the track. 
 
 On dashes the steed as fast as he can run. 
 
 His head-light gleaming like the noonday sun. 
 
 Through forests unmeasured, trees without number, 
 
 Millions of trees made a-purpose for lumber. 
 
TEE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIK 107 
 
 And now the iron wheels clank and clatter and roar 
 
 And press the rich beds of East Tennessee ore. 
 
 In the county of Johnson, where the steed now runs, 
 
 The hills are swollen with millions of tons. 
 
 What wealth has slept since the dawn of creation, 
 
 Awaiting the hand of this generation! 
 
 Awake from your slumbers, ye good mountaineers, 
 
 You'll hear the mighty whistle in two or three years ', 
 
 Eing the bells of welcome, let your cheers go round, 
 
 Our wealth will come forth, our wealth is in the ground. 
 
RICHMOND AND DANyiLLE 
 
 RAILROAD. 
 
 -m 
 
 
 THE GREAT THROUGH CAR LINE 
 
 BETWEEN THE 
 
 NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST, 
 
 AND 
 
 SOUTH-WEST. 
 
 The Highest Standard of Passenger Service. 
 Through Trains, Quick Time, and Sure Connections 
 
 TO AND FROM EASTERN CITIES 
 
 AND 
 
 "THE LAND OF THE SKY." 
 
 The Scenery in the Mountains of Western North Carolina is 
 Unsurpassed. Highest Peaks east of the Rocky Mountains. They 
 have a Ruggedness and Grandeur not possessed by any other 
 Mountains in the Eastern States. 
 
 108 
 
The Greatest Summer and Winter 
 
 Resorts 
 
 to be found in the Union are in this section of 
 ''THK OLD NORXH STAXK." 
 
 Ample Hotel Accommodations and every Convenience and Luxury 
 are to be had at the Various Resorts along the Lines of the RICH- 
 MOND AND DANVILLE RAILROAD, and are easily reached. 
 
 SOLID PULLMAN TRAINS 
 
 AND THROUGH PULLMAN CARS TO AND FROM 
 
 ALL RESORT POINTS. 
 
 The Great V/ashington and South-Western Vestibuled Limited 
 is the Most Magnificent Train, and via the SHORTEST ROUTE 
 FROM THE GREAT NORTH TO THE NEVv^ SOUTH. 
 
 See that your Tickets read via the 
 
 NO EXTRA CHARGE FOR FAST TIME. 
 
 For full information in regard to Schedules, Maps, Time-Tables, 
 etc., apply to any Agent of the System, or address 
 
 JAS. L. TAYLOR, G.P.A., W. A. TURK, A.G.P.A. 
 
 ATLANTA, GA. CHARLOTTE, N.C. 
 
 W. H. GREEN, G.A/., SOL. HAAS, T.M., 
 
 109 
 
 ATLANTA, GA. ATLANTA, GA. 
 
110 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 THE HOTELS IN THE LAND OF THE SKY. 
 
 One mile below Cranberry on the narrow- 
 gauge is the thriving town of Elk Park, where 
 scores of health- and pleasure-seekers dismount 
 from the iron horse. Here comfortable board 
 can be had at the Banner House, the Bowers 
 House, or the Walsh Hotel, for one dollar a day, 
 with reasonable reductions for longer periods. 
 But if more costly fare is desired it will be found 
 at the elegant cottage of Nat. W. Taylor, brother 
 to Robert L. Taylor, ex-governor of Tennessee. 
 This gentleman not only keej)s first-class ac- 
 commodations, but, being a professional artist and 
 photographer, he invites his guest to patronage 
 in that line, and offers for sale a stock of beauti- 
 ful views photographed from the most interesting 
 mountain objects. 
 
 Two miles south of Elk Park is the summit 
 of Hump Mountain, five thousand five hundred 
 and forty-one feet above the level of the sea, 
 
THE GEAKDFATHER MOUNTAIN. HI 
 
 while the same distance north of the town the 
 beautiful Falls of Elk have a clear leap of sixty- 
 three feet into a deep, seething caldron. 
 
 Eight miles northeast from our present rail- 
 road landing, by way of a new and beautiful 
 mountain road, is, — 
 
 Fair Banner Elk, tlie Highland flower, 
 With warbling birds in many a bower, 
 And valleys sweet with new mown hay, 
 And pastured hills where cattle lay. 
 
 Its laughing cascades foaming white. 
 Its speckled trout in- waters bright ; 
 O'er dallying pools and dancing nooks 
 The sportsman plies the feathered hooks. 
 
 Here are no hotels, but at the farm-house of 
 Mrs. Patsey H. Witmore, the combined store- 
 house and dwelling of R. L. Lowe, Esq., and at 
 the author's Shonnyhaw cottage, tourists are in- 
 vited to spring beds, and to tables heavily laden 
 with such food as roasted mutton, yeast bread, 
 biscuits and corn bread, unskimmed sweet milk, 
 and sour milk just from the churn, coffee, fried 
 or boiled swine's ham, buckwheat cakes and 
 maple syrup, fresh butter, chicken and eggs, 
 vegetables, honey, jellies, jams, preserves, pickles, 
 speckled trout, and, last of all, turnip salad, of 
 which the Irishman said " that he had come all 
 
112 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 the way from ' Auld Ireland/ just to eat broad 
 grass like a cow." 
 
 For board on Banner Elk tlie terms are one 
 <lollar a day, six dollars a week, and twenty 
 dollars a month. 
 
 Standing around this sequestered valley in re- 
 posing grandeur, and representing the corners 
 of a triangle, are three mountain princes, viz., 
 the Hanging E-ock, the Sugar, and the Beech, all 
 of which are more than five thousand feet above 
 the level of the sea. 
 
 The overtopping Beech is crowned with an 
 imposing pinnacle, w^hich, being cleft in the cen- 
 tre, presents a double front, of which one side is 
 called the Boc's Egg, because it is supposed to 
 resemble the egg of the roc, the monstrous bird 
 of Arabian mythology. 
 
 Looking half a mile west from this hard- 
 shelled production of the mythical species, the 
 tall Bider's Bock rises before the observer, and 
 presents him with the exquisite picture of a 
 horse and rider embroidered of ferns and lichens 
 upon its face. 
 
 The entire mountain, with his cliffs and pinna- 
 cles, faces the south, and ever casts his adamant- 
 ine smile upon the emerald valley of Banner 
 Elk and its tributary, shy Shonnyhaw ; while, 
 looking still beyond through the vista between 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 113 
 
 the Sugar and the Hanging Rock, he beholds 
 the great evergreen Grandfather bulging his 
 cap of clouds to the sun. 
 
 From the very summit of the Beech, the land 
 sloping northward was rendered bald in 1890 
 by the use of two axes, of which one was wielded 
 by the writer of this little volume, while the 
 other was manned by a Baltimore bard, who 
 signs his name " Chuckey Joe." 
 
 The spot thus divested of trees is grown over 
 with an indigenous grass of such a profuse and 
 lustrous green that the sight-seer can scarcely 
 refrain from lying down and rolling on the cosey 
 carpet beneath him. 
 
 So majestic are the rocks of the Beech, and 
 so glorious the panorama which they command, 
 that Chuckey Joe, who named the Bider's Bock 
 and the Boc's Egg, and assisted in creating the 
 Bald of the Beech, has seen fit to poetize as 
 follows : 
 
 THE BALLAD OF THE "BEECH." 
 
 DEDICATED TO THE LITTLE " BALD" OF THE BIG " BEECH," 
 BY HUGGER AND DUGGER, SPONSORS. 
 
 {The little ''Bald'' was born August 23, 1890.) 
 
 That I'm as " old as the hills,'' every one must confess ; 
 Being a " mountain," you see, I could hardly be less; 
 But, somehow, yonder " Grandfather," say what I will, 
 In spite of my " ages," " gets the age on me,"still. 
 A 10* 
 
114 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 Yet we grew up together : when the Record begins, 
 Some score thousand years back, we were brothers and 
 
 twins ; 
 He stuck to the " Blue Ridge," and I to the " Stone ;" 
 And if he claims the "Linville," why the "Elk" is my 
 
 own. 
 
 True legions of " Low-landers" pray at Ms shrine, 
 Whilst only rare Ramblers offer incense at mine ; 
 Yet these " Summer-ers" claim to be civilized folk 
 With Vi passion for "peaks," but that's surely a joke; 
 For if "culture" they long for in fact, not in fun, — 
 Let them note, — I've ten farms to the Grandfather's one; 
 And if corn, clover, and cabbages, buckwheat and beans, 
 Ain't "culture," just explain what the hull of it means? 
 
 But as I said sooner, "Inconsistency's cheap!" 
 
 If you've ever been too oV d yourself — don't laugh at sheep. 
 
 You-uns claim culture, and polish, and taste, and sich 
 
 " stuff," 
 Yet you worship the " G-randad" for being a "rough." 
 I can't for the life of me (and my life is long), 
 See why the " Grandfather" should have the whole 
 
 throng 
 Lauding " Him" to the skies, whilst the " Beech," though 
 
 begotten 
 In Brotherhood with him, seems almost forgotten. 
 
 I've been puzzling my pate ('tis no soft one, you bet !), 
 Why the " G. F.," you see, should become such a pet ; 
 No doubt " Kelsey's curves" up his slopes air big help, 
 But if he is a " lion," the " Big Beech" is no whelp. 
 If he has his " Balsams," I have samples as good 
 As on Yonahlossee's top ever have stood ; 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 115 
 
 And Ms " Knuckles" could never knock down my " Eoc's 
 
 Egg," 
 Kor his " Raven Rock" lower my " Rider" one peg. 
 
 That a Mountain his own " faults" should oft overlook 
 
 Is quite logical (vid. any Geo-logical book) ; 
 
 Nor could you expect any " Bump" of my size 
 
 To " lie low" when even " The Hump," humps Ms-self 
 
 for the prize. 
 I can play a " hlxiff game" as my " pinnacles" tell, 
 An& fifty -five hundred feet is (I swear it) a " swell ;" 
 But what sot me back when the "Boss Bumps" were 
 
 called, 
 Was, they thought me a mere " Boy" because I warn't 
 
 " bald." 
 
 There are acres of much bigger halds, say the Finical, 
 But I'm sure you'd discover " fine points" on my " Pin- 
 nacle ;" 
 Gray crags, with a few laurel clumps, or an ash ; 
 And belted round these, like an emerald sash, 
 A greensward, where my choicest " Rhododendron 
 
 Yaseyi" 
 Can flaunt their fair flowers to the sun and the sky : 
 And "Rain-roosts" I have, too; — jow could hardly find 
 
 better ones 
 To keep dry your " dry goods" if you woii't all be 
 "wetter 'uns." 
 
 IsTow I hope you-uns Hll visit my lately born " Bald :" 
 It 'tain't like the " Blood Camp's," a mere " fire scall'd," 
 Nor like "the Humps" "deadening." 
 
 Though thickening, you saw 
 Leagues of leafage from "Poga" to shy "Shonnyhaw" 
 
116 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 In woodlands extending ; just — drop up ; let your eyes 
 See my bonny bare " Bald" spread itself to the skies, 
 Like a garden from Eden just recently snatched, 
 And with all of the " latest improvements attached." 
 
 THE PANOEAMA. ^ 
 
 See ! from " cloud-land's" white walls on the dark " Eainy 
 
 Eoan" 
 To where the "Black's" "Mitchell" as monarch en- 
 throne ; 
 Nay, further, — to where " Craggy's" far tilted crest, 
 And dim " Yeates" and domed " Ogle" shine pale in the 
 
 west. 
 From " Chimney-top" over fair Tennessee's lines 
 To where " White Top's" long " bald" like a scimitar 
 
 shines ; 
 From " Iron," less distant, rising softly by inches 
 Beyond Abingdon look where the gate of the " Clinch" 
 
 is! 
 From the "Snake" and the "Elk," and the "Bluff's" 
 
 dimmer blue, 
 To " Blowing Eock's" crags, and Boone almost in view I 
 Mark the " Devil's Claw" under the bold " Hanging 
 
 EOCK," 
 
 And the " Cloven Cliff's" crags, that seem almost to 
 mock 
 
 The " OrRANDFATHER," jutting up Under his "Nose." 
 
 (Ah! when he "catches cold," you can look out for 
 "blows!") 
 
 Then see "Flat Top," "Sugar's" bluff, and the "Nee- 
 dles" not far. 
 
 And the "Table's" dark cliff and the "Hawkbill's" 
 dim scar. • 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 117 
 
 Tender's "Jonas' Bald Ground," and the "North Cove" 
 
 slopes there 
 With his marble cliffs under the wild, "Winding Stair." 
 Far distant, lifting southward his faded blue cap. 
 See "Old Bald," once the "Shaky" of "Hickory-Nut 
 
 Gap ;" 
 Nay, — even beyond these, blue as some distant Zion, 
 Mark " Saludas" soft slopes 'neath the blue tent of 
 
 " Tryon." 
 From the "Clinch" to where " Chuckey" and "Tennes- 
 see" meet, 
 There lies a broad, beautiful world at your feet ; 
 Extending from where eastward rises "Pilot's" dim crest 
 To the " CuMBERLANDs" fading afar in the west. 
 No fairer land surely than this, where the hills 
 Are feathered with forests and braided with rills ! 
 See ! under us " Shonnyhaw" dances and dallies. 
 And " Elk" in white arms holds a score of my valleys. 
 Oh, come ! from my laurel-crown'd throne, feast your eyes 
 On the greenest of lands, 'neath the bluest of skies! 
 Where " Enohla's" white cascades flash out like a mist, 
 There are blooms to be cull'd — there are maids to be 
 
 kissed : 
 And " Banner's Elk" bravely and broadly extends 
 A summery Welcome to hosts of warm friends . 
 
