Part 11

Clingman’s dome, 6,660 feet high, the most elevated summit in the range, is 372 feet higher than Mount Washington of the White Mountains, and only 47 feet lower than the loftiest peak of the Appalachian system. From its dome-shaped summit, in close communion with the clouds, and encircled by a dense grove of balsams, high above the line of scrubby oak and beech, and higher still above the majestic forests of cherry, locust, chestnut and the walnut, which clothe its lower slopes, the observer, as from the basket of a balloon, looks down upon a varied world spread wide and rolling beneath his feet. To the north lies that level and fertile portion of East Tennessee, watered by the French Broad and the Holston. Villages dot the plains; and, afar, the crests of the Cumberland mountains and their spurs form with the transparent sky a purple horizon. On the other hand, the lofty heights of the Bald, Black, Blue Ridge, Balsam, Cowee and Nantihala ranges, with lapping ends and straggling summits, make a distant, circling, boundary line to a central ocean of rolling mountains. Directly south, one obtains a wide-spread prospect of the most wild and picturesque portion of the eastern United States--that land embraced by the counties of Swain and Macon--the once romantic habitation and hunting ground of the Cherokee Nation. Here lies the fertile valley of the upper Little Tennessee, and its picturesque but almost uninhabited lower reaches; the emerald green Ocona Lufta with its rich lands; the Indian reservation on the banks of the Soco; the beautiful Tuckasege, and the narrow and wildly romantic vale down which courses the Nantihala.

A noticeable feature of these mountains is their smooth, bald summits; not a sterile baldness like that of ranges higher or in more rigorous climates, but only bald as far as concerns the growth of trees and underwood. Atmospheric forces have played their parts on the pinnacles. What once must have been sharp crowns of rock, have, with time, storm, and frost, become rounded hillocks. Due, perhaps to the sweeping winds, the dense balsam forests--the characteristic tree of the loftier heights of the Smoky, Black, Balsam and Blue Ridge--stop around the brows of the extreme tops, leaving, oftentimes, perfectly level tracts of treeless land, in some instances of 1,000 acres in extent. The soil is a black loam. A heavy sward, green, even in winter, covers these meadows. On them, around occasionally exposed surfaces of rock, the scarlet, blossom-bearing rhododendron, and clumps of heather, similar to that on the Scottish hills, are found. Every spring, thousands of cattle, branded, and sometimes hung with bells, are turned out on these upland pastures. It is an unequalled grazing land. Water wells forth even from the extreme higher edges of the forests, and on every slope are crystal streams.

The same striking difference, between the slopes of the Blue Ridge, is seen in the Great Smoky mountains. On the Tennessee side, the soil is sterile, in comparison with the North Carolina side. Bare, rocky faces are exposed to a stronger sun-light; the streams flow through slaty channels, heaped with gigantic boulders, and a sultry air pervades at the mountains’ base; still, flourishing forests cover the winding hollows, secluded coves, and even the craggy heights. One notable mountain cluster, the Chimneys, terminate in sharp, thin spurs of rock, differing in this particular from all the peaks of the Alleghanies south.

The North Carolina side is a luxuriant wilderness, where, not content with spreading overhead an unbroken roof of branches, brilliant with a foliage like that of tropical forests, Nature has carpeted the ground with mosses and grasses, and planted in vast tracts impenetrable tangles of the rhododendron and kalmia. These tangles are locally called “Hells,” with a proper noun possessive in remembrance of poor unfortunates lost in their mazes. There is no better timbered country in the United States. The wild cherry, of large growth, is found here in abundance, and other hard woods of a temperate clime attain majestic heights. The arrowy balsam shoots up to 150 feet, and the mast-like cucumber tree dangles it red fruit high above the common forest top.

The valleys are cleared and filled with the pleasant homes of hardy mountaineers. These farms, to the careless observer, appear to be the only marks of civilized life on the Smokies; but high above the main traveled roads, amid vast forest solitudes, beside small mountain streams, and in rich coves under sheltering ridges, are located many quiet cabins with no approach except by trail ways and known only to the tax-collector and cattle-herder.

