Part 26

If it is a clear, sunny day, the beauty of the scene will be indescribable: the city on its rolling hills, the deep valley beyond, and, far away, Pisgah (a prince among mountains), the symmetrical form of Sandy Mush Bald, and between them, distant thirty miles, the almost indistinct outlines of the majestic Balsams. A transparent sky, a mellow sunlight, and that soft air, peculiar to this country, which covers with such a delicate purple tinge the distant headlands, add their charms to the landscape.

In a stroll or drive through the city you will find it remarkably well built up for the extent of its population. If it were not for the knowledge of its being a summer resort, one would wonder at the number and capacity of its hotels. The Swannanoa and Eagle, two commodious, elegant, and substantial buildings, stand facing each other on the main thoroughfare. Several other good public houses, although less pretentious, line the same street. There is a busy air about the square before the court-house and on the streets which branch from it.

Men of capital are beginning to locate here. With every summer new houses are growing into form on the many charming sites for the display of costly residences. The smooth streets arise and descend by well-kept lawns, orchards, and dwellings. A home-like air pervades. There are few towns in the United States which, for natural advantages, combined with number of population, and pleasant artificial surroundings, can compare with Asheville. Besides advancing in commercial and manufacturing importance, Asheville will, at no late date, be spoken of as the city of retired capitalists.

As early as the War of 1812, Asheville was a small hamlet and trading post. Twenty years after, it received its charter of incorporation. Morristown was the original name; which was changed, in compliment to Governor Samuel Ashe. The county was named in honor of Edward Buncombe. In 1817 Felix Walker was elected to the House of Representatives. On one occasion, while Walker was making a speech in Congress, he failed to gain the attention of the members, who kept leaving the hall. Noticing this, he remarked that it was all right, as he was only talking for Buncombe, meaning his district. The expression was immediately caught up, and used in application to one speaking with no particular object in view.

At present, Asheville is the principal tobacco market west of Danville, on the Richmond & Danville system, four large warehouses being located here. Two newspapers are published in the city. The _Citizen_, a Democratic weekly and semi-weekly sheet, one of the best papers in the state, is the official organ of the Eighth district. The _News_ is a weekly Republican paper.

Among the societies worthy of notice, is the Asheville club, comprising about forty members. Its organization is for social purposes. A pleasant room has been fitted up for its headquarters, where the members can while away their leisure hours in reading and conversation.

Before the advent, into Asheville, of the railroad, in 1880, tourists approached the mountain city by stages from either the terminus of the Western North Carolina railroad, at the eastern foot of the Blue Ridge; from Greenville, South Carolina; or up the French Broad from Tennessee. With the present speedy and convenient way of reaching it, the influx of new-comers increases with every season. Every day during the months of July, August, and September, when the season is at its height, the business portion of Asheville resembles the center, on market days, of a metropolis of twenty times the size of the mountain town. The streets, especially before the hotels, are thronged with citizens, and the crowds of summer visitors, on foot or in carriages, returning from or starting on drives along some of the romantic roads. Parties on horseback canter through the streets, drawing short rein before suddenly appearing, rattling, white-covered, apple-loaded wagons, driven by nonchalant drivers, and drawn by oxen as little concerned as those who hold the goad or pull the rope fastened to their horns; the only animated member of the primitive party being the dog which, in the confusion, having his foot trodden upon by one of the reined-up, prancing horses, awakes the welkin with his cries as he drags himself into a blind alley.

Even in daytime a dance is going on in the Swannanoa ball-room on a level with the street. The strains of music from it and whirling figures seen from the sidewalk, will be enough to clinch the opinion that you are in a gay and fashionable summer resort. Every week-day night dances are held at both the Swannanoa and Eagle. If you are single, there is little doubt but you will participate in this revelry; if you have lost the sprightliness of youth or the happy chuckle of healthy later life, in vain you may tuck your head under the pillow and vent your empty maledictions upon the musicians and their lively strains.