 Chuckey Joe. 
 
 "CHEEOKEE CHIPS." 
 
 BY THE "pathfinder." 
 
 Seenoyahs, or the Mountains of Night, are "The 
 
 Blacks." 
 The Great Estetoe Mountain is in the Vulgate^ " Bright's 
 
 Yaller." 
 
118 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 Ej^unayrock (Panther Skin, Tusc.) is White Top, 
 Yirga. 
 
 YoNAHLOssEE (the Passing Bear) is the Grandfather 
 Mountain. 
 
 Yanassa (Bnffalo) is the Iron Mountain Eange, long 
 and unlovely. 
 
 The Wahaw are the South Mountains, south of Mor- 
 ganton. North Carolina. 
 
 Chotah is the " Bluff of the Peak" or Cloven Cliff. 
 
 "Wanteska (Level Land) is Flat Top of Linville. 
 
 Kullahsayja (Sugar) is Sugar Mountain of Banner's 
 Elk, North Carolina. 
 
 Zehleeka is the French Broad Eiver. 
 
 Yonawayah (Bear Paw) is the Hanging Eock of Ban- 
 ner's Elk. 
 
 Klonteska (Pheasant) is Big Beech of Banner's Elk. 
 
 The Sakonegas (Blue) is the Blue Eidge Eange. 
 
 Skolanetta is the Hump, near Cranberry, North Caro- 
 lina. 
 
 Ottaray is the Cherokee (now obsolete) name of old for 
 their Highlands in North Carolina. 
 
 The EsEEOLA Mountains, follow the left bank of the 
 Linville Eiver, south of Linville City, ending with 
 Short Off, below the Table. 
 
 Chuckey Joe. 
 
 CRANBEKRY. 
 
 Between Elk Park and tlie Cranberry mines 
 the stem-winder stops to let passengers oflf at 
 the Cranberry Hotel, a perfect gem of a house, 
 which Mr. Wallace Hahn, the proprietor, keeps 
 in the style of a delightful country home. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 119 
 
 Along its approaches and around its copious 
 verandas the most beautiful flowers are clumped 
 and clustered upon a verdant lawn, while the 
 commodious apartments within are furnished 
 with every modern convenience, and the dining- 
 hall is rich with the aromatic contents of plenty's 
 horn. 
 
 At the mines you can get a square meal for 
 fifty cents, and a day's board and lodging for one 
 dollar and fifty cents, at the Mitchell House. 
 
 Persons who stop at Cranberry to see the inex- 
 haustible deposit of magnetic ore and its sur- 
 rounding objects of interest, will lose the jewel 
 of their sojourn if they fail to visit Colonel C. 
 H. Nimson's Bellevue farm, three miles distant, 
 on top of Fork Mountain, where the si^lendor of 
 the prospect is all that the name suggests, — 
 
 "And harmless shepherds tune their pipes to love, 
 And Amaryllis sounds in ev'ry grove." 
 
 LINVILLE. 
 
 Mr. S. T. Kelsey, the general manager of the 
 Linville Improvement Co., is at once a philoso- 
 pher and engineer, a botanist and a scholar. 
 His neatly-proportioned person is a little smaller 
 than that of the average man, and from beneath 
 his brim peeps, in cunning brilliancy, a pair of 
 
120 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 small, keen, penetrating, expressive blue eyes, 
 which everybody takes for black until they are 
 otherwise informed. 
 
 His long beard, that would do honor to the 
 days of Moses, falling gracefully upon his bosom, 
 is clean and white as the snow. His hair is of a 
 solid, rich, glossy cream color, while a few black 
 streamers in his moustache, interspersing the 
 white, are his only souvenir filaments of middle 
 life. 
 
 These hoary locks, on a head of only sixty 
 summers, evince a life of the most stirring ac- 
 tivity both in body and mind, and still he pos- 
 sesses the sprightliness and energy of the most 
 enterprising man of thirty. 
 
 This gentleman has placed such a sterling 
 stamp upon his section of the country by laying 
 out and building the most elegant drives in the 
 Highlands, that Chuckey Joe has passed upon 
 him the most magnanimous pun we ever heard, 
 — he calls him " The Colossus of Rhodes." 
 
 One of Mr. Kelsey's roads, leading from Cran- 
 berry, twelve miles eastward, to Linville, is util- 
 ized by a daily hack from the latter place, and, 
 as the wheels drone along and you have your 
 fish-basket on your back and your spouse by 
 your side, the old road, which the new one often 
 crosses, looks like the deserted trail of a savage 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 121 
 
 tribe that had fled before civilization to an unmo- 
 lested hunting-ground. 
 
 Six miles on the way you come to the " Old 
 Fields of Toe/' an ante-rebellion muster-ground, 
 where you cross the Toe River. The name Toe, 
 as here applied, originated as follows : 
 
 Estetoe, a chief's daughter, was engaged to a 
 young man of the tribe, and, when her father 
 objected to the marriage, she drowned herself in 
 the clear stream, which the Indians afterwards 
 called by her name ; but the whites, being too 
 lazy to hinge their tongues upon the silvery 
 accents, changed the euphonious word to Toe, 
 which can mean no more than one of those 
 miserable corn-bearing extremities that had all 
 the rhetoric frozen out of them before the dis- 
 covery of Columbus. 
 
 Leaving the banks of the Estetoe, four miles 
 further takes you to Montezuma, the " preacher's 
 Mecca," where the sacred dust of a revolutionary 
 soldier, whose name was Gragg, sleeps in the 
 town cemetery ; and Mr. John Carpenter will 
 give you a square dinner, an oblong supper, a 
 good bed, and a breakfast fashioned after any 
 geometrical figure within the annals of the 
 higher mathematics, all for one dollar. 
 
 Two miles beyond Montezuma you roll into 
 
 Linville, where Mr. Thomas F. Parker, Presi- 
 
 V n 
 
122 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 dent of the Liuville Improvement Co., has 
 a number of elegant cottages, whose exquisite 
 paintings and architectural designs thoroughly 
 compensate the beautiful forest for that part of 
 its destruction which gives them room. 
 
 But the most commodious building in the 
 town is Eseeola Inn, a chimney-topped, shingle- 
 gabled, and verandad edifice, where the summer 
 nights are rendered comfortable by the blazing 
 logs of many open fire-places, and the days are 
 cheerful with a health-giving tide of sweet air 
 that floats through the balanced windows and 
 gives '^ back the invalid the rose to his cheek." 
 O23j)osite the oflSce on the first floor is a large 
 music-room, which is beautifully finished in 
 native hard woods, lighted with brilHant chan- 
 deliers, ornamented with a sweet-toned piano, 
 and, having a floor as hard as lignumvitae and 
 as slick as a peeled onion, furnishes the finest 
 facilities for tripping the fantastic toe. 
 
 When your feet have grown tired of waltzing, 
 Morpheus folds you in his peaceful arms and 
 lays you where the ease of s|)ring-beds and the 
 soft touches of downy pillows give the weary 
 rest. 
 
 Three thousand years ago Solomon said : 
 " There is nothing new under the sun ;" but if 
 he could come back to this world and engage 
 
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THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN, 123 
 
 board at Eseeola Inn, lie would find that some- 
 thing new has been invented ; for he could hol- 
 low " halloo" in a telej^hone and receive an 
 answer from a social-minded fellow in the tele- 
 phone ofl&ce over at Cranberry, and he could 
 chalk his cue and try his luck on a billiard- 
 ball, like which no rotary object ever revolu- 
 tionized across a rectangular game-table in the 
 city of Jerusalem. 
 
 This splendid building has hot and cold baths, 
 smoking and reception rooms, broad stairways 
 of easy ascent, carpeted rooms and hall-ways, 
 marble-topped office counters, extensive piazzas 
 for promenades, and a beautiful dining-room, 
 whose sumptuary ingatherings are guaranteed 
 by the proprietors to be equal, if not superior, 
 to those of any other house in the mountains 
 of North Carolina. 
 
 Such is the variety and flavor of the food that, 
 when you place your foot on the threshold of the 
 masticating department, your nasal proboscis is 
 greeted with the aroma of roasted mutton or 
 beef, and the alimentary pupils of your orbicular 
 instruments are fixed upon large slabs of comb 
 honey, consisting of the gathered sweets from 
 mountain flowers, and rivalling in delicacy the 
 nectar of the gods. 
 
 Among the delicious dishes of Eseeola's tables 
 
124 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 is pure maple syrup, manufactured from maple 
 orchards on the Company's lands, and those 
 popular mountain batter-cakes, made from that 
 peculiarly-shaped grain, about which a lady re- 
 cently interrogated a gentleman, as follows : 
 
 " Kind sir," said she, " do you know how 
 buckwheat came into this country ?" 
 
 " No, madam," replied the man ; " but I will 
 thank you for any information you may give me 
 on that point." 
 
 " Well, sir," said the lady, " I will tell you. 
 It came into this country three-cornered." 
 
 Mr. James T. Skiles, former popular man- 
 ager of Luray Inn, Virginia, solicits patron- 
 age at Eseeola, at the rates of two dollars a 
 day, ten dollars a week, and thirty-two dollars a 
 month. 
 
 An object of great attraction, only one mile 
 from Linville, is Mr. Harlan P. Kelsey's ex- 
 pansive nursery of native ornamental plants, 
 shrubs, and trees, and when you visit this mani- 
 fold collection from the universal garden of 
 nature, you will be surprised that our American 
 parks, cemeteries, and lawns have been stuffed 
 with costly foreign importations, while the beau- 
 tiful orchids, ferns, blooming vines, flowering 
 shrubs, perennial herbs, aquatic and bog plants, 
 and evergreen and deciduous trees of the South- 
 
p 
 
VASE WITH RHODODENDRON AND AZALEA. 
 
 Page 125. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 125 
 
 ern Alleghany Mountains have, until recently, 
 been almost entirely excluded. 
 
 From this beautiful plantation of shrubs, 
 plants, and infant trees, Mr. George H. Vander- 
 bilt has purchased thousands of the hardy orna- 
 mentals that adorn his masfnificent estate near 
 Asheville; while gardens and boulevards in 
 England, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, 
 Belgium, and other foreign countries, are now 
 variegated with American flora from this new 
 and highly commendable enterprise upon the 
 banks of the jubilant Linville. 
 
 Mr. E. S. Eand has truthfully said : " We do 
 not api^reciate our American flora, and have 
 shut our eyes to the richness that lies all around 
 us. In England, a crowning glory of horticult- 
 ural exhibition is the show of American plants ; 
 and we in America don't know what they are." 
 
 Twelve miles down the stream, from Eseeola, 
 passing tlie Highland Nursery and the beauti- 
 ful farm and mansion of George R. Watkins, is 
 Linville Falls, where comfortable board can be 
 had at the house of Mr. Theodore Franklin at 
 twenty-five cents a meal, or one dollar a day. 
 
 THE YONAHLOSSEE EOAD. 
 
 From Linville, it is twenty miles east to Blow- 
 ing Kock, which is not only one of the most 
 
 11* 
 
126 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 popular summer resorts in the Soutli, but also 
 a handsome town, two miles long, on the very 
 crest of the Blue Kidge ; and if more of the 
 buildings were painted white, it would be a 
 modern Alba Longa. 
 
 Mr. 8. T. Kelsey, the Colossus of Rhodes, 
 has recently connected these two places by the 
 grandest drive in the State, which, being chiselled 
 out of the rocks along the south side of the 
 Grandfather Mountain, cost multiplied thousands 
 of dollars. Its finish is as smooth as the rim of 
 a chariot- wheel, while the region through which it 
 passes is as rugged as if Vulcan's mighty anvils 
 had been thrown from the throttle of a volcano 
 and lodged on the mountain-side. High up the 
 imposing crags the eye is directed into great 
 dark holes and hollows that Sol's rays have 
 never penetrated ; but in the ojDposite direction, 
 the expansive view is extended far into the blue 
 haze of the sunny South. 
 
 About midway between Blowing Rock and 
 Linville, where the daily hack from the latter 
 place crosses Green Mountain Creek, a beau- 
 tiful fall, twelve feet high, is so close on the 
 upper side as to throw spray upon the dry- 
 goods of the passers-by, while immediately 
 below the road, the stream has a leap that is 
 more than twice as high as the first, and 
 
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THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN: 127 
 
 equally enhanced in the other features of its 
 attractions. 
 
 Five miles from Linville, and just above the ele- 
 gant highway where it is crossed by a tumbling 
 creek, is the Leaning Bock, about one hundred 
 feet high, consisting of three truncated blocks 
 of stone set one upon another, the first tapering 
 gradually upward from its broad, square base to 
 fit the bottom of the second, and the top of the 
 second being patterned in like manner to the 
 bottom of the third. Up and down through the 
 centre of the crowning section is a rent, and at 
 the point where its lower extremity touches the 
 top of the middle division is a little soil formed 
 by the mixture of lodged leaves and disintegrated 
 rock, and supporting a flourishing bnnch of rho- 
 dodendron, which, in July, hangs out its scarlet 
 flora like a beautiful bouquet upon the bosom of 
 a Colossus. 
 
 The great Appian Way, leading from Rome by 
 way of Naples to Brundusium, was j)i'obably 
 not more interesting than the Yonahlossee Boad. 
 Statins called that ancient thoroughfare the Be- 
 gina Viarum, which, being of the Latin tongue, 
 means Queen of Boads. It was projected and 
 partly built, B.C. 312, by Appius Claudius, the 
 author of the famous dictum, " Every one is the 
 architect of his own fortune." Its width was 
 
128 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 from fourteen to eighteen feet, and the large, 
 well-fitted stones with which it was laid looked 
 up through the flying wheels of Titus's chariot 
 and saw Vesuvius shoot his fires at the stars and 
 pour down the cinders under which Pompeii 
 slept for two thousand years in the peaceful 
 arms of the dead. 
 