Some of these trails, or poorly-worked roads lead the unsuspecting tourist into thickly-settled localities. Such a surprise awaits him if, at the cañon of the Cataluche, he leaves the highway leading from Haywood county to Knoxville. It is the most picturesque valley of the Great Smoky range. The mountains are timbered, but precipitous; the narrow, level lands between are fertile; farm houses look upon a rambling road, and a creek, noted as a prolific trout stream, runs a devious course through hemlock forests, around romantic cliffs, and between laureled banks.

But, to the observer from Clingman’s Dome, the clearings on the slopes of the Smokies are hidden from the eye. On all sides stretch wild, black forests, funereal in their aspect, wakened only by the cry of the raven, or the tinkle of the bell of some animal lost in their labyrinths. The great wildernesses of the deciduous trees lie below, mantling the ridges and hollows. In vain the eye endeavors to mark their limit: it is blanked by the misty purple into which the green resolves itself. Here, for the bear, deer, wolf, and panther, appears the natural home. Nowhere is there a more perfect roaming ground for these animals; but the hound, rifle, and trap, brought into active use by the Indians and mountaineers, have greatly thinned out the game; still, no better hunting is to be found east of the Mississippi.

Swain county, along the Graham county line, appeared the least inhabited section; and when, in the early part of October, we contemplated a deer drive, the above information regarding the skirts of the Great Smokies tended to drift us down the Little Tennessee. Our approach lay from that point in Haywood county which was then the terminus of the Western North Carolina Railroad, via Waynesville, Webster, and Charleston. We were mounted on stout horses, and were dressed in a manner anything but conspicuous; still, a party of four men, each with a Remington rifle or a breech-loading shot-gun, strapped for easy carrying across his back, forms a cavalcade of striking interest to denizens of mountain ways and the citizens of quiet villages.

Had we paid any attention to the opinion that, in the wilderness, we would be taken for revenue officers, and, as such, shot on sight by blockaders, we would have ridden uneasily. There is bravery in numbers, and then we knew better than to give countenance to such fears. Blockading, or “moonshining” as it is sometimes called, because the distiller works by the light of the moon, is not as prevalent in these mountains as is generally supposed; and, besides, it is growing less with every year. That an unobstrusive stranger stands in danger of being shot down by a blockader on suspicion of any kind, is a bug bear, in spite of its prevalence, almost too absurd for consideration. For the commission of a crime of this nature, it would take a strange combination of circumstances: a distiller with a murderous cast of mind; a tourist representing himself to be a United States officer, and the presence of an illicit still. Now, the blockader, like the majority of drinking men, is a good-natured fellow, who, while he deems himself a citizen of the United States, confounds natural with civil liberty, and believes he has the right to manufacture, drink and sell whisky in whatever manner he pleases so long as he does not interfere with the private rights of his neighbors. The tourist is generally a voluble fellow, anxious to make friends as he travels, and showing stronger inclination to have his bottle filled than to burst copper boilers or smash any barrels of mash. The still is hidden in retreats where a stranger would be as likely to stumble upon it as he would to finding the philosopher’s stone.

The tourist, traveling the lonely mountain highways, need have no fears as to the safety of his person or his pocket. It is true that murder cases are often on the county dockets, but these are the results of heated blood, and not of cupidity. Honesty is a strong trait of the mountain people.

