Part 21

As related by General J. W. Bowman, one of the first citizens of Mitchell county and descendant of a Revolutionary patriot, the summit of the Roan was the rendezvous for the mountain men of the Washington district and Watauga settlement, assembling for the march ending in the battle of King’s mountain.

In Yancey county, visible from the Roan, and forty-five miles from Asheville, is a peak known as Grier’s Bald, named in memory of David Grier, a hermit, who lived upon it for thirty-two years. From posthumous papers of Silas McDowell, we learn the following facts of the hermit’s singular history. A native of South Carolina, he came into the mountains in 1798, and made his home with Colonel David Vance, whose daughter he fell in love with. His suit was not encouraged; the young lady was married to another, and Grier, with mind evidently crazed, plunged into the wilderness. This was in 1802. On reaching the bald summit of the peak which bears his name, he determined to erect a permanent lodge in one of the coves. He built a log house and cleared a tract of nine acres, subsisting in the meantime by hunting and on a portion of the $250 paid him by Colonel Vance for his late services. He was twenty miles from a habitation. For years he lived undisturbed; then settlers began to encroach on his wild domains. In a quarrel about some of his real or imaginary landed rights, he killed a man named Holland Higgins. At the trial he was cleared on the ground of insanity, and returned home to meet his death at the hands of one of Holland’s friends. Grier was a man of strong mind and fair education. After killing Higgins, he published a pamphlet in justification of his act, and sold it on the streets. He left papers of interest, containing his life’s record and views of life in general, showing that he was a deist, and a believer in the right of every man to take the executive power of the law into his own hands.

While I was at the hotel a terrific thunder storm visited--not the summit of the Roan--but the valleys below it. It came after dark, and from the porch we looked out and down upon the world in which it raged. Every flash of lightning was a revelation of glory, disclosing a sea of clouds of immaculate whiteness--a boundless archipelago whose islands were the black peaks of the mountains. Not a valley could be seen; nothing but the snowy bosom of this cloud ocean, and the stately summits which had lifted themselves above its vapors. In the height of the storm, the lightning blazed in one incessant sheet, and the thunder came rolling up through the black awful edge of the balsams, producing somewhat similar sensations to those which fill the breast of a superstitious savage at the recurrence of an every-day storm above him.

When I descended the mountains on the following afternoon, the ravages of the storm were visible on several splintered oak trees, which lay prone across some of the wayside clearings and Big Rock creek was high and still roaring, with its excess of water.

At sight, of the rocky fords of this stream, the traveler would naturally form the opinion that it flows through wild, rugged scenery, in a country devoid of clearings. There is, however, fine farming land, cleared and occupied, along Big Rock creek. One portion of it, in particular, of soil rich and fertile, is settled by a prosperous and hard-working class of people, who, during the late war, sided with the North. It is now said that they will allow none, except white men, to stay, either permanently or as day laborers, in their community. The reason given is that they fought to liberate the negro from bondage, and, having thus helped him, they wish to be free from all contact with him. The same feeling prevails in other isolated localities through the mountains, one being on the Little Tennessee, in the region of its lower reaches, near the state line.

Bakersville, with a population of 500 people, is eight miles down from the summit of the Roan. It is situated on Cane creek. The town has been in existence only twenty-one years, is substantially built up, and growing rapidly. The mica interests are doing considerable to enrich it. An Indian town was once situated here, and to this day, although unused for 100 years, the old beaten trail of the red man, leading from Turkey Cove to the Nollichucky, is still visible, by the bank of the creek, under the bending grasses which grow along its edges, but still refuse to spring where the moccasin-footed aborigines, for probably centuries, wended back and forth from Tennessee.

Here, near the village, for one night’s encampment, in the course of their flight from Morganton, halted the “Franks” with “Nollichucky Jack,” their spirited and beloved leader. The details of his escape from trial are given in another chapter.

The 400 acres of valley, in which the town is situated, was a land grant of 1778, from North Carolina to William Sharpe and John McKnitt Alexander, clerk of the famous Mecklenburg convention. The old grant, with the surveyor’s plat of date September 30, 1770, and the great wax seal of the state attached, is among the archives of the county.

The Clarissa mica mine, in operation about three miles from the village, is a point of attraction for the tourist. At present work is going on more than 400 feet under ground, the passage down being through a dismal hole. If you attempt the descent, the daylight will be appreciated on your return.