 High over the E-egina Viarum were the in- 
 verted images of ships reflected from the fluo- 
 rescent waters of the Mediterranean, and sailing 
 on the fleecy waves of the sky. Even the 
 beautiful islands of that sea were apparently 
 inverted above the horizon, presenting the ob- 
 server with the tinted images of trees with their 
 tops downward, mountains projecting from the 
 sky, fat cattle grazing upon the verdure of the 
 heavens, and the contending armies of diflerent 
 nations and creeds intrenching themselves in the 
 clouds. 
 
 Such were the wonders of earth, sea, and sky 
 as seen from the ^^ Queen of Roads ;" such the 
 exquisite glimpses from which Cicero caught the 
 glorious inspiration that filled Home with elo- 
 quence, and the world with classic recollections. 
 But with the fall of the Western Empire, the 
 E-egina Viarum went to decay, and, during the 
 many centuries that have since elapsed, the 
 Yonahlossee Eoad, around tlie south side of 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 129 
 
 the great evergreen Grandfather, is one of the 
 few public highways that have again associated 
 the ease and elegance of travel with the most 
 ecstatic delights of the mind and heart. 
 
 Three miles from Linville, that beautiful 
 branch of the Yonahlosse, designated in the 
 *^ Ballad of the Beech" as " Kelsey's Curves," 
 turns to the left, and winds back and forth up 
 crags and through huckleberry balds, the dis- 
 tance of one and a half miles to the hard 
 knuckles of the great Grandfather, which being 
 at the end of one of his uplifted arms is often 
 gloved in a cloud. 
 
 From this beautiful view, a foot-way leads 
 eastward, more than a mile, to the highest peak 
 of the mountain, where it will be met, at an 
 early day, by a splendid bridle-path constructed 
 from a favorable point on the Yonahlossee Road. 
 Four miles from Linville, and one mile be- 
 yond the bifurcation of Kelsey's Curves with 
 the main line, the " Alpen Way" branch, two 
 miles in length, turns to the right and, cross- 
 ing Beacon Heights, continues to the summit of 
 Grandmother Mountain, which we have hereto- 
 fore called the Queen Consort of the reigning 
 Grandfather. 
 
 The Princess, Beacon Heights, standing near 
 the king and queen, extends to each a hand of 
 
130 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 filial love, and ever looks upon the father with 
 tearful eyes, like a Christian daughter endeavor- 
 ing to persuade her hard-hearted parent to re- 
 pentance. But the queen, having despaired of 
 softening the immovable monarch, glances at his 
 frowns with resignation, and directs the attention 
 of her guests to the beautiful wardrobe of the 
 princess, and invites them to the horticultural 
 displays of her own royal gardens. 
 
 The two beautiful roads which we have men- 
 tioned as departing from the Yonahlossee, the 
 one to the left and the other to the right, are 
 like twin sisters straying from their mother, by 
 her consent, and returning with myriads of 
 flowers to adorn the maternal palace of love. 
 
 From these splendid drives, which have been 
 built at greater cost than any others of the same 
 length in the South, aged persons, and those 
 otherwise unable to endure the fatigue of climb- 
 ing, can sit in the carriage, at elevations of over 
 five thousand feet above the level of the sea, and 
 enjoy as fine views as any region in the eastern 
 half of America affords. 
 
 Chuckey Joe, in " The Ballad of the Beech," 
 calls a shelving rock a "rain-roost," because 
 under these persons often perch themselves in 
 times of rain. On the fifteen-thousand-acre 
 tract of mountain land, owned and improved by 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 131 
 
 the Linville Improvement Company, there is a 
 number of delightful "rain-roosts/' and where 
 nature left, too long a distance between any two 
 of them, it has been divided by a rustic shelter, 
 as a protection against the hazard of sudden 
 showers. 
 
 Those who have been ducked by the aid of a 
 cloud instead of a minister, can readily realize 
 the great comfort that these sheds must add to a 
 summer resort, for it has been no uncommon 
 thing, in Western North Carolina, to see a party 
 come in from a mountain clamber as wet as 
 drowned rats, with their garments flapped about 
 them, and their persons so stooped over, to con- 
 ceal their faces from view until they could get 
 to their rooms, that it was impossible for an 
 observer to tell which end of an individual was 
 up. 
 
 At Linville, where the august drive along the 
 side of the Grandfather is met by the beautiful 
 road from Cranberry, the Western Carolina 
 Stage-Coach Company have, among their many 
 handsome conveyances, an elegant Concord stage 
 called the Awahili, which, being of the Indian 
 vernacular, means Eagle ; and when this is drawn 
 back and forth, along the Yonahlosse Road, by 
 six splendid bays prancing between ornamental 
 mazes of laurel and pine, passing mirthful falls 
 
132 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 and crossing streams like "liquid silver/' the 
 passengers are met by new and beautiful objects 
 of entertainment at every revolution, of the fly- 
 ing wheels that bear them onward to the sump- 
 tuous entertainments of Blowing Rock, or to the 
 cheerful accommodations of Eseeola's brilliant 
 halls. 
 
 In winter, the snowfall at Linville is lighter 
 and more gentle, and the climate less cold and 
 damp, than that of the Northern States; in 
 spring, the blooming dog-wood and service trees 
 hang out their white curtains as flags of truce 
 in a green tasselled army of innumerable trees ; 
 in summer, leagues of the most beautiful leafage 
 that ever waved to ^olian breezes stretch across 
 and far beyond the company's broad estate, and 
 in autumn, the monarch of gentle decay walks 
 through the land with a many colored garment, 
 robbing the leaves of their verdure and painting 
 on them a thousand tints more brilliant than the 
 Tyrian dye; while to these beauties of nature 
 the company have added all art and enterprise 
 in order to induce pleasure- and health-seekers 
 to purchase homes of peace and gladness within 
 their beautiful domain. 
 
 All around this infant metropolis of the High- 
 lands are flowers for the botanist, rocks for the 
 geologist, trout for the angler, landscapes for the 
 
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THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 133 
 
 artist, sublimity for tlie poet, recreation for the 
 tired business man, invigoration for the weak, 
 ease for the okl, and for the young, beautiful 
 retreats, where Cupid wields the subduing power 
 of his golden dart and sends his victims into the 
 royal presence of Hymen, presiding beneath his 
 crown of sweet marjoram. 
 
 A PLEASANT JOURNEY. 
 
 From Linville to Blowing Rock there is a 
 choice of ways. If you want to take it leisurely 
 and catch trout as you go, you will loiter 
 up the stream, for the distance of four miles, 
 to Linville Gap, where a beautifully pinnacled 
 mountain on the left is Dunvegan, which 
 Chuckey Joe, in "The Ballad of the Beech," 
 calls " Cloven Cliffs." 
 
 It is now less than a mile down the gurgling 
 brooks of the Watauga to Grandfather Hotel 
 and post-office, a white house nestling so near 
 the evergreens that the sweet odor of the 
 balsams is wafted in at the doors, and, sweeping 
 through the commodious hall-ways, cures hay- 
 fever and bronchitis, and prolongs the lives of 
 consumptives. 
 
 About fifty yards in front of the building, at 
 the foot of a declivity, flows the prattling infant 
 Watauga, teeming with speckled beauties, and 
 
 12 
 
134 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 altliough most of them, at this point, are too 
 small for the osier basket, yet plenty of nice 
 ones are found, only a mile below, where crystal 
 tributaries have swollen the stream. 
 
 Along the opposite bank, from the hotel, is a 
 narrow strip of bottom, about twenty yards wide, 
 from whose farther side rises a precipitous hill, 
 so profusely grown over with rhododendron, that 
 in the blooming season, from about June 20 to 
 August 10, it presents the veranda-sitting tourist 
 with a perfect wilderness of the gayest flowers. 
 
 This is the blooming base of the great ever- 
 green Grandfather, whose highest j)oint, only 
 three miles away, and just a few degrees south 
 of the zenith, is reached by a winding path that 
 passes by the coldest perennial spring, isolated 
 from perpetual snow, in the United States ; its 
 highest temj^erature being only forty-two de- 
 grees. 
 
 The neighborhood of Banner Elk, which is 
 five miles northwest, is reached by a rough road 
 that is being made better, while one mile in the 
 rear of the hotel Dunvegan rears its head so 
 high as to obscure the North star, and can be 
 surmounted only by an almost pathless clamber 
 through its rocky defiles. 
 
 All mountain ramblers concede that Grand- 
 father Hotel is a well-kept house, in a most 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN; 135 
 
 delightful spot, and watered by the best spring 
 in the Highlands. 
 
 It is said that a drummer once dined at a 
 hotel where the dinner was brought to him in 
 side plates, and, after he had eaten it all up, he 
 said to the waiter, " Well, I have enjoyed your 
 samples very much, so you will please bring in 
 the dinner." But Mr. J. Ervin Calloway, the 
 proprietor of Grandfather, and his good wife 
 Josephine, do not bring the meals in mussel- 
 shell dishes ; they put plenty of roasted mutton, 
 smothered chicken, buckwheat cakes and maple 
 syru]3, unskimmed milk and lots of other good 
 things, in capacious vessels on the table, and then 
 tell you that " fingers were made before forks, and, 
 that if you would rather use them than the tri- 
 pronged instrument, to just crack your whip." 
 
 All classes of persons, except those in search 
 of gayety, can spend a week or a month as 
 pleasantly at Grandfather as at any other house 
 in the mountains, and will get as much for the 
 price, which is fifty cents for single meals, one 
 dollar and a quarter a day, seven dollars a week, 
 and twenty-five dollars a month. 
 
 * 
 
 shull's mills. 
 
 From Grandfather, your objective point is 
 Shull's Mills, six miles down the Watauga, and 
 
136 TEE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 as you travel along a good road between bloom- 
 ing buckwheat on one side, and waving corn on 
 the other, you pass the village of Foscoe, where 
 birds of good omen have always flitted through 
 the skies of William H. Calloway, and arrive at 
 your destination, where J. C. Shull, Esq., who 
 has a splendid wife and two charming daughters, 
 and lives in a nice unpainted farm-house, sur- 
 rounded by a grassy lawn, will give you nice 
 country board at fifty cents a day, three dollars 
 a week, or ten dollars a month. 
 
 Around Esquire Shull's, in the Watauga and 
 its tributaries, is good trout fishing ; and it was 
 here that a man, who thought himself wise, once 
 said to a lad, who was casting his line upon the 
 waters, "Adolescens, art thou trying to decoy 
 the piscatorial tribe with a bicurved barb on 
 which thou hast affixed a dainty allurement ?" 
 " No, sir," replied the lad ; " I'm fishing." 
 At ShuU's Mills, the tourist leaves the banks 
 of the beautiful Watauga and winds the rising 
 curves of a turnpike-road for the distance of 
 seven miles to Blowing Kock, where all classes 
 of board, from comfortable to fancy, can be had 
 at pro rata prices; and prancing steeds and 
 flying phaetons are always ready at the stables 
 of Henkels and Craig, or at those of Abernethy 
 and Yance. 
 
TEE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 137 
 
 From Blowing Rock, a turnpike-road leads 
 twenty miles down the south side of the Blue 
 Bidge to Lenoir, the terminus of the Chester 
 and Lenoir narrow-gauge railroad, which con- 
 nects with the Western North Carolina at 
 Hickory, the Carolina Central at Lincolnton, the 
 Piedmont air-line at Gastonia, and the Charles- 
 ton, Cincinnati and Chicago at Yorkville. 
 
 The same gentlemen who keep liveries at Blow- 
 ing Bock have at Lenoir also splendid stables for 
 the immediate accommodation of those who are 
 skyward bound. 
 
 BOONE. 
 
 Eight miles north of Blowing Bock and con- 
 nected with it by a good road is Boone, the 
 county-seat of Watauga, where board that is 
 good enough for a king can be had at W. L. 
 Bryan's Hotel, or at the hotel of T. J. Coffey 
 and Brothers, at the rates of twenty-five cents 
 for single meals, one dollar a day, six dollars a 
 week, and twenty dollars a month. 
 
 In a bottom, not far from the court-house, 
 Daniel Boone, for whom the place is named, once 
 had a cabin, and the pile of stones that still 
 marks the place of his chimney, together with 
 the location and name of the town, has furnished 
 
138 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 the "Bard of the Highlands" with sufficient 
 material for the following elegant poem : — 
 
 BOONE. 
 
 Among Watauga's fertile hills, 
 
 Where music flows from crystal rills, 
 
 And health is victor o'er disease, 
 
 And vigor lurks in ev'ry breeze, 
 
 And all the forests and the fields 
 
 A growth of richest verdure yields, 
 
 And fruits and flowers profusely grow ; 
 
 A land where milk and honey flow. 
 
 Mountains promiscuous, heaped and piled. 
 
 And landscapes wrapt in grandeur wild, 
 
 And beauty lingers all around 
 
 And reigns in majesty profound. 
 
 Within this mountain solitude 
 
 There stands a village, small and rude. 
 
 Hard by the base of Howard's Knob, 
 
 A mountain prince, a proud nabob, 
 
 Whose rocky bluffs forever frown 
 
 With dread severeness on the town. 
 
 As independent, bold, and free 
 
 As promontory on the sea. 
 
 This mountain wears a look austere. 
 