Charleston, the county-seat of Swain,--a pleasant little village, whose existence dates only from the formation of the county in 1871,--is situated by the Tuckasege river, and at the foot of Rich mountain. It is in the midst of a new country. The two most conspicuous buildings, standing directly opposite each other at one end of the village street, are the new and old court-houses. The former is a substantial brick structure, likened by a wag, who draws his comparisons from homely observations, to the giant hopper of a mill, turned upside down. The old, frame court-house has its upper story used as a grand jury room, and its lower floor, as formerly, holds the jail. The dark interior of the “cage,” used for petty misdoers, can be seen under the front outside stairs, through a door with barred window. An apartment fitted up for the jailer is on the same floor, and, by a spiked, open slit, about six inches by two feet in dimensions, is connected with the “dungeon.” For its peculiar purposes this dungeon is built on a most approved pattern. It is a log room within a log room, the space between the log walls being filled up with rocks. It is wholly inside the frame building. Besides the opening where the jailer may occasionally peek in, is another one, similar to that described, where a few pale rays of daylight or moonlight, as the case may be, can, by struggling, filter through clapboards, two log walls, spikes, and rocks, to the gloomy interior. A pad-locked trap-door in the floor above is the only entrance. The daily rations for ye solitary culprit, like all our blessings, come from above--through the trap-door. Here, suspected unfortunates of a desperate stripe awaiting trial, and convicted criminals, biding their day of departure for the penitentiary or gallows, are confined in dismal twilight, and in turn are raised by a summons from above, and a ladder cautiously lowered through the opening in the floor. This invitation to clamber is always responded to with alacrity by the occupant below. As Swain county is particularly fortunate in having few crimes committed within its borders which call for capital or very vindictory and exemplary punishment, the dungeon is seldom put in use.

Along the main thoroughfare, and on the few side streets, are neat white dwellings; well-stocked stores, where a man can buy anything from a needle to an axe; and two good village hotels. Like all communities, they have churches here, and possibly (for the writer does not speak on this point from observation) on some grassy knoll, under the silence and shadows of noble forest monarchs, may be found a few head-marked graves forming the village cemetery.

The post-office is a good place, at the arrival of the mailhorse, to survey and count the male population of Charleston; or, after papers and letters are distributed, to meet, in the person of Postmaster Collins, an intelligent man who will vouchsafe all information desired on matters of local and county interest. In the middle of the day, you can sit on the counter in any of the stores and discuss politics or religion with the merchant, who, in his shirtsleeves, and perched on a pile of muslins and calicoes with his feet on a coal-oil barrel, smokes a pipe of home-cured tobacco, and keeps his eyes alternately on the ceiling and the road, as though expectant along the latter for the white or Indian customer.

Here we heard how a few years since a deer was hounded into the river, and then in deep water was easily lassoed by a native, towed to shore, and, rendered docile through fright, was led like a lamb through the village street. This story heightened our ardor to be on the hunt; so, leaving the village early on a foggy morning, we that day accomplished thirty-five miles of travel and arrived at our destined quarters on the height of the Smoky mountains.

The character of a river can not be known by a single view of its waters. One must follow it for miles to know its peculiarities, and wherein its picturesqueness differs from other streams. The mountain rivers are admirably suited for investigations of this nature. The levelest and oftentimes the only accessible way for a road is close along the streams. The Little Tennessee is, through many of its stretches, looked down upon from winding highways; but it is not until the traveler leaves Charleston and strikes the banks some few miles below, that the grandeur of its scenery is manifest. Here begins the close companionship between river and road, that is not broken until by the impetuous waters the heart of the Smoky mountains is cut asunder.

The scenery is similar to the French Broad, but the scale is considerably enlarged. There is a greater volume of water, and a wider reach between the banks; the mountains, whose wood-adorned fronts rise from the sounding edge of the current, are loftier in height, and in some places, like that before the farm house of Albert Welsh, present a distinctive feature in their steep, rocky faces. In the vicinity of the mouth of the Tuckasege, some charming pictures are to be found. Take it at the hour preceding an October sunset, when the shadows thrown by wall and forest lie dark and heavy on the slopes and levels; when the sunlight is strong, and an evening serenity pervades the scene: the steep mountains flame with the gorgeous coloring of autumn, mingled with the changeless green of the pines; crimson vines gleam in the sunlight smiting the cliffs which they festoon; and, in shadow, at the feet of the mountains, “like some grave, mighty thought threading a dream,” glides the silent river.

Occasionally, the stream makes a long, straight sweep; then again, abrupt bends throw it in zigzag course. A few flocks of teal and wood ducks, apparently even wilder than when in marsh-water, rose occasionally from placid faces of the river. They were out of gun-shot at the start, and before settling, never failed to put the next lower bend between them and their disturbers. The mountains so encroach on the river that little arable land is afforded; houses are consequently far apart, in some places miles of road being devoid of a clearing.