There are a number of pleasant drives out of Asheville. One is on the old stage-road leading up from Henry’s, a station for a few years the terminus of the slow-moving construction of the railroad. You drive or walk down the hill towards the south by houses close upon the road and several rural mansions back in natural groves. A heavy plank bridge, with trees leaning over either approach to it, spans the slow, noiseless Swannanoa. Instead of taking the bridge, turn sharp to the left and wind with the smooth road along the stream. There is a rich pulseless quiet along this river road that is truly delightful. At places the vista is of striking tropical character. The brilliant trees, their flowing green draperies, the seemingly motionless river! If you have time, you can follow on for miles until where the waters are noisy, the bed shallow, rhododendrons and kalmia fringe its banks and the gradual rise of the country becomes perceptible. It is the route generally taken from Asheville to the Black mountains. Another drive is to the White Sulphur Springs, four miles from the city. The way is down the steep hill on the west to the French Broad, across the long bridge, and by the village of Silver Springs, where lately a comfortable hotel has been erected. The lands of this village being level, close on the river bank and connected by the bridge at the depot, afford excellent sites for manufactories. The road now leads up a winding ascent, around the outskirts of Takeoskee farm (the extensive grounds, overlooking the river, of a wealthy Asheville citizen), through woods and cultivated lands to the Spring farm.

Big Craggy is an objective point for the tourist. The easiest route to it is via the road towards Burnsville and then up Ream’s creek, making a morning’s drive. A carriage can be taken to the summit of the mountain.

A portion of the old stage road to Warm Springs is an inviting drive. It runs north from the court-house, over the hills and then down the French Broad. Exquisite landscape pictures lie along the ancient thoroughfare. The country residence of General Vance will be passed on the way. Peaceful farm-houses, surrounded by green corn lands, yellow wheat fields, clover-covered steeps, and dark woods, will file by in panoramic succession. As late as 1882, the stages pursuing this road were the only regular means of conveyance from Asheville to Marshal and Warm Springs. The road was as rough as it was picturesque. From the fact of its being hugged for miles by the river and beetling cliffs, this could not have been otherwise. At times the horses and wheels of the stage splashed in the water of the river where it had overflown the stone causeways; again, boulders, swept up by a recent freshet, rendered traveling almost impossible. A considerable portion of the road has been appropriated for the bed of the railroad, and all that was once seen from a stage-top can now with more comfort be looked upon from a car window.

Sixteen miles west of Asheville is a model country hotel, at Turnpike. For long years it was the noonday stopping place for the stages on the way from Asheville to Waynesville. Since the railroad began operation it has become a station, and when we last came through from the West it was the breakfast place for the passengers. It is situated at the head of Hominy valley, amid pleasant mountain surroundings. John C. Smathers, the genial, rotund proprietor, will, with his pleasant wife and daughters, render the tourist’s stay so agreeable that the intended week of sojourn here may be lengthened into a month. John C. is a representative country man. What place he actually fills in the small settlement at Turnpike, can be best illustrated by giving the reported cross-examination which he underwent one day at the hands of an inquisitive traveler:

“Mr. Smathers,” said this traveler, “are you the proprietor of this hotel?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who is postmaster here?”

“I am.”

“Who keeps the store?”

“I do.”

“Who runs the blacksmith shop?”

“I do.”

“How about the mill?”

“Ditto.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, I have something of a farm, let me tell you.”

“And as a Christian?”

“I am a pillar in the Methodist church; the father of thirteen children; and my sons and sons-in-law just about run the neighboring county-seat.”

With a low whistle the traveler surveyed John C. from head to foot.

The trip from Asheville to Hendersonville, Cæsar’s Head, and the mountains of Transylvania should not be omitted by the tourist. The first place you pass, on the State road, ten miles from your starting point, and twelve from Hendersonville, is Arden Park. The estate, consisting of more than 300 acres, is owned by C. W. Beal. The unwooded portion is well improved and under a good state of cultivation. Upon an elevation near the center of the farm, is situated the residence of the proprietor, and near it the commodious buildings of Arden Park hotel, which are annually open for the reception of guests during the summer months.

Surrounded by the ordinary scenes of rural farm life, this hotel partakes more of the character of a country house than any other in Western North Carolina. The view from the front veranda is over an expanse of undulating fields, stretching down to the French Broad and rising beyond; and is bounded in the distance by massive spurs of the high Pisgah mountains, behind which the sun hides itself at evening. More than 100 acres of the estate is in the native forest, making, with its winding roads and paths, a pleasant park. The river, only one mile distant, will afford the angler an opportunity to utilize his skill and the more idle pleasure-seeker many an interesting stroll.

The park is richly favored with springs, both of mineral and soft freestone water. A chalybeate spring, near the hotel, has been analyzed, and found almost identical in its properties with the famed “Sweetwater,” in Virginia. The interior of the main building is peculiarly attractive. The parlor, hall, and reception room are finished in handsome designs with native woods--chestnut, oak, and pine.