 But should excite no hate or fear ; 
 
 He has a mission, noble, grand, 
 
 Born more to serve than to command ; 
 
 And owns a mission more to shield 
 
 Than arbitrary power to wield ; 
 
 He courts our rapture and delight, 
 
 And not suspicion or our fright. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN, 139 
 
 So many blessings from him flow, 
 "We crown him friend and not a foe ; 
 He guards the town as kind and mild 
 As the fond mother guards her child ; 
 And when the town is wrapt in sleep, 
 His nightly vigils faithful keep, 
 And holds communion with the stars, 
 And talks with Yenus and with Mars, 
 And fain would shield from ev'ry harm. 
 He checks the fury of the storm, 
 And tempts the thunderbolt to lurch 
 And spare the steeple of the church. 
 And waste all its electric fires 
 On his defiant rock}^ spires ; 
 And all may quench their raging thirst 
 Where fountains from his bosom burst. 
 And roll through various gorges down 
 And waters furnish for the town. 
 This mountain sage is old in age 
 And has a fame for hist'ry's page ; 
 He is as old as Eden's lawn, 
 And he beheld Creation's dawn. 
 Man's life is like the flower or grass, 
 But he lives on while ages pass ; 
 A thousand years ago he saw 
 The planets roll with perfect law. 
 And on his head the stars did shed 
 Their light, and, from her Eastern bed. 
 The moon rose up and made her bow, 
 And smiled the same as she does now. 
 He notes the actions of mankind. 
 Whether for good or bad inclined ; 
 He saw depart a savage race, 
 And saw another take its place. 
 
140 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 A hundred years or more ago 
 The Indian bent his deadly bow, 
 The well-aimed arrow quickly sped, 
 A deer did bound and then was dead. 
 No village then, no glittering spires. 
 The stars looked down on Indian fires ; 
 No golden fields, no Sabbath bells, 
 The hills echoed with savage yells, 
 The red man owned the vast domain 
 From mountain crag to fertile plain ; 
 He thought his title was in fee, 
 And oh, how happy, wild, and free ! 
 Eut stop, O savage ! stop and think ; 
 You're standing on destruction's brink; 
 Let all your hopes be turned to fears 
 And deep despair instead of cheers. 
 " The die is cast," your fate is sealed \ 
 "What dreadful foe is that concealed 
 In yonder copse? with flashing eyes 
 And heart that knows no compromise ; 
 With such a bold, determined look 
 That death he could undaunted brook; 
 An iron purpose that fairly mocks 
 A thousand savage tomahawks. 
 Oh, savage, now thy woe bewail. 
 For Daniel Boone is on thy trail, 
 A hero, grand, immortal, brave. 
 Whose fame grows brighter from the grave. 
 A hardy yeoman, warrior bold, 
 Enduring heat, defying cold. 
 Before whose awe-inspiring tread 
 The savage further westward fled 
 Towards the sunset's russet glow, 
 To bend again his deadly bow ; 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 141 
 
 A woodsman, artful, cunning, keen, 
 A foe could see, himself unseen, 
 And win a battle in retreat. 
 And brinoj out victory from defeat. 
 Nor Eoman arm was e'er so strong, 
 Nor Spartan valor set in song, 
 That could eclipse our hero grand 
 Who gave us this, our Switzerland. 
 This John the Baptist sought a place 
 For the great Anglo-Saxon race ; 
 And soon the land was occupied 
 By civilization's rushing tide. 
 What meed of praise could be too great 
 Our hero's name to celebrate ? 
 What honors could our race confer 
 Too great for such a pioneer ? 
 What village would not, boasting, claim 
 To wear the mighty hero's name ? 
 And such is ours, 'mid babbling rills. 
 Among Watauga's fertile hills. 
 Where crags and stars communicate 
 The highest court-house in the State. 
 What sacred memories hover 'round 
 This solitary spot of ground. 
 Where stood the flue of Daniel's tent ; 
 A pile of stones, now heaped and blent, 
 Some of them taken rough, unhewn, 
 That laid the corner-stone of Boone, 
 And others, from the ashes swept, 
 Are now by relic-seekers kept ; 
 And still a mound of stones remain 
 Upon a richly-studded plain. 
 
142 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 VALLE CRUCIS. 
 
 Seven miles west of Boone, eight miles east 
 of Banner Elk, and twelve miles northwest of 
 Blowing Bock is Valle Crucis (Vale of the 
 Cross), where there is bass-fishing in the Wa- 
 tauga, and the Mary Etta Falls of Dutch Creek 
 have a leap of eighty feet into a foaming pool, 
 that is bordered with an evergreen selvage of 
 laurel and pine. 
 
 At this place, the hospitable H. Taylor and 
 his descendants have built handsome estates on 
 the ruins of Valle Crucis Abbey, which flour- 
 ished under Bishop Ives in about 1845, and fell 
 with his apostasy to Bome in 1852. 
 
 The name, Valle Crucis, is said to have been 
 suggested by the fact that two mountain tribu- 
 taries, flowing towards each other and emptying 
 into Dutch Creek below the falls, form a cross 
 with that crystal stream, in the centre of the 
 beautiful valley where the Abbey was located. 
 
 A large rustic arm-chair, made and occupied 
 by the devout William West Skiles during his 
 missionary work at Valle Crucis, now sits in the 
 front piazza of Mr. C. D. Taylor, and shoots up 
 its fabric of rhododendron and calmia boughs 
 in the most beautiful style of the Gothic archi- 
 tecture. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 143 
 
 The very best rural board can be had at Valle 
 Crucis, at reasonable country prices, with D. F. 
 Baird, Sheriff of Watauga County, who lives in 
 a commodious white house, where the air without 
 blossoms with the odor of plenty's horn, and 
 the within is adorned with a cheerful wife and 
 three rose-lipped daughters of joy. 
 
 / 
 
144 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 JOURNAL OF ANDRE MICHAUX. 
 
 [The following sketch of the history of Andre Mi- 
 chaux's career is condensed from the memoir prepared 
 by Professor Charles S. Sargent, of Brooklyn, Massachu- 
 setts, as an introduction to the journal published by the 
 American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia.] 
 
 The younger Michaux, in tlie year 1824, 
 presented to the American Philosophical Society 
 the manuscript diary kept by his father during 
 his travels in America. The first parts had 
 been unfortunately lost in the wreck of the 
 vessel in which Michaux returned to France 
 from America, and no record is jDreserved of his 
 travels in this country from the time of his 
 arrival in New York in October, 1785, until his 
 first visit to South Carolina in 1787. 
 
 The first notice of the journal which appeared 
 in this country is found in a paper, by Professor 
 Asa Gray, entitled " Notes of a Botanical Ex- 
 cursion to the Mountains of North Carolina,'' 
 published in the American Journal of Science, 
 in 1841. This brief extract, together with a 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 145 
 
 more detailed account of tliose parts of Micliaux's 
 document which relate to Canada, published in 
 1863, by the Abbe Ovide Brunet, directed the 
 attention of botanists to this record of the travels 
 of one of the most interesting and picturesque 
 figures in the annals of botanical discovery in 
 America, and for many years the feeling has 
 existed among them that the journal which fur- 
 nishes an important chapter in the history of 
 the development of American botany should be 
 published. The American Philosophical So- 
 ciety having shared in these views, a copy of the 
 manuscript has been placed in my hands for 
 publication. It is now printed as Michaux 
 wrote it, by the light of his lonely camp-fires, 
 during brief moments snatched from short hours 
 of repose, in the midst of hardships and often 
 surrounded with dangers. The character of the 
 man appears in this record of his daily life, and 
 any attempt to correct or extend his words would 
 destroy their individuality and diminish the his- 
 torical value of his diary. 
 
 The journal is something more than a mere 
 diary of travel and botanical discovery. The 
 information which it contains in regard to vari- 
 ous plants first detected by Michaux is valuable 
 even now, and his remarks upon the condition 
 of the remote settlements which he visited in the 
 
 Q k 13 
 
146 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 course of his wonderings are interesting and 
 often amusing. They record the impressions of 
 a man of unusual intelligence — a traveller in 
 many lands, who had learned by long practice to 
 use his eyes to good advantage, and to write 
 down only what he saw. 
 
 He was the first botanist who ever travelled 
 extensively in this country, although it must not 
 be forgotten that John and William Bartram, 
 his predecessors by several years in the same 
 field, did much to prepare the way for his wider 
 and more detailed explorations. The first con- 
 nected and systematic work upon the flora of 
 North America was based largely upon his col- 
 lections, and bears the impress of his name, 
 while it was by his efforts that many American 
 plants were first made known in the gardens of 
 Europe. 
 
 Michaux was born at Salory, in the neighbor- 
 hood of Versailles, on March 7, 1746, and early 
 became interested in the cultivation and study 
 of plants. He left Paris, in 1782, for Aleppo 
 and Bagdad, and, after travelling extensively 
 and mastering the Persian language, he returned 
 to Paris early in 1785, bringing with him a 
 valuable herbarium, and a large collection of 
 seeds. 
 
 At this time the French government was 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 147 
 
 anxious to introduce into the royal plantations 
 the most valuable trees of ea>stern North America, 
 and Michaux was selected for this undertaking. 
 He was instructed to explore the territory of the 
 United States, to gather seeds of trees, shrubs, 
 and other plants, and to establish a nursery near 
 New York for their reception, and afterwards 
 to send them to France, where they were to be 
 planted in the Park of Rambouillet. He was 
 directed also to send game birds from America, 
 with a view to their introduction into the plan- 
 tations of American trees. 
 
 Michaux, accompanied by his son, then fifteen 
 years old, arrived in New York in October, 1785. 
 Here, during two years, he made his principal 
 residence, established a nursery, of which all 
 trace has how disappeared, and making a num- 
 ber of short botanical journeys into New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The fruits of 
 these preliminary explorations, including twelve 
 boxes of seeds, five thousand seedling trees, and 
 a number of live partridges, were sent to Paris 
 at the end of the first year. 
 
 Michaux's first visit to South Carolina was 
 made in SejDtember, 1786. He found Charleston 
 a more suitable place for his nurseries, and made 
 that city his headquarters during the rest of his 
 stay in America. Michaux's journeys in this 
 
148 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 country after his establishment in Charleston, 
 coyer the territory of North America from 
 Hudson's Bay to Indian Hiver, in Florida, and 
 from the Bahama Islands to the banks of the 
 Mississippi Kiver. 
 
 In 1788 he was called upon by the minister 
 of the French Republic, lately arrived in New 
 York, to proceed to Kentucky, to execute some 
 business growing out of the relations between 
 France and Spain with regard to the transfer 
 of Louisiana. This political journey, and a 
 second made into the far West, occupied long 
 intervals of Michaux's time, covering a period 
 of about seven years, at the end of which he 
 returned finally to Charleston in the spring of 
 1796. His nurseries were in a most flourishing 
 condition ; they were stocked with the rarest 
 American plants collected during years of labor 
 and hardship ; and with many of those plants 
 of the old world which Michaux was first to 
 introduce into the United States. The tallow 
 tree {Stillingia sebifera), now often cultivated 
 and somewhat naturalized in the Southern States, 
 and the beautiful Albizzia Julibrissin, were first 
 planted in the United States by him. He first 
 taught the settlers in the Alleghany Mountains 
 the value of the Ginseng, and showed them how 
 to prepare it for the Chinese market, — a service 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 149 
 
 wliicli gained for him a membersliip in the ex- 
 ckisive Agricultural Society of Charleston. 
 
 His movements for several years had been 
 impeded and the success of his journeys inter- 
 fered with by the lack of financial support from 
 the French government, and Michaux found, on 
 his return to South Carolina, that his resources 
 were entirely exhausted. An obscure botanical 
 traveller, almost forgotten in a distant land, had 
 little hope of recognition from Paris during the 
 closing years of the last century, and it was now 
 evident that he could depend no longer on sup- 
 jDort and assistance from France. He deter- 
 mined, therefore, rather than sell the trees which 
 he longed to see flourishing on French soil, to 
 return to Paris. 
 
 Michaux sailed from Charleston on the 13th 
 of August, 1796. The voyage was tempestuous ; 
 and on the 18th of September the vessel was 
 wrecked on the coast of Holland, where the 
 crew and passengers, worn out by exposure and 
 fatigue, would have perished but for the assist- 
 ance of the inhabitants of the little village of 
 Egmont. Michaux fastened himself to a piece 
 of plank, and was finally washed ashore uncon- 
 scious, and more dead than alive. His baggage 
 was lost; but his precious packages of plants, 
 which were stored in the hold of the vessel, were 
 
 13* 
 
150 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 saved, though saturated with salt water. He 
 remained in Egmont for several weeks, to regain 
 his strength and to dry and rearrange his plants, 
 and did not reach Paris until January. He was 
 received with great distinction and kindness by 
 the botanists of the Museum, but a bitter disap- 
 pointment awaited him. An insignificant num- 
 ber only of the six thousand trees which he had 
 sent to France during the eleven years he had 
 passed in America remained alive. The storms 
 of the Kevolution and of the Empire had swept 
 thi'ough the nurseries of Rambouillet, and Mi- 
 chaux's American trees were destroyed or hope- 
 lessly scattered. 
 
 This was the greatest disappointment of his 
 life, but he was not discouraged. His longings 
 were to return to America, but the French gov- 
 ernment would not supply the necessary means, 
 and on the IStli of October, 1800, he sailed-, 
 with Baudin on his voyage of discovery to New 
 Holland; and on the 19th of February, tliQ^^ 
 following year, the expedition reached the Isle 
 of France. Here, after a stay of six months, 
 in which Michaux made his first acquaintance ^ 
 with the vegetation of the real tropics, he left ^ 
 the party for the purpose of exploring the island 
 of Madagascar, which seemed to offer , a ;niore ; 
 useful field than New Holland for his labors. -£, 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 151 
 
 He landed on the east coast, and at once set 
 about laying out a garden, in which he hoped to 
 establish, provisionally, the plants he intended 
 to bring back from his journeys in the interior. 
 Impatient of the delays caused by the indolence 
 of the natives he had employed to prepare the 
 ground, Michaux, in spite of the warnings of 
 persons familiar with the danger of exposure 
 and over-exertion under a tropical sun, insisted 
 upon working himself day after day. He was 
 soon prostrated with fever, but his vigorous 
 constitution and indomitable will enabled him 
 to resist the attack, and his health being partly 
 restored at the end of four months, he was ready 
 to start for the mountains. His preparations 
 were all made, but on the eve of his departure, 
 late in November, 1802, he was attacked again 
 with fever and died suddenly. He was only 
 fifty-six years old, still in the prime of life, and 
 possessed of all his powers when his useful 
 career was thus suddenly brought to an end. 
 