Eagle creek rises in Ecanetle gap. A narrow trail winds on the wild banks along its waters. At its mouth we turned from the Little Tennessee, and for ten miles pursued this trail without passing a house. The forest was lifeless and unbroken throughout. Twilight came as we traveled, and just after it became dark enough to see a phosphorescent log that glowed, like a bed of burning lime, across our path, through the laurel appeared a vista of cleared land embosomed in a dark forest. The starlight revealed it. In the center stood a double log house, with a mud-daubed stone chimney at each low gable, above which flying sparks made visible a column of smoke. The two doors were open, and through these streamed the lights from the fire-places. No windows marred the structure; but chinks, through which one might easily stick his rifle to blaze away at a wild turkey in the corn field, or at a revenue officer beyond the fence, made the exterior of the hut radiant with their filtration of light. Several low outbuildings were in the enclosure.

As Sanford’s horse struck against an intact row of bars which closed the trail, the savage yelping of a body of unseen dogs startled the quiet of the scene. In an instant a bare-headed woman, with a pan in her hand, appeared at one door, and at the other a bushy-headed man leaned outward.

“How are you?” yelled Sanford. “Do Jake and Quil Rose live here?”

“Shet up, ye hounds, ye!” addressing his dogs; then to us, “I reckon they do. Who be you uns?”

By that time both doors were crowded with young and old heads, and two men came toward us. After a parley, in which we explained who we were, and the object of our visit, the bars rattled down, our horses stepped after each other into the clearing, and in succession we grasped the hands of the Rose brothers.

“Ef yer hunters,” said one, “we’re only too glad to see ye; but at fust we didn’t know whether ye war gentlemen or a sheriff’s posse, the road-boss or revenue galoots. Now lite, go to the house, and take cheers while we stable the nags.”

As directed, we entered one of the two rooms of the cabin, leaving behind us the night, the quieted dogs and the October chill that comes with the darkness. A hot log fire, leaping in the chimney place, around which were ranged four children and a woman preparing supper, threw on the walls the fantastic shadows of the group, and enabled us to mark every object of the interior. On the scoured puncheon floor furtherest from the chimney, were three rough bed-steads, high with feather ticks and torn blankets. Against the walls above the bed-steads were long lines of dresses, petticoats and other clothing. No framed pictures adorned the smoky logs, but plastered all over the end where rose the chimney, was an assortment of startling illustrations cut from Harper’s Weeklies, Police Gazettes, and almanacs, of dates (if judged by their yellowness) before the war. A few cooking implements hung against the chimney. Over half the room reached a loft, where one might imagine was stored the copper boiler and other apparatus of a still, slowly corroding through that season immediately preceding the hardening and gathering in of the corn. A table, with clean spread on it, and set with sweet potatoes, corn-dodger, butter and coffee, stood in the center of the room. At this board, on the invitation of the brother known as Quil, we seated ourselves to a repast, rude to be sure, but made delicious to us from a long day’s travel. The wife of the mountaineer, as if out of respect to her visitors, and following a singular custom, had donned her bonnet on sight of us; and, keeping it on her head, poured out the coffee in silence, and, although seated, partook of no food until we had finished.

In the lines preceding these, and in those which immediately follow, the writer has attempted to present to the reader a true picture of an extreme type of mountain life,--that of a class of people, hidden in mountain fastnesses, who, uneducated and unambitious, depend for scanty subsistence upon the crops of cramped clearings and the profits of the chase. Their state of perfect contentment is not the singular, but natural result of such an uncheckered existence.

The Rose brothers, are known as men good-natured, but of desperate character when aroused. They have been blockaders. Living outside of school districts, and seemingly of all State protection, they refuse to pay any taxes; having only a trailway to their door, they pay no attention to notices for working the county roads. Thus recognizing no authority, they live in a pure state of natural liberty, depending for its continuance upon their own strength and daring, the fears of county officers, the seclusion of their home, and their proximity to the Tennessee line. Only one and a half mile of mountain ascent is required to place them beyond the pursuit of State authorities. One of them once killed his man, in Swain county, and to this day he has escaped trial. They are men of fine features and physique. Both wear full, dark beards; long, black hair; slouch hats; blue hunting shirts, uncovered by coats or vests, and belted with a strap holding their pantaloons in place. High boots, with exposed tops, cover their feet and lower limbs. They are tall and broad-shouldered. Thus featured, figured, and accoutered, they appeared to our party.