On the main thoroughfare, one mile from the hotel, is the village of Arden, laid out a few years since by Mr. Beal. Upon completion of the Spartanburg and Asheville railroad, it will be the intermediate station between Hendersonville and Asheville. At present both village and hotel are dependent upon the daily stage line.

The visitor to Arden hotel will find it a pleasant home-like place. Its surroundings are beautiful, but not grand. It will be found an agreeable place to rest and enjoy the comforts of wholesome country living. A large percentage of the company the past two seasons came from the coast regions of South Carolina.

Hendersonville is the hub of the upper French Broad region. This prosperous village, the second in size west of the Blue Ridge, is situated on the terminus of a ridge which projects into the valley of the Ochlawaha, and overlooks a wide stretch of low bottom lying within a circle of mountains. When the county was formed in 1838, a point on the river six miles distant was designated as the site of the seat of justice, but a more central location was generally desired, and accordingly the law was amended two years later and the seat removed to Hendersonville.

The town has a cheerful appearance. The main street is wide and well shaded by three rows of trees, one on each side and one through the center. Several of the business houses are substantially and artistically built of brick, giving the stranger a favorable opinion of the thrift and enterprise of the merchants. A number of handsome residences give additional evidence of prosperity.

The population of Hendersonville numbers about one thousand. Seventeen stores transact the mercantile business, and five hotels keep open doors to the traveling public. As in all resort towns, private boarding houses are numerous. The moral and educational interests of the community are ministered to by churches, a public school, and an academy of more than local reputation.

There seems to be a harmony of effort among the citizens to make the stay of strangers pleasant, by furnishing them both information and entertainment. Several mountains in the vicinity afford extensive landscape views. “Stony,” four miles distant, commands the whole Ochlawaha valley and a wide sweep of the curving French Broad. The country embraced within the view from Mount Hebron is more rugged and broken. A good standpoint from which to view the village, valley, and bordering mountains is Dun Cragin, the residence of H. G. Ewart, Esq. Thirteen miles of plateau and valley intervene between that point and Sugar Loaf; Bear Wallow is about the same distance; Shaking Bald twenty-five miles away, and Tryon twenty-one. A part of the view is represented by the illustration on page 135.

Sugar Loaf mountain, one of the most conspicuous points seen from Hendersonville, has associated with it an historical legend of revolutionary times. The Mills family, living below the Ridge, were noted tory leaders. Colonel Mills and his brother William were both engaged on the royalist side in the battle of King’s Mountain. The former was captured, and afterward hanged by the patriot commanders at Guilford C. H. The latter escaped, with a wound in the heel, and made his home in a cave in the side of Sugar Loaf, living on wild meats, and sleeping on a bed of leaves. There he remained till the close of the war when, his property having been confiscated, he entered land in the French Broad valley, and became one of its earliest settlers. In the cave there are still found evidences of its ancient occupancy--coals, charred sticks, and bones.

Hendersonville is reached by two routes--by stage, from Asheville, and by rail from Spartanburg, on the Air Line. The latter road, the usual course of travel from the south, in making the ascent of the Blue Ridge, does not circle and wind as does the Western North Carolina; but its grade, at places, is almost frightful. One mile of track overcomes 300 feet of elevation. One bold, symmetrical peak is in view from the train windows during most of the journey, and from several points of interest in the upper valley. Tryon mountain may be styled the twin of Pisgah, and both, in shape, resemble the pyramids of Egypt. From Captain Tom’s residence, in Hendersonville, both may be seen, in opposite directions. Tryon preserves the name of the most tyrannical and brutal of North Carolina’s colonial governors. It was his conduct, in attempting to destroy the instincts of freedom, which precipitated the Mecklenburg declaration of independence in 1775.

The Spartanburg and Asheville railroad at present terminates at Hendersonville. It is partially graded to Asheville, and there is some prospect of its early completion.

The attractions of this section of the grand plateau of the Alleghanies, was made known to the coast residents of South Carolina about the year 1820. Four years after that date, Daniel Blake, of Charleston, pioneered the way from the low country, and built a summer residence on Cane creek. Charles Bering was the founder of the Flat Rock settlement, in the year 1828, and made a purchase of land, built a summer residence, about four miles from the site of the present county-seat and near the crest of the Blue Ridge. His example was followed by Mitchell King and C. S. Memminger, Sr., a year or two later. The community soon became famous for refinement, and the place for healthfulness of climate and beauty of scenery.