152 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 ' EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL OF ANDRE 
 
 » 
 
 MICHAUX. — Translated. 
 
 [The Journal of Andre Michaux from the time he 
 passed Charlotte, on his way to the mountains of 
 Western North Carolina, until he returned to Charles- 
 ton, from which point he had started.] 
 
 July 22. — Passed tlirough Charlotte in Meck- 
 lenburg. Red clay soil; quartz rocks; clear 
 waters formerly : the waters have the color of 
 dead leaves or dry tobacco. Vegetation, red- 
 oaks, black-oaks, and white-oaks, etc. Actea 
 spicata. . . . Slept six miles from Tuck-a-Segee 
 ford. 
 
 July 23. — Passed through Ben Smith, twenty 
 miles from Charlotte. Two or three miles before 
 arriving there saw the Magnolia tomentoso-glauca 
 fol. cordatis longiorib. Slept six miles from B. 
 Smith. 
 
 July 24. — Passed through Lincoln and dined 
 with Beinhart. Calamus aromaticus. Slept at 
 the old shoemaker's. 
 
 July 25. — Came to Henry Watner, now Bob- 
 ertson. 
 
 July 26. — Arrived at Morgan ton, Burke Court- 
 House, thirty miles from Bobertson. Frutex 
 Calycantha facies, etc. 
 
TEE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 153 
 
 July 27. — Stayed at Morgan ton on account of 
 the rain and sw,ollen creeks which could not be 
 passed except by swimming. 
 
 July 28. — Remained at Morganton. 
 
 July 29. — Left Morganton, and slept at John 
 Rutherford's, near whose house I went over a 
 bridge across Muddy Creek. 
 
 July 30. — Came back into the usual road, 
 which leads to Turkey Cove, and arrived at the 
 house of a man named Ainsworth. 
 
 July 31.^ — Herborized on the Linville high 
 mountains, southeast of Ainsworth's residence; 
 and on the rocks and mountains denuded of trees 
 collected a little shrub {Leiophyllum buxifolium), 
 
 August 1. — Herborized on mountains of very 
 rich soil, situated to the northeast. Measured a 
 tulip-tree twenty-three French feet in circum- 
 ference. 
 
 August 2. — Herborized towards the mountains 
 to the northward. 
 
 August 3. — Herborized among Cyperoides and 
 other aquatic plants. 
 
 August 4. — Prepared for the journey to the 
 Black Mountain. 
 
 August 5. — Deferred the journey on account 
 of the lack of provisions. 
 
 August 6. — Set out and reached the place 
 called Crab-tree. 
 
154 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 August 7. — Herborized on the mountains in 
 vicinity of Crab-tree. 
 
 August 8. — Herborized. 
 
 August 9. — Continued my lierborizations. 
 
 August 10. — Arrived at the foot of Black 
 Mountain. 
 
 August 11. — Arrived on the side of Black 
 
 Mountain. (Among the plants collected he 
 names " fox-grapes, fruit good to eat.") 
 
 August 12. — Returned from the mountain. 
 
 August 13. — Arrived at the house of Mr. 
 Ainsworth. 
 
 August 14. — A thick fog made it difficult to 
 explore the high mountains. Herborized in the 
 valleys. ^ " 
 
 August 15. — Bain. 
 
 August 16. — Journeyed towards the Yellow 
 Mountain and Bonn (Boan) Mountain. Beached 
 Towe (Toe) Biver, Bright's Settlement. The 
 principal inhabitants of this place are Davinport, 
 Wiseman. Collected herbs : Azalea coccinea, 
 lutea, flava, alba, and rosea ; all these varieties 
 of the Azalea nudiflora are found in this re- 
 gion. 
 
 August 17. — Agreed with a hunter (Davin- 
 port) to go to the mountains. 
 
 August 18. — Herborized and described several 
 plants. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 155 
 
 August 19. — Started to go towards the high 
 mountains. 
 
 August 20. — Herborized in the mountains. 
 
 August 21. — Keached the summit of E-oun 
 (Roan) Mountain ; found in abundance a small 
 shrub with boxwood-like leaves which I formerly 
 designated as Leiophyllum buxifolium, but the 
 capsule of which has three cells and opens at 
 the top.* 
 
 August 22.— Reached the summit of the Yel- 
 low Mountain. 
 
 August 23. — Returned to Davinport's house. 
 
 August 24. — Put my collections in order. 
 
 August 25. — Rain. 
 
 ^t^yt«5^26l^ Started for Grandfather Moun- 
 tain, the most elevated of all those which form 
 the chain of the Alleghanies and the Appala- 
 chians. 
 
 August 27. — Reached the foot of the highest 
 mountain. 
 
 August 28. — Climbed as far as the rocks. 
 
 August 29. — Continued my herborizations. 
 
 August 30. — Climbed to the summit of the 
 highest mountain of all North America, and. 
 
 * It is strange that Michaux did not mention the 
 abundance of this shrub growing on the bare rocks of 
 Grandfather Mountain. 
 
156 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 with my companion and guide, sang the Mar- 
 seillaise Hymn, and cried, '^ Long live America 
 and the French Republic ! long live Liberty ! 
 etc." Le 30 3Ionte au sommet de la plus haute 
 montagne de toute VAm. Sept. et avec mon com- 
 pagnon Guide, chante Vhymne des Marseillois et 
 crie Vive VAmerique et la Repuhliq. Frangaise, 
 Vive la Liherte, etc., etc. 
 
 August 31. — Rain all day. Stayed in camp. 
 
 September 1. — Came back to the house of my 
 guide Davinj)ort. 
 
 September 2. — Rain. Herborized. 
 
 September, 3. — Arranged my collections. 
 
 September 4. — The same work. 
 
 September 5. — Started for Table Mount. 
 
 September 6. — Visited the cliffs of the moun- 
 tain Hock-bill (Hawk-bill) and of Table Moun- 
 tain. These mountains are very barren, and 
 the new shrub {Leiophyllum) is the only rare 
 plant found there. It is there in abundance. 
 Slept at a distance of six miles, at Park's. 
 
 September 7. — Started for Burke Court-House 
 or Morgan ton. Slept at the house of General 
 MacDowal. Saw near his house Spirea tomen- 
 tosa in abundance. From Burke to John 
 Wagely's house, about twelve miles. From John 
 
 Wagely's to Thomas Young's, . From 
 
 Thomas Young's to Davinport's, eight miles. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 157 
 
 September 8. — Arrived at Burke Court-House 
 or Morgaiiton. Visited Colonel Avery and 
 stayed at his house. 
 
 September 9. — Started in the evening from 
 Morganton ; slept three miles distant from it. 
 Met an inhabitant of Stateborough, Mr. Atkin- 
 son, who invited me to his house. 
 
 September 10. — Reached Robertson, thirty 
 miles from Morganton. 
 
 September 11. — SlejDt at Reinhart's, Lincoln 
 Court-House, fifteen miles from Robertson. 
 
 September 12. — Started for Yadkin River and 
 Salsbury. Slept at Catawba Spring, eighteen 
 miles from Lincoln. 
 
 September 13. — Went to Betty's Ford on the 
 Catawba River, twenty miles from Lincoln. 
 Slept at a farm eight miles before coming to 
 Salsbury, where the three roads from Phila- 
 delphia, from Charleston, and from Kentucky 
 meet. 
 
 September 14. — Passed through Salsbury, a 
 town of better appearance than the other towns 
 of North Carolina. Fifty miles from Lincoln to 
 Salsbury. Continued my way to Fayetteville ; 
 crossed Yadkin River and slept fourteen miles 
 from Salsebury. 
 
 September 15. — Passed several creeks and low, 
 but very stony hills. 
 
 14 
 
158 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 September 16. — Part of the road very stony. 
 Saw the MagnoL acuminata florib. luteis : Collin- 
 sonia tuberosa. Came then upon sandy ground. 
 Slept at the house of Martin, store-kee23er. 
 
 September 17. — Continued my way across the 
 sand-hills. 
 
 September 18. — Keached a place six miles from 
 Fayetteville. Lost my two horses. 
 
 September 19 and 20. — Employed these two 
 days in searching for my horses. 
 
 September 21. — Found one of the two and . . . 
 
 September 22. — Arrived again at Fayetteville, 
 formerly Cross Creek. The river Cape Fear 
 flows past that town. Saw in my herborizations 
 swamps which surround the town. Cupressus 
 disticha, thyoides, often together. 
 
 September 23. — Started from Fayetteville after 
 having had the satisfaction to read the news, 
 arrived the evening before, from Philadelphia, 
 concerning the glorious victories of the Re- 
 public. Slept at the house of the old (?) Mac- 
 Cay, fifteen miles from Fayetteville on the road 
 from Salisbury. 
 
 September 24. — Took the road from Charles- 
 ton on the left and passed Drowned Creek at 
 MacLawchland bridge. But the more direct 
 route from Fayetteville to Charleston is by way 
 of Widow Campbell Bridge, forty (?) miles from 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 159 
 
 Fayetteville. From Widow Camj^bell Bridge to 
 Gum Swamp, ten miles from the line that sepa- 
 rates North Carolina and South Carolina. 
 
 September 25. — Passed through Gum Swamp 
 and slept eight miles from Fayetteville. Saw 
 the Cupressus thyoides and the Cupressus disticha 
 in several swamps. Saw the Andromeda Wil- 
 mingt. in abundance in all the swamps. Liquid- 
 ambar peregrinum, etc. Two miles from Gum 
 Swamp we reach South Carolina. 
 
 September 26. — Passed through Long Bluff, 
 a small hamlet, two miles south of the river Big 
 Pedee, seventy-four miles from Fayett-eville. 
 
 September 27. — Passed through Black Swamp, 
 twenty-two miles from Long Bluff. Col. Benton, 
 twelve miles from L. Bluff. Black Creek, ten 
 miles from L. Bl. Jefferis Creek ten miles from 
 L. Bl. 
 
 September 28. — Passed Lynches Creek, forty 
 miles from L. Bl. 
 
 September 29. — Passed Black Biver, thirty 
 miles from Lynch Creek. A certain Lorry 
 keeps the ferry of Black Biver. 
 
 September 30. — Arrived at Maurice Ferry, on 
 the Santee Eiver, fifteen miles from Black River, 
 and twenty miles from Monk's Corner. The 
 passage of the ferry was dangerous, and I was 
 obliged to go to Lenew Ferry. It is twenty-five 
 
160 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 miles from Maurice Ferry to Lenew or Lenew's 
 Ferry. 
 
 October 1. — Left Lenew's Ferry and passed 
 tlirougli Strawberry's Ferry, twenty-jfive miles 
 from Lenew's Ferry, and twenty-eight miles 
 from Charleston. Reached the dwelling-house 
 near Ten M. House. 
 
 October 2. — Left for Charleston. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 161 
 
 DICTIONARY OF ALTITUDES 
 
 (above the level of the sea) 
 IN 
 
 WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA. 
 
 TAKEN FEOM OFFICIAL EEPOETS. 
 
 WATAUGA COUNTY. 
 
 FEET. 
 
 Blowing Eock, highest town in the State 4.090 
 
 Boone, highest Court-House in the State 3,250 
 
 Grandfather Hotel and Post-Office, nearest to sum- 
 mit of Grandfather Mountain 4,050 
 
 Yalle Crucis, neighborhood and Post-Office 2,726 
 
 ShuU's Mills, neighborhood and Post-Office 2,917 
 
 Cook's Gap, of the Blue Eidge 3,307 
 
 Banner Elk. 
 
 Post-Office 3,900 
 
 Beech Mountain 5,541 
 
 Hanging Eock 5,224 
 
 Sugar Mountain, Mitchell County 5,228 
 
 Grandfather Mountain. 
 
 Watauga, Mitchell, and Caldwell Counties.. 5,987 
 Dunvegan, bluff of Eough Enough Eidge, near 
 
 Grandfather 4,924 
 
 I 14* 
 
162 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 FEET. 
 
 Howard's Knob, overlooking Boone 4,451 
 
 Bald of Eich Mountain. 5,300 
 
 Sugarloaf. 4,606 
 
 Snake Mountain 5,594 
 
 Elk Knob 5,574 
 
 Pine Orchard Mountain, near Elk Knob 4,800 
 
 Eiddle's Knob, near Elk Knob 4,800 
 
 Flat-Top, near Blowing Eock 4,537 
 
 MITCHELL COUNTY (East End). 
 
 Elk Park 3,250 
 
 Hump Mountain, near Elk Park 5,541 
 
 Cranberry Property. 
 
 Iron furnace 3,165 
 
 Hotel 3,228 
 
 Bellevue Farm, on top of Fork Mountain... 4,650 
 Cranberry Gap, between Cranberry Creek 
 
 and Toe (Est^toe) Eiver 3,650 
 
 Toe (Estetoe) Eiver, at Old Fields of Toe 3,650 
 
 Miller Gap, Blue Eidge 3,733 
 
 Montezuma 3,950 
 
 LiNviLLE Falls 
 
 Sugar Mountain, near the Watauga line and 
 
 overlooking Banner Elk 5,228 
 
 LiNviLLE Property. 
 
 Eseeola Inn 3,800 
 
 Eighteen miles of Yonahlossee Eoad, be- 
 tween Linville and Blowing Eock, from 
 
 4,000 to 5,000 
 
 Beacon Heights 4,650 
 
 Grandmother Mountain 4,764 
 
 Grandmother Gap 4,191 
 
 V 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 163 
 
 FEET. 
 