All the children had been covered with feather beds, when we six men and two women formed a wide circle before the fire that evening. Naturally, our conversation was on hunting, and Kenswick opened the ball by inquiring about the state of deer hunting.

“We allers spring a deer when we drive,” responded Jake.

“Do you never fail?”

“Never; but sometimes we miss killin’ ’im.”

“They must be thick around here,” remarked Sanford.

“Not so powerful. Why, just a few ye’r ago, Brit Mayner killed nine in one day. He couldn’t do hit now.”

“Why?”

“Gittin’ scurce; every man on the Smokies owns dogs, an’ they’re bein’ hounded to death.”

“How about bears?” asked Kenswick.

“Gittin’ scurce, too. We generally kill eight or ten now in the season agin twenty a short time back.”

“When is the best season for bear,” began Kenswick, but Sanford, who had stepped to the door, interrupted him.

“Oh,” said he, “let information about bears rest until we hunt for them, and let me ask if that is a wolf I hear howling. Listen!”

“By George!” exclaimed Kenswick, “it does sound rather wolfish.”

“Hit’s one, shore enough,” returned Quil. “We hear ’em every winter night from the door.”

“They must do damage to your sheep.”

“Reckon they do; but not much worser ’en dogs.”

“How do you destroy them?”

“Trap ’em, an’ shoot ’em.”

“Will they fight a pack of hounds well?”

“Prime fighters, you bet! But, dog my skin, I got the holt on one the other day that he didn’t shake off!”

“Hold of one! How was that?” two of us asked together.

Jake threw a rich pine knot on the fire; Kenswick ceased puffing his pipe for an instant; Sanford came from the door, and, leaning against the chimney, stuck one of his feet toward the blaze; Mrs. Jake Rose with her sister-in-law exchanged compliments in the shape of a tin snuff box, in which the latter dipped a chewed birch stick and then rubbed her teeth; and Quil began:

“This day war four weeks ago when I went down on Forney creek to see Boodly about swoppin’ our brindled cow-brute fer his shoats, want hit?” nodding to his wife.

She nodded.

“Wal, I hed my rifle-gun an’ the dogs fer company, countin’ on gittin a crack at some varmint along the way. On Bear creek, the dogs trottin’ by my side got ter snuffin’ in the rocks an’ weeds, an’ all o’ a sudden, barking like mad, broke hell-bent through the laurel and stopped right squar’ at the branch. Thar was cliffs thar, and the water, arter slidin’ down shelvin’ rocks fer a piece, poured over a steep pitch. I clumpt hit up an’ down the bank, lookin’ sharp fer deer-signs, but seed nuthin. Then thinks me ter myself, I’ll cross the stream, an’ call the dogs over. The nighest way to cross war across the shelvin’ rock above the fall. I waded in thar. Do ye know, the blamed thing was so slick and slimy that my feet slipped, an’ I cum down ker splash in the waters. I tried to clutch the rocks, but couldn’t, an’ as quick as ye can bat yer eyes, over the short fall I went, strikin’ bottom on sumthin’ soft an’ ha’ry.”

“A wolf?” some one asked.

“Yes, dog my skin! Hit was the dry nest of a master old varmint under thet fall. He war as fat as a bar jist shufflin’ out o’ winter quarters, an’ he only hed three legs. One gone at the knee. Chawed hit off, I reckon, to get shet o’ a trap.”

“What, will they eat off the leg that is fastened to free themselves from a trap?” asked Kenswick, excitedly.

“In course they will, an’ so’ll a bar,” continued Quil. “But I didn’t find this all out until arterwards. Thar I war astraddle o’ thet varmint’s back, an’ my fingers in the ha’r o’ his neck.”

“That’s a pretty stiff story, Quil,” remarked Sanford.