The blocks of mica, after being blasted from the quartz and granite walls in which they lie embedded, are brought to the company’s shop in Bakersville. Here it is again sorted, the bent and otherwise worthless mica being thrown aside. That which appears merchantable is piled on the table before the workmen. Block by block it is taken and split into sheets, sufficiently thin to be cut by large iron shears. Specks or flaws in the mica are discovered by the workman holding each sheet, in turn, between his eyes and the light through a window, before him. The defects are remedied by again splitting the piece and taking off the thin defective layer. When entirely clear it is marked off in rectangular shapes, with patterns, and then cut by the shears. The sizes are assorted, and then wrapped and tied in pound packages. The value of mica ranges from half a dollar to three or four dollars per pound, the price depending upon the size.

The Sink-hole mines, near Bakersville, now abandoned, have some interesting facts connected with them. Years ago, a series of closely-connected, round, basin-like holes in the soil of a slope, creating some curiosity as to why and by whom they were formed, induced investigations. One was dug into, and in the center of its bottom, embedded in the rock, was discovered a vein of mica, which was followed until exhausted. The other holes were then worked in turn by the miners, several thousand dollars’ worth of mica being obtained. All efforts to strike the vein, beyond the line of the holes, proved unsuccessful. There was no mica discovered in the vicinity outside the sink-holes. In some of them curious stone tools were found, and the surface of the rock, around the mica blocks, in many instances, was chipped and worn, as though done by instruments in the hands of persons trying to extricate the mica. These ancient operations are attributed to the Mound Builders. In this connection, I had a conversation with Garret Ray, of Burnsville, containing the following:

When a boy, Mr. Ray had his attention attracted by a line of stone posts set, with about fifteen feet of space between each, on a mountain slope of his father’s farm. Years after, upon gaining possession of the property, he carried into execution a long-cherished idea of investigating the mystery of these posts. They marked a valuable mica vein, whose limits did not extend beyond them. There was no evidence that the located vein had ever been worked. By what surface indications or arts the mica was first discovered by the pre-historic practical miners, can only be answered by an oracle.

Many other traces have been discovered through the mountain country of a people who inhabited it before the advent of the Cherokees. Among the numerous mounds to be seen by the traveler in the broad valleys of the region, the one at Franklin undoubtedly takes precedence in shapeliness of outline. A few years since it was opened and a quantity of stone tools and ornaments taken from it. Eight miles southeast of Franklin, in the year 1820, soon after the transfer of that section by the Cherokees to the whites, a negro tenant of Silas McDowell, while at work plowing, discovered, fifteen inches under ground, a stratum of charcoal, and under this a burned clay slab, bearing on its lower side the imprint of the face and form of a man. Unfortunately, the slab, which was seven by four feet in dimensions, was broken into pieces, thus destroying a relic of untold value to the archæologist. The former inmate of this sepulchre was probably buried and then cremated by the race, according to its religious rites.

The Pigeon valley has been a great field for the relic hunter. Mr. Osborne, living about three miles south of the Pigeon River station, has, for a number of years, acted as an agent for a Richmond gentleman, in collecting the most curious of the ornaments and pieces of pottery turned up by the farmer’s plows. At least 2,000 of these relics have passed through his hands. Among a few which the writer saw at Mr. Osborne’s farm-house, was a group of men seated around a great bowl and smoking the pipe of peace. It consisted of one entire piece of soapstone, the figures being sculptured in correct proportions. They were raised about three inches above the ground part on which they were resting. Another was of two men struggling with a bear. Thousands of arrow and spear heads have been found in the valley. That the latter have no commercial value is evident from the fact that the long walks from the front fence to the house of the above mentioned farmer, are paved with them. Stone walls upon hill slopes have been unearthed in the vicinity. After this digression let us return to the journey.

The ride, by the nearest road from Bakersville to Burnsville, will lead the traveler for some distance along the banks of the Toe river. Deep, wide fords are to be crossed, and lonely forests ridden through. To the lover of nature, the solitude of some portions of the road will have in them nothing of a depressing nature. Burnsville is described in another chapter. From the latter village the road leads direct to Asheville. The dark outlines of the Black mountains are visible throughout a great part of the way. The road was in splendid condition when I traveled over it, and enabled me, with a sound horse, to arrive, in good shape, in the county seat of Buncombe, after an interesting horse-back journey of more than 300 miles.

BEYOND IRON WAYS.

If thou art worn and hard beset With sorrows that thou would’st forget, If thou would’st read a lesson that will keep Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, Go to the woods and hills!--No tears Dim the sweet look that Nature wears. _Longfellow._