 Linville Gap, Blue Eidge, head of Watauga 
 
 and Linville Elvers 4,100 
 
 McCanless Gap, Blue Eidge, between Ban- 
 ner Elk and Linville 4,191 
 
 Beech Knob 5,067 
 
 Flat-Top Mountain 5,026 
 
 Grandfather Mountain 5,987 
 
 ASHE COUNTY. 
 
 Jefferson Court-House 2,940 
 
 Negro Mountain 4,597 
 
 Mulatto Mountain,..., 4,687 
 
 Three-Top Mountain 4,950 
 
 Paddy Mountain 4,300 
 
 Phoenix Mountain 4,673 
 
 Bluff Mountain.... 5,060 
 
 Peak Mountain 5,100 
 
 "White-Top Mountain, across the Yirginia line 5,678 
 
 WILKE COUNTY. 
 
 Wilksboro Court-House 1,043 
 
 Little Grandfather Mountain 3,783 
 
 Tompkins's Knob 4,055 
 
 Deep Gap, of the Blue Eidge 3,105 
 
 CALDWELL COUNTY. 
 
 Lenoir Court-House 1,185 
 
 Patterson's factory ! 1,279 
 
 Hibriten Mountain, near Lenoir 2,242 
 
164 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 BURKE COUNTY. 
 
 FEET. 
 
 Morganton Court-House 1,184 
 
 Linville Mountain, south end 3,766 
 
 Short-Off Mountain, north summit 3,105 
 
 Table Rock Mountain 3,918 
 
 Hawksbill Mountain 4,090 
 
 HEIGHTS OF THE MOUNTAINS AROUND 
 
 ASHEVILLE. 
 
 VALLEY OF THE SWANNANOA. 
 
 Junction of Flat Creek with Swannanoa Eiver.... 2,250 
 
 Joseph Stepp's house 2,368 
 
 Burnett's house 2,423 
 
 Lower Mountain house, Jesse Stepp's floor of 
 
 piazza 2,770 
 
 W. Patton's cabins, end of carriage road 3,244 
 
 Resting Place, brook behind last log-cabin 3,955 
 
 Upper Mountain, house 5,246 
 
 Ascending to Toe River Gap, passage, main branch 
 
 above Stepp's 3,902 
 
 IN THE BLUE RIDGE. 
 
 Toe River Gap, between Potato Top and High 
 
 Pinnacle...... 5,188 
 
 High Pinnacle, of Blue Ridge 5,701 
 
 Rocky Knob's south peak 5,306 
 
 Big Spring, on Rocky Knob 5,080 
 
 Gray Beard 5,448 
 
 CRAGGY CHAIN. 
 
 Big Craggy 6,090 
 
 Bull's Head.....* 5,935 
 
 Craggy Pinnacle 5,945 
 
1 THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN 165 
 
 BLACK MOUNTAIN, MAIN CHAIN. 
 
 FEET. 
 
 Potato Top 6,393 
 
 Mt. Mitchell 6,582 
 
 Mt. Gibbs 6,591 
 
 Stepp's Gap, the cabin 6,103 
 
 Mt. Hallback, or Sugarloaf. 6,403 
 
 Black Dome, or Mitchell's high peak 6,707 
 
 Dome Gap 6,352 
 
 Balsam Cone, Guyot of State maps 6,671 
 
 Hairy Bear 6,610 
 
 Bear Gap 6,234 
 
 Black Brother, Sandoz of State maps 6,619 
 
 Cat-tail Peak 6,611 
 
 Eocky Trail Gap 6,382 
 
 Dear Mount, North Point 6,233 
 
 Long Eidge, South Point 6,208 
 
 Middle Point. 6,259 
 
 NorthPoint 6,248 
 
 Bowlen's Pyramid, North End 6,348 
 
 NORTH-WESTERN CHAIN. 
 
 Blackstock's Knob 6,380 
 
 Yeates's Knob 5,975 
 
 CANET RIVER VALLEY. 
 
 Green Ponds, at Tom Wilson's highest house 3,222 
 
 Tom Wilson's new house 3,110 
 
 Wheeler's, opposite Big Ivy Gap 2,942 
 
 Cat-tail Fork,junction with Caney Eiver 2.873 
 
 Sandofor Gap, or Low Gap, summit of road 3,176 
 
 Burnsville, Court-House Square .., 2,840 
 
 Green Mountain, near Burnsville, highest point... 4,340 
 
166 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 GROUP OF THE ROAN MOUNTAIN. 
 
 FEET. 
 
 Summit of the road from Burnsville to Toe 
 
 Eiver 3,139 
 
 Toe Eiver Ford, on the road from Burnsville to 
 
 Eoan Mountai n 2,131 
 
 Baily'sfarm 2,379 
 
 Brigg's house, foot of the Eoan Mountain, valley 
 
 of Little Eock Creek .'.... 2,757 
 
 Yellow Spot, above Brigg's 5,158 
 
 Bright's Yellow 5,440 
 
 Little Yellow Mount, highest 5,196 
 
 The Cold Spring, summit of Eoan 6,132 
 
 Grassy Eidge Ball, northeast continuation of 
 
 Eoan Mountain 6,230 
 
 Eoan High Bluff. 6,296 
 
 Eoan High Knob 6,313 
 
 FROM BURNSVILLE TO GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 
 
 South Toe Eiver Ford 2,532 
 
 Toe Eiver Ford, near Autrev's 2.547 
 
 North Toe Eiver Ford, below Childsville 2,652 
 
 Blue Eidge, head of Brushy Creek 3,425 
 
 Linville Eiver Ford, below head of Brushy 
 
 Creek 3,297 
 
 Linville Eiver, at Pierey's 3,607 
 
 Head-waters of Ivinville and Watauga Eiver, foot 
 
 of Grandfather Mountain 4,100 
 
 Grandfather Mountain, summit , 5,987 
 
 Watauga Eiver, at Shull's mill-pond ^ 2,917 
 
 Taylorsville, Tennessee 2,395 
 
 Whitetop, Yirginia 5,530 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 167 
 
 FROM BURNSVILLE TO THE BALD MOUNTAIN — OBSERVA- 
 TIONS MADE BY PROFESSOR W. C. KERR, OF DAVIDSON 
 COLLEGE. 
 
 FEET. 
 
 Sampson's Gap 4,130 
 
 Egypt Cove, at Proffit's 3,320 
 
 Wolf's Camp Gap 4,359 
 
 Bald Mountain, summit 5,550 
 
 VALLEY OF THE BIG IVY CREEK. 
 
 Dillingham's house, below Yeates's Knob, or Big 
 
 Butte 2,568 
 
 Junction of the three forks 2,276 
 
 Solomon Carter's house 2,215 
 
 Stocksville, at Black Stock's 2,216 
 
 Mouth of Ivy River, by railroad survey 1,684 
 
 FROM ASHEVILLE TO MOUNT PISGAH. 
 
 Asheville Court-House 2,250 
 
 Sulphur Springs, the spring 2.092 
 
 Hominy Cove, at Solomon Davies's 2,542 
 
 Little West Pisgah 4,724 
 
 Great Pisgah 5,757 
 
 BIG PIGEON VALLEY. 
 
 Forks of Pigeon, at Colonel Cathey's 2,701 
 
 East fork of Pigeon, at Captain T. Lenoir's 2,855 
 
 Waynesville Court-House 3,756 
 
 Sulphur Spring, Richland Yalley, at James R. G. 
 
 Love's 2,716 
 
 Mr. Hill's farm, on Crab Tree Creek 2,714 
 
 Crab Tree Creek, below Hill's 2,524 
 
 Cold Mountain 6,063 
 
168 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 CHAIN OF THE RICHLAND BALSAM. 
 
 FEET. 
 
 Bichland, between Eichland Creek and the west 
 
 fork of Pigeon Creek, and at E. Medford's 2,938 
 
 E. Medford's farm, foot of Lickston's Mountain... 3,000 
 
 Lickston Mountain 5,707 
 
 Deep Pigeon Gap 4,907 
 
 Cold Spring Mountain 5,915 
 
 Double Spring Mountain 6,380 
 
 Eichland Balsam, or Cancy Fork Balsam Divide... 6,425 
 
 Chimney Top 6,234 
 
 Spruce Eidge Top 6,076 
 
 Lone Balsam 5,898 
 
 Old Bald 5,786 
 
 CHAIN OP WESTENER'S BALD. 
 
 Westener Bald, north peak 5,414 
 
 Pinnacle 5,692 
 
 GREAT MIDDLE CHAIN OF BALSAM MOUNTAINS BETWEEN 
 SCOTt'S creek and low CREEK. 
 
 Enos Plott's farm, north foot of chain 3,002 
 
 Old Field Mountain 5,100 
 
 Huckleberry Knob 5,484 
 
 Enos Plott's Balsam, first Balsam, north end 6,097 
 
 Jones's Balsam, north point 6,223 
 
 South end 6,055 
 
 Eock Stand Knob 6,002 
 
 Brother Plott 6,246 
 
 Amos Plott's Balsam, or Great Divide 6,278 
 
 EockyFace 6,031 
 
 White Eock Eidge 5,528 
 
 Black Eock 5,815 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 169 
 
 FEET. 
 
 Panther Knob 5,359 
 
 Perry Knob 5,026 
 
 VALLEY OF SCOTT's CREEK. 
 
 Love's saw-mill 2,911 
 
 Maclure's farm 3,285 
 
 Eoad Gap, head of Scott's Creek 3.357 
 
 John Brown's farm 3,049 
 
 Bryson's farm 2,173 
 
 John Love's farm 2,226 
 
 Webster Court-House 2,203 
 
 VALLEY OF TUCKASEEGE AND TRIBUTARIES. 
 
 Tuckaseege Eiver, mill, below "Webster, near the 
 
 road to Quallatown , 2,004 
 
 Junction of Savannah Creek 2,001 
 
 Junction of Scott's Creek 1,977 
 
 Quallatown, main store 1,979 
 
 Soco Eiver, ford to Oconaluftee 1,990 
 
 Soco Gap, road summit 4.341 
 
 Amos Plott's farm, on Pigeon 3,084 
 
 Oconaluftee Eiver, junction, Bradley Fork 2,203 
 
 Eobert Collins's highest house 2,500 
 
 Junction of Eaven's and Straight Fork 2,476 
 
 Junction of Bunch's Creek 2,379 
 
 CHAIN OF THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAIN, FROM NORTHEAST 
 TO SOUTHWEST, FROM THE BOUND OF HAYWOOD COUNTY 
 TO THE GAP OF LITTLE TENNESSEE. 
 
 The Pillar, head of Straight Fork of Oconaluftee 
 
 Eiver 6,255 
 
 Thermometer Knob 6,157 
 
 Eaven's Knob 6,230 
 
 H 15 
 
170 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 FEET. 
 
 Tricorner Knob 6,188 
 
 Mt. Guyot, so named by Mr. Buckley, in common. 6,636 
 
 Mt. Henry 6,373 
 
 Mt. Alexander 6,447 
 
 South Peak 6,299 
 
 The True Brother, highest or central peak 5,907 
 
 Thunder Knob 5,682 
 
 Laurel Peak 5,922 
 
 Eeinhardt Gap 5,220 
 
 Top of Eichland Eidge 5,492 
 
 Indian Gap 5,317 
 
 Peck's Peak 6,232 
 
 Mt. Ocoana 6,135 
 
 Eighthand, or New Gap 5,096 
 
 Mt. Mingus 5,694 
 
 GROUP OF BULLHEAD, TENNESSEE. 
 
 Central Peak, or Mt. Lecompte 6,612 
 
 West Peak, or Mt. Curtis 6,568 
 
 North Peak, or Mt. Stafford 6,535 
 
 Cross Knob 5,921 
 
 Neighbor 5,771 
 
 Master Knob 6,013 
 
 Tomahawk Gap 5,450 
 
 Alum Cave 4,971 
 
 Alum Cave Creek, junction with Little Pigeon 
 Eiver 1 3,848 
 
 GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAIN, MAIN CHAIN. 
 
 Eoad Gap 5,271 
 
 Mt. Collins 6,188 
 
 Collins'sGap 5,720 
 
 Mt. Love 6,443 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN, 171 
 
 FEET. 
 
 Clingman's Dome 6,660 
 
 Mt. Buckley 6,599 
 
 Chimney Knob ;... 5,588 
 
 Big Stone Mountain 5,614 
 
 Big Cherry Gap 4,838 
 
 Corner Knob 5,246 
 
 Forney Eidge Peak 5,087 
 
 Snaky Mountain 5,195 
 
 Thunderhead Mountain 5,520 
 
 Eagletop 5,433 
 
 Spence Cabin 4,910 
 
 Turkey Knob 4,740 
 
 Opossum Gap 3,840 
 
 North Bald 4,711 
 
 The Great Bald's central peak 4,922 
 
 South Peak 4,708 
 
 Tennessee Eiver, at Hardin's. 899 
 
 Hill House Mountain, summit road to Montvale 
 
 Springs 2,452 
 
 Montvale Springs, Tennessee 1,293 
 
 Marshall Court-House, Madison County 1,647 
 
 Warm Springs, " " 1,325 
 
 Bear Wallow Mountain, " " 4,638 
 
 Panel Eock Station, Tennessee line 1,264 
 
 NANTEHALEH MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Franklin Court-House, Macon County 2,241 
 
 Burning Town Bald, " " 5,103 
 
 Eocky Bald, " " 5,822 
 
 Toketah, " " 5,373 
 
 Wayah, " " 5,492 
 
 Albert, " " 5,254 
 
 Pickens's Nose, " " 4,910 
 
172 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 FEET. 
 