The Flat Rock valley is about two miles wide and four miles long, reaching from the Ochlawha to the crest of the Blue Ridge, and may be described as an undulating plain. It embraced, before the war, about twenty estates, among others the country seats of Count de Choiseue, the French consul-general, and E. Molyneux, the British consul-general. The valley, until recently, was reached in carriages by the low country people.

At the opening of summer the planter or merchant and his family, taking along the entire retinue of domestic servants, started for the cool, rural home in the highlands, where the luxurious living of the coast was maintained, to which additional gaiety and freedom was given by the invigorating climate and wildness of surroundings. Carriages and four, with liveried drivers, thronged the public highways. The Flat Rock settlement brought the highest development of American civilization into the heart of one of the most picturesque regions of the American continent. Wealthy and cultured audiences assembled at St. John’s church on each summer Sabbath. The magnificence of the ante-war period is no longer maintained; the number of aristocratic families has decreased, and some of the residences show the dilapidations of time; yet a refined and sociable air pervades the place, which, with the recollections of the past, makes it an interesting locality to visit. All who may have occasion to stop, will find a good hotel and hospitable entertainment at the hands of Henry Faunce, Esq., an eccentric but interesting landlord of the old school.

From Hendersonville to Buck Forest is twenty miles over a fair road. This place derives its name from the fact that the hills and mountains in the vicinity are reported to abound in deer. Of late years the amount of game has been rapidly decreasing, but even yet a well-organized and well-conducted chase is seldom barren of results. Buck Forest hotel is an old-fashioned frame house, situated in the midst of wild and inviting scenery. The traveler will recognize the place by the sign of an immense elk horn on a post, and by a line of deer heads and buck antlers under the full length veranda.

From Hendersonville to Cæsar’s Head is twenty miles. There are two roads--one up the valley of Green river, and the other to Little river, thence up that stream through Jones’ gap. Cæsar’s Head is also reached by stages from Greenville, South Carolina, on the Air Line railroad, distant twenty-four miles. The Little River road leads through the picturesque valley of the upper French Broad region. After traversing wide and fertile alluvions, the road enters, between close mountain slopes, a narrow gorge, through which the river, for a distance of four miles, rushes and roars in a continuous succession of sparkling cascades and rapids. The most noted point is Bridal Veil falls, so named from the silvery appearance of the spray in sunlight. It is not a sheer fall, but an almost vertical rapid with numerous breaks. On a bright day the colors of the rainbow play between the cañon walls.

Cæsar’s Head is a place about which much has been written, but no pen can describe the overpowering effect of the view from that precipice. I shall attempt to give only a few outlines to enable the reader, by the aid of his imagination, to form some idea of the bold and broken character of this part of the Blue Ridge.

One evening in August I crossed the state line through Jones gap, and rode along the backbone of the spur. A dark cloud had mantled the mountain tops all the afternoon. So dense was it, that the deep gorge of Little river had the appearance of a tunnel, reverberating monotonously with the sound of falling waters. On the south side of the ridge the cloud clung to the ground, making it impossible during the last three miles of the ride to see ten feet in any direction. No rain was falling, yet drops of water were soon trickling down the saddle and the chill of moisture penetrated my clothing. It was fast growing dark when a sound of laughter signaled the end of the journey. The indistinct outline of a large white house appeared a moment later, and on the long veranda sat numerous groups of men and women.

My thoroughly dampened condition must have appealed to the sympathies of the manager of the hotel, for I had scarcely entered my room when a servant appeared at the door with a tray of needed stimulants, after the fashion of the hospitable southern planter. Every attention was bestowed upon me, and a short time after I was in as agreeable a condition as I have ever been before or since. In the journal for the day, written up that evening, is this concluding sentence, which I had no inclination to change afterwards: “This establishment is managed by a man who knows his business, and is liberal enough to give his guests what they have a reasonable right to expect.”

At daybreak I joined Judge Presley, of Summerville, who has spent nine summers here and knows the surroundings perfectly. From an eminence near the hotel, the peaks of the Blue Ridge and its spurs can be counted for tens of miles in both directions, those in the distance resembling in the morning light, parapets of massive castle walls. “Do you see,” said the Judge, pointing in a northeasterly direction, “that oval line

against the sky? That is King’s mountain, on the border of the state, seventy miles from here. Now, look the other way, between yon pyramid-shaped peaks. There you see what might be a cloud. It is Stone mountain, near Atlanta, Georgia, 110 miles distant. You have overlooked an expanse of 180 miles of country.”