 Henderson ville Court-House, Henderson County.. 2,167 
 Bear Wallow Mountain, " " 4,233 
 
 Bear Wallow Gap, " " 3,465 
 
 Bald Mountain (or Pinnacle), " *' 3,834 
 
 Miller Mountain, " " 3,889 
 
 Sugarloaf Mountain, « " 3,973 
 
 Columbus Court-House, Polk County 1,145 
 
 Tryon Mountain, " « 3,237 
 
 Tryon Station, « " 764 
 
 Brevard Court-House, Transylvania County 2,195 
 
 Hymen's Knob, " " 6,084 
 
 Devil's Court-House, " " 6,049 
 
 Cassar's Head, South Carolina 3,223 
 
 Pinnacle, " " • 5,555 
 
 Hayesville Court-House, Clay County 
 
 Tusquitta Bald, " " 5,314 
 
 Medlock Bald, " « 5,258 
 
 Standing Indian (Mountain) " " 5,495 
 
 Chunky Gal " " « 4,985 
 
 Eobinsville Court-House, Graham County 
 
 Joanna Bald, . « " 4,743 
 
 McDaniel Bald, " « ....r. 4,653 
 
 Tatham's Gap, " « 3,639 
 
 Cheowah, maximum, " " 4,996 
 
 Murphy Court-House, Cherokee County 1,614 
 
 Winfrey Gap, « " 3,493 
 
 Peak, « « 3,937 
 
 Knoahetah Mountain " « 4,498 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 173 
 
 FEET. 
 
 Highest summit east of the Mississippi, Mitchell's 
 
 Peak, in North Carolina 6,707 
 
 Highest mountain in New England, Mount Wash- 
 ington, in New Hampshire 6,286 
 
 Difference 421 
 
 Among the peaks jointly possessed by Western North 
 Carolina and East Tennessee there are twenty-three 
 which surpass Mount Washington in height. In ad- 
 dition to these, there are twenty-three other mountains 
 which exceed six thousand feet, but fall short of Mount 
 Washington ; and there are still seventy-nine others 
 which exceed five thousand feet, many of them closely 
 approximating six thousand. 
 
 Area of North Carolina, 52,286 square miles. 
 
 Land surface, 48,666 square miles. 
 
 Water surface, 3,620 square miles. 
 
 Northern boundary, eastern end, lat. 36° 33' 15''. 
 
 Easternmost point, Chlckamicomico, long. 75° 27' 12". 
 
 Southernmost point. Smith's Island, lat. 33° 49' 55". 
 
 Western boundary, long. 18° 42' 20". 
 
 Extreme length, 503^ miles. 
 
 Extreme breadth, 187^ miles. 
 
 Length of coast line, 314 miles. 
 
 Latitude of Ealeigh, 35° 47'. 
 
 Longitude of Ealeigh, 78° 38' 5". 
 
 Longitude of Ealeigh, from Washington, 1° 37' 57". 
 
 Altitude of Ealeigh, 365 feet. 
 
 Average elevation of State, 640 feet. 
 
 Population, in 1890, 1,617,947. 
 
 Number of counties, 96. 
 
 15* 
 
174 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 MAGNETIC NEEDLE. 
 
 The variation in 1875 (and 1825) was 3° west in Curri- 
 tuck ; 3° east in Cherokee. 
 
 The zero left Eoanoke Island, its eastern limit, in 
 1790 ; passed Newbern in 1850, Ealeigh in 1870, Fay- 
 etteville in 1875, Greensboro in 1880. 
 
 The variation increases west 3 J minutes a year. 
 Direction of magnetic meridian N. 23° W. Motion west 
 five miles a year. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 175 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 A CONDENSED MEMOIR OF REV. ELISHA 
 MITCHELL, D.D. 
 
 Elisha Mitchell, D.D., was born in Wash- 
 ington, Litchfield County, Connecticut, on the 
 19th of August, 1793. 
 
 He graduated at Yale College in 1813, was 
 appointed to the chair of mathematics in the 
 University of North Carolina in 1817, and, after 
 rendering thirty-nine and a half years of the 
 most valuable service in the scientific depart- 
 ments of that institution, he perished the 27th of 
 June, 1857, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, 
 and was buried in Asheville the 10th of the 
 following July. " But at the earnest solicitation 
 of many friends, and especially of the mountain 
 men of Yancey, his family allowed his body to 
 be removed and deposited on the top of Mt. 
 Mitchell. This was done on the 16th of June, 
 1858. There he shall rest till the judgment 
 
176 TEE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 day in a mausoleum such as no other man has 
 ever had. Keared by the hands of Omnipo- 
 tence, it was assigned to him by those to whom 
 it was given thus to express their esteem, and it 
 was consecrated by the lips of eloquence warmed 
 by affection, amidst the rites of our holy re- 
 ligion. Before him lies the North Carolina he 
 loved so well and served so faithfully. From 
 his lofty couch its hills and valleys melt into its 
 plains as they stretch away to the shores of the 
 eastern ocean, whence the dawn of the last day 
 stealing quietly westward, as it lights the moun- 
 tain-tops first, shall awake him earliest to hear 
 the greeting of 
 
 * Well done, good and faithful servant J " 
 
 THE SEARCH FOR PROFESSOR MITCHELl's BODY. 
 
 (From the Asheville Spectator.) 
 
 Messrs. Editors, — Having spent a week at the scene 
 of this memorable calamity, in search of the body of Dr. 
 Mitchell, and assisting in its removal after it was found, I 
 have been requested by sundry citizens to give to the 
 public a sketch of the deplorable event. In accord- 
 ance with their request, I now take my pen to give you 
 all I know of the accident, which has caused so much 
 sorrowful excitement in this region, and which I doubt 
 not will unnerve the public feeling to its centre through- 
 out the State when the sad tidings shall be generally 
 known. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 177 
 
 It is known to all who have felt interested in our 
 State geography, that there lately sprung up a dispute 
 between the Hon. T. L. Clingman and Dr. Mitchell, in 
 regard to one of the high peaks of the Black Mountain 
 put down in Cook's map as Mt. Clingman. The former 
 alleging that he was first to measure and ascertain its 
 superior height to any other point on the range, and 
 the latter gentleman asserting that he was on that same 
 peak and measured it in the year 1844. After several 
 letters, pro and con, through the newspapers, Dr. Mit- 
 chell announced last fall his intention of visiting the 
 mountains again for the purpose of remeasuring the 
 peak in dispute, taking the statements of some gentle- 
 men who had acted as his guides on his former visits, 
 etc. Sometime since, about the middle of June, I think, 
 he came up, in company with his son Chas. A. Mitchell, 
 his daughter, and a servant boy, established his head- 
 quarters at Jesse Stepp's, at the foot of the mountain, 
 and began the laborious task of ascertaining the height 
 of the highest peak by an instrumental survey, which, 
 as the former admeasurements were only barometrical, 
 would fix its altitude with perfect accuracy. He had 
 proceeded with his work near two weeks, and had 
 reached to some quarter of a mile above Mr. Wm. Pat- 
 ton's Mountain House, by Saturday evening, half-past 
 two o'clock, the 27th of June, at which time he quit 
 work and told his son that he was going to cross the 
 mountain to the settlement on Caney Eiver for the pur- 
 pose of seeing Mr. Thomas Wilson, Wm. Kiddle, and I 
 believe another Mr. Wilson, who had guided him up to 
 the top on a former visit. He promised to return to 
 the Mountain House on Monday at noon. There was 
 no one with him. This was the last time he was ever 
 seen alive. On Monday his son repaired to the Moun- 
 m 
 
178 THE BALSAM GUOVES OF 
 
 tain House to meet liis father, but he did not come. 
 Tuesday the same thing occurred, and though consider- 
 able uneasiness was felt for his safety, yet there were 
 so many ways to account for his delay that it was 
 scarcely thought necessary to alarm the neighborhood ; 
 but when "Wednesday night came and brought no token 
 of him, his son and Mr. John Stepp immediately started 
 on Thursday morning to Caney River in search of him. 
 On arriving at Mr. Thos. Wilson's, what was their aston- 
 ishment and dismay to learn that he had neither been 
 seen nor heard of in that settlement ! They immediately 
 returned to Mr. Stepps, the alarm was given, and before 
 sundown on Friday evening companies of the hardy 
 mountaineers from the North Fork of the Swannanoa 
 were on their way up the mountain. The writer, hap- 
 pening to be present on a visit to the Black, joined the 
 first company that went up. About eighteen persons 
 camped at the Mountain House that evening, and con- 
 tinued accessions were made to our party during the 
 night, by the good citizens of that neighborhood, who 
 turned out at the call of humanity as fast as they heard 
 the alarm, some from their fields, some from working 
 on the road, and all without a moment's hesitation. 
 Early on Saturday morning our party under the com- 
 mand of Mr. Fred. Burnett and his sons, all experienced 
 hunters, and Jesse Stepp and others who were familiar 
 with the mountains, struck out for the main top, and 
 began the search by scouring the woods on the left 
 hand or Canej' River side of the trail that runs along 
 the top. We continued on this way to the highest peak 
 without discovering any traces whatever of his passage, 
 when our company became so scattered into small par- 
 ties that no further systematic search couid be made 
 that day. But directly in our rear as we came up the 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 179 
 
 mountain was Mr. Eld ridge Burnett with some more of 
 his neighbors, who had come from their houses that 
 morning; and hearing a report that Dr. Mitchell had 
 expressed his intention of striking a bee-line from the 
 top for the settements without following the blazed trail 
 way to Caney River, they searched for signs in that 
 direction, and soon found a trail in the soft moss and 
 fern that was believed to have been made by him, and 
 followed it until it came to the first fork of Caney, 
 where it was lost. Nothing doubting but they were on 
 his track, and that he had continued down the stream, 
 they went several miles along the beat of the river, 
 over inconceivably rough and dangerous ground, until 
 dark, when they threw themselves upon the earth and 
 rested till morning. Mr. Stepp, Mr. Fred. Burnett and 
 others made their way to Wilson's on Caney River to 
 join the company that was coming up from the Yancey 
 side, and the writer and many others returned, gloomy 
 and disappointed to the Mountain House. Thus ended 
 the first day's search. During almost the entire day 
 the rain had poured down steadily, the air was cold and 
 chilling, the thermometer indicating about forty-four 
 degrees at noon, whilst the heavy clouds wrapped the 
 whole mountain in such a dense fog that it was impos- 
 sible to see any distance before us. It seemed as if the 
 genii of those vast mountain solitudes were angered at 
 our unwonted intrusion, and had invoked the Storm- 
 God to enshroud in deeper gloom the sad and mysterious 
 fate of their noble victim. 
 
 Sabbath morning came, but its holy stillness and sa- 
 cred associations were all unregarded, and the party 
 camping in the Mountain House, now largely augmented 
 by constant arrivals from the settlements, plunged again 
 into the gloomy forest of gigantic firs, and filing through 
 
180 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 the dark and deep gorges struck far down into the wilds 
 of Caney Elver. Mr. Eldridge Burnett's party returned 
 about two o'clock, bringing no tidings and seeing no 
 further trace whatever of the wanderer's footsteps. 
 Still later in the dav Messrs. Fred. Burnett and Jesse 
 Stepp and party returned with some twelve or fifteen 
 of the citizens of Caney Eiver, having traversed a large 
 scope of country and finding still no trace of the lost 
 one. The rain still continued to pour down, and the 
 gloomy and ill-omened fog still continued to wrap the 
 mountain's brow in its rayless and opaque shroud. Just 
 before dark the remaining party came in, unsuccessful, 
 tired, hungry, and soaking with water. A general gloom 
 now overspread the countenances of all, as the awful 
 and almost undeniable fact was proclaimed that Dr. 
 Mitchell was surely dead, and our only object in making 
 the search would be to rescue his mortal remains from 
 the wild beasts and give them Christian sepulture! Jt 
 could not be possible, we thought, that he was alive, for 
 cold, and hunger, and fatigue, if nothing worse had 
 happened to him, would ere this have destroyed him. 
 Alas! we reasoned too well. By this time the alarm 
 had spread far and near, and many citizens of Asheville 
 and other parts of the country were flocking to the 
 mountains to assist in the search for one so universally 
 beloved and respected. On Monday the company num- 
 bered some sixty men. New routes were projected, new 
 ground of search proposed, and the hunt conducted 
 throughout the day with renewed energy and determi- 
 nation, but still without avail. On Tuesday the com- 
 pany of Buncombe men separated into three squads 
 and took different routes, whilst Mr. Thomas Wilson 
 and his neighbors from Caney Eiver, took a still more 
 distant route, by going to the top of the highest peak 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 181 
 
 and searchirifi: down towards the Cat-tail fork of the 
 river. They were led to take this route by the sugges- 
 tion of Mr. Wilson, that Dr. jVIitchell had gone up that 
 way in his visit to the high peak in 1844, and that per- 
 haps be had undertaken to go down by the same route. 
 They accordinglj' struck out for that point, and turning 
 to the left to strike down the mountain in the prairie 
 near the top, at the very spot where it is alleged that 
 the Doctor entered it thirteen years ago, they instantly 
 perceived the impression of feet upon the yielding turf, 
 pointing down the mountain in the direction indicated 
 of his former route. After tracing it some distance with 
 that unerring woodcraft which is so wonderful to all 
 but the close observing hunter, they became convinced 
 that it was his trail and sent a messenger back some 
 five miles to inform the Buncombe men, and telling them 
 to hurry on as fast as they could. The writer wiih Mr. 
 Charles Mitchell and many others were in a deep valley 
 on the head-waters of another fork of the river, when 
 the blast of a horn and the firing of guns on a distant 
 peak, made us aware that some discovery was made. 
 Hurrying with breathless haste up the steep mountain 
 side in the direction of the guns we soon came up and 
 found the greater part of our company watching for us, 
 with the news that the Yancey company were upon the 
 trail we had been so earnestly seeking so many days. 
 After a brief consultation, two or three of our party 
 returned to the Mountain House for provisions, and the 
 balance of us started as fast as we could travel along the 
 main top towards our Yancey friends, and reached the 
 high peak just before dark. Here we camped in a small 
 cabin built by Mr. Jesse Stepp, ate a hasty supper and 
 threw ourselves upon the floor, without covering, to 
 
 rest. 
 
 16 
 
182 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 About one o'clock in the night, just as the writer was 
 about closing his eyes in troubled and uneasy slumber, 
 a loud halloo was heard from the high bluif that loomg 
 over the cabin.- It was answered from within, and in a 
 moment every sleeper was upon his feet. Mr. Jesse 
 Stepp, Capt. Eobert Patton and others, then came down 
 and told us that the body was found. Mournfully then 
 indeed those hardy sons of the mountain seated them- 
 selves around the smouldering cabin-fire, and on the 
 trunks of the fallen firs, and then, in the light of a 
 glorious full moon, whose rays pencilled the dark damp 
 forest with liquid silver, seven thousand feet above the 
 tide-washed sands of the Atlantic, the melancholy tale 
 was told. Many a heart was stilled with sadness as the 
 awful truth was disclosed, and many a rough face glit- 
 tered with a tear in the refulgent moonlight as it looked 
 upon the marble pallor and statue-stillness of the stricken 
 and bereaved son, and thought of those far away whom 
 this sudden evil would so deeply afflict. 
 
 It was as they expected. The deceased had under- 
 taken to go the same route to the settlements which he 
 had formerly gone. They traced him rapidly down 
 the precipices of the mountain, until they reached the 
 stream (the Cat-tail fork), found his traces going down 
 it — following on a hundred yards or so, they came to a 
 rushing cataract some forty feet high, saw his footprints 
 trying to climb around the edge of the yawning preci- 
 pice, saw the moss torn up by the outstretched hand, 
 and then — the solid, impressionless granite refused to 
 tell more of his fate. But clambering hastily to the 
 bottom of the roaring abyss, they found a basin worn 
 out of the solid rock by the frenzied torrent, at least 
 fourteen feet deep, filled with clear and crystal waters 
 cold and pure as the winter snow that generates them. 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN, 183 
 
 At the bottom of this basin, quietly reposing, with out- 
 stretched arms, lay the mortal remains of the Eov. 
 Elisha Mitchell, D.D., the good, the great, the wise, the 
 simple-minded, the pure of heart, the instructor of 
 youth, the disciple of knowledge and the preacher of 
 Christianity I Oh what friend to science and virtue, 
 what youth among all the thousands that have listened 
 to his teachings, what friend that has ever taken him 
 by the hand, can think of this wild and awful scene 
 unmoved by the humanity of tears ! can think of those 
 gigantic pyramidal firs, whose interlocking branches 
 shut out the light of heaven, the many-hued rhododen- 
 drons that freight the air with their perfume and lean 
 weepingly over the waters, that crystal stream leaping 
 down the great granites and hastening from the majestic 
 presence of the mighty peak above, whilst in the deep 
 pool below, where the weary waters rest but a single 
 moment, lies the inanimate body of his dear friend and 
 preceptor, apparently listening to the mighty requiem 
 of the cataract! Truly "Man knoweth not his time, 
 and the sons of men are entrapped in the evil, when it 
 cometh suddenly upon them." 
 
 Upon consultation it was thought best to let the body 
 remain in the water until all arrangements were com- 
 pleted for its removal and interment ; judging rightly 
 that the cold and pure waters would better preserve it, 
 than it could be kept in any other way. At daylight a 
 number of hands went to cutting out a trail from the 
 top of the mountain to where the body lay, a distance 
 of three miles, whilst others went -to Asheville to make 
 the necessary arrangements. Word was also sent to the 
 coroner of Yancey, and to the citizens generally to come 
 and assist us in raising the body on Wednesday morning. 
 At that time a large number of persons assembled at 
 
184 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 Mr. Jesse Stepp's and set out for the spot, bearing the 
 coflSn upon our shoulders up the dreary steeps. We 
 had gone near ten miles in this way and had just turned 
 down from the high peak towards the river, when we 
 were met by Mr. Coroner Ayers, and about fifty of the 
 citizens of Yancey, coming up with the body. They 
 had got impatient at our delay, and enveloping the body 
 in a sheet and fastening it securely upon a long pole, 
 laid it upon the shoulders of ten men and started up the 
 mountain. And now became manifest the strenscth and 
 hardihood of those noble mountaineers. For three miles 
 above them the precipitous granites and steep mountain 
 sides forbade almost the ascent of an unincumbered man, 
 which was rendered doubly difficult by great trunks of 
 trees, and the thick and tangled laurel which blocked 
 up the way. The load was near two hundred and fifty 
 pounds and only two men could carry at once. But 
 nothing daunted by the fearful exertion before them, 
 they step boldly up the way, fresh hands stepped in 
 every few moments, all struggling without intermission 
 and eager to assist in the work of humanity. Anon 
 they would come to a place at which it was impossible 
 for the bearers to proceed, and then they would form a 
 line by taking each other's hands, the uppermost man 
 grasping a tree and with shouts of encouragement heave 
 up by main strength. In this way, after indescribably 
 toiling for some hours, they reached the spot. Here was 
 aiforded another instance of the great affection and re- 
 gard in which the deceased was held by all. These bold 
 and hardy men desired to have the body buried there, 
 and contended for it long and earnestly. The}- said 
 that he had first made known the superior height of 
 their glorious mountain and noised their fame almost 
 throughout the Union, that he had died whilst contend- 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 185 
 
 ing for his right to that loftiest of all the Atlantic moun- 
 tains, on which we then stood, and they desired to place 
 his remains right there, and at no other spot. It would 
 indeed have been an appropriate resting-place for him, 
 and greatly was it wished for by the whole country, 
 before its being told them that his family wanted his 
 remains brought down. The}^ reluctantly yielded, and 
 the Buncombe men proceeded to bring the body slowly 
 down the valley of the Swannanoa. Before leaving the 
 top, the writer took down the names of all present, and 
 will ask you to publish them to the world, as men who 
 have done honor to our common humanity by their 
 generous and disinterested conduct on this melancholy 
 occasion. I am no flatterer, Messrs. Editors, but I must 
 confess that the labor which these mountain men ex- 
 pended and the sacrifice they so willingly and cheerfully 
 made, is worthy of all praise and admiration. May God 
 reward their kindness. I feel sure, the numerous friends 
 and pupils of the dear deceased would rather read the 
 list of these men's names than the " ayes and nays" of 
 any Congressional vote that has been recorded in many 
 a day. 
 
 FROM YANCEY. 
 
 Nathaniel B. Eay, I. M. Broyles, Joseph Shephard, 
 Washington Broyles, Henry Wheeler, Thomas Wilson, 
 Jas. M. Eay, D. W. Burleson, G-. B. Silvers, J. O. Griffith, 
 E. Williams, A. D. Allen, A. L. Eay, Thomas D. Wilson, 
 E. A. Pyatt, D. W. Howard, W. M. Astin, James H. 
 Eiddle, Dr. W. Crumley, G. D. Eay, Burton Austin, 
 James Allen, Henry Eay, T. L. Eandolph, John Mc- 
 Peters, W. B. Creasman, S. J. Nanney, Samuel Eay, E. 
 W. Boren, Eev. W. C. Bowman, J. W. Bailey, Thomas 
 Silvers, Jr., Thomas Calloway, Henry Allen, J. L. Gibbs, 
 
 16* 
 
186 THE BALSAM GROVES OF 
 
 Jesse Eay, James Hensley, Eobert Eiddle, W. D. Wil- 
 liams, J. D. Young, William Eolen, G-. W. Wilson, John 
 Eogers, James Allen, Jr., J. W. Ayres, J. F. Presnell, 
 E. A. Eumple, W. J. Hensley, D. H. Silvers, E. Don 
 Wilson, Jas. Calloway. 
 
 FROM BUNCOMBE. 
 
 S. C. Lambert, William Burnett, E. H. Burnett, E. J. 
 Fortune, Ephraim Glass, J. H. Bartlett, B. F. Fortune, 
 A. !N". Alexander, James Gaines, J. E. Ellison, John F. 
 Bartlett, F. F. Bartlett, Elijah Kearly, E. Clayton, A. 
 Burgin, Jesse Stepp, D. F. Summey, T. J. Corpning, 
 Harris Ellison, T. B. Boyd, A. J. Linsdey, Joshua Stepp, 
 William Powers, E. P. Lambert, Tisdale Stepp, Daniel 
 Burnett, Thaddeus C. Coleman, A. F. Harris, W. C. For- 
 tune, Fletcher Fortune, Capt. Eobert Patton, Cooper, 
 servant of Wm. Patton, John, servant of Fletcher For- 
 tune, Esq. 
 
 A. J. Emerson, Chatham County, A. E. Ehodes, Jones 
 County, H. H. Young, and Moses Dent, Franklin County ; 
 all students of Wake Forest College. 
 
 This list does not comprise all who assisted in the 
 search, as, much to my regret, I did not take a list of 
 any but those present at the removal of the body. I 
 believe, however, that the names of all are recorded 
 on the register of Mr. Patton's Mountain House, 
 where the friends of Dr. Mitchell can see them when 
 they visit (as I have no doubt many will) the scene of 
 his death. 
 
 This ends my brief sketch of this melancholy aifair. 
 As to my eulogy upon Dr. Mitchell's character I feel 
 myself unequal to the task. I trust that it will be ap- 
 propriately pronounced by some one of his learned and 
 
THE GRANDFATHER MOUNTAIN. 187 
 
 devoted fellow laborers of the University. My feeble 
 pen could add nothing to his moral and intellectual 
 stature. I will only say that I loved him as sincerely 
 as any one in the State. I am gratified to be able to 
 state that unusual kindness and respect was exhibited 
 by every citizen of the country throughout the whole 
 transaction. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Z. B. Yance. 
 
 THE END. 
 
Beautiful 
 Young: 
 Balsam 
 
 Trees 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 sam Groifes of tie Graaitlier iooiitaiii 
 
 And hundreds of other showy varieties of our 
 beautiful and hardy NATIVE ORNAMEN= 
 TAL MOUNTAIN TREES, SHRUBS, and 
 FLOWERING PLANTS for our readers' 
 Lawns, Parks, Drives, and Gardens. 
 
 HIGHLANDS NURSERY, 
 
 Linville, North Carolina, 
 
 {In ike Southern A lleghanies, at an altitude of nearly 4000 feet, in Mitchell Co.), 
 
 ASKS YOUR SPECIAL ATTENTION TO 5IX 
 SHORT NOTICES. 
 
 Note First. — We are the original and largest 
 
 Nursery of Hardy Native Ornamentals exclusively, in this 
 country, supplying, as we do, the National Arboretums of mnny 
 Foreign Coi;ntries, as well as Parks, Cemeteries, Nurseries, 
 Gardens, and Private Grounds in America. 
 
 Second* — Hotels will be given Special Rates. 
 
 I wish to be in correspondence with every Hotel Proprietor or 
 Manager in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia having 
 grounds to beautify. We can help you. (See Third notice.) 
 
Xliird, — Our Seven Years' experience enables 
 
 us to be of Practical Service to you, if you believe in 
 artistic and attractive lawns and grounds — whether Public or 
 Private. Streets, Yards, Drives, Back-grounds, Stone- 
 works, Trellises, Verandas, Fences, can as easily be beauti- 
 ful and attractive as bare and unsightly, and at minimum 
 cost. 
 
 I^ourtll. — What Highlands Nursery Grows : — 
 
 Deciduous and Evergreen Trees, Flowering Shrubs, Her- 
 baceous Perennials, Vines, Orchids, Ferns, Aquatics; 
 Rhododendrons, Azaleas, Kalmias, Dogwoods, Stuartias, 
 Hollies, Magnolias, Maples, Chionanthus, Hypericums, 
 Yuccas, Shortia, Dicentras, Trilliums, Clematis, Sarrace- 
 nias, etc., etc. 
 
 Kifltli. — Catalogues Free. Descriptive Retail, 
 
 Wholesale, and Special Offers for large Planters. Liberal 
 Discounts. Write us for any information. 
 
 Sixtli. — Don't neglect writing us at once. Visit- 
 ors at Linville are cordially invited to inspect the Nursery, 
 where we take pleasure in showing you our large collection of 
 plants. 
 
 ••• 
 
 LINVILLE, 
 
 North Carolina. 
 
ESEEOLA INN, 
 
 In the heart of the beautiful Grandfather Mountain region, 3807 
 
 feet above sea, has 
 
 PERFECT APPOINTMENTS, 
 EXCELLENT TABLE, 
 
 OPEN FIRES, 
 
 TELEPHONE, AND 
 
 DAILY MAILS. 
 
 On its grounds, removed from the Inn, are 
 
 TENNIS AND ARCHERY COURTS, 
 
 BILLIARDS AND BOWLING, 
 
 AND 
 
 A CHILDREN'S PLAY-ROOM. 
 
 NOBLE ROADS penetrate for many miles, unrivalled scenery, 
 and rugged mountain climbs invite the more venturesome. 
 
 Here, added to delightful coolness, is freedom from mosquitoes 
 and black-flies. TROUT in all the streams. 
 
 A PLENTIFUL LIVERY. 
 
 TERIvIS ^4:ODERAXEJ. 
 
 For Illustrated Circular, address 
 
 E. P. HOLCOMBE, Secretary, 
 
 LiNviLLE, Mitchell County, N. C. 
 
 (See illustration facing page 122.) 
 
'^i 
 
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