by bluewaters | Jan 27, 2018 | Uncategorized
Now comes star nights when the stars lean so close that the tall peaks of the Great Smokies have to fold over to keep from bumping them. The Great Bear is down on the horizon and the Little Bear hangs by his tail from the North Star. To the South is Orion the Hunter and almost overhead are the Pleiades. To most of us the Pleiades are known as the Seven Sisters, but not to the Cherokee who have their own story as to their origin.
As old Runaway Swimmer, the greatest of the Cherokee storytellers, used to tell the story, it happened a long time ago when the world was new.
There were seven boys who used to spend all their time down by the townhouse playing the gatayusti game, rolling a stone wheel along the ground and sliding a curved stick after it to strike it. Their mothers scolded, but it did no good. So one day they collected some gatyusti stones and boiled them in the pot with the corn for dinner. When the boys came home hungry, their mothers dipped out the stones and said: “Since you like the gatayusti better than the cornfield take the stones now for your dinner.”
The boys were very hungry, and went down to the townhouse, saying “As our mothers treat us this way, let us go where we shall never trouble them anymore.”
They began to dance, some say it was the Eagle dance, and went round and round the townhouse, praying to the spirits to help them.
At last their mothers became afraid something was wrong and went out to look for them.
They saw the boys still dancing around the townhouse, and as they watched they noticed that their feet were off the earth and that with every round they rose higher and higher in the air.
They ran to get their children, but it was too late, for they were already above the roof of the townhouse, all but one. And this one’s mother managed to pull him down with gatyusti pole, but he struck the ground with such force that he sank into it and the earth closed over him.
The other six boys circled higher and higher until they went up to the sky, where we see them now as the Pleiades, which the Cherokee still call Anitsutsa – The Boys.
The people grieved long after them, but the mother whose boy had gone into the ground came every morning and every evening to cry over the spot until the earth was damp with her tears. At last a little green shoot sprouted up and grew day by day until it became the tall tree that we call now the pine. And the pine is of the same nature as the stars and holds in itself the same bright light.
Old Swimmer, great Cherokee story teller, also had a story about the how the Milky Way came to be. Some people in the south, he said, had a corn mill in which they pounded the corn into meal. And several mornings when they came to fill it they noticed that some of the meal had been stolen during the night. They examined the ground and found the tracks of a dog. So, the next night they watched and when the dog came from the north and began to eat the meal out of the bowl, they sprang out and whipped him. The dog ran off howling to his home in the north; with the meal dropping from his mouth as he ran, and leaving behind a white trail where now we see the Milky Way, which the Cherokee call “Gili-utsunstanunyi – Where the dog ran.”
by bluewaters | Jan 23, 2018 | Uncategorized
Mountain men with imagination and a sense of humor named the peaks and creeks, ridges and branches, gaps and coves of the Great Smokies. The names they left upon the map tell a story of the life and times of a virgin region, a rough country, a land of make-do or do-without. They are one of the few surviving links with the strong, resourceful, tough-fibered men who got this country started. Many of the names are unlovely, but they are original and they are honest.
Until 75 years ago no map showed accurately the features of the names of this rugged country. The settlements, such as they were extended in a fringe of scattered cabins along the southern border of the Smokies and along the northern border in Tennessee.
The great mass of the Smokies was quite uninhabited, and since it has become a national park even those few settlers who called it home have moved out, leaving it to the bear, the fox, the coon, the possum, the wildcat and the park rangers. Yet, even in those days, every creek and branch and ridge and cove had a name, although known only to a few. And the names survived because of wandering hunters or fishermen or herdsmen who came into the high ranges in spring and fall to look after their half wild cattle and razorbacks.
Such names as Ripshin and the Hurricane, the Devil’s Den and Huggin’s Hell, the Defeat and Desolation branches of Bone Valley, the Rough Arm and Blowdown, Tear Breeches and Long Hungry Ridge, The Sawteeth and the Jumpoff, Bent Arm and Pullback Ridge. They are vividly descriptive names, whimsical names.
They express the raw virility of the backwoodsman, his literal-mindedness, his whimsical humor that makes a sport of privation and hardship. They are names that, in a word or two, picture the features of a place, celebrates some incident of the rough pioneer life or recall some person who one time was somehow identified with a given place.
On the watershed of Twentymile and Eagle creeks, north of Fontana Dam, are Judy Branch and Genes Camp Branch, Big Tommy and Little Tommy, the Shuckstack, Augerhole Gap and Axe Ridge, Bearpen, Big Swag Ridge, Pawpaw and Soapstone.
Up on Hazel Creek there is Blockhouse, which derived its name because corn likker was made there; Thunderhead Mountain, Brier Know, Indian Camp, Wooly Ridge, the Chestnut Rock, Pullback Ridge and Gunlock Ridge. Up Bone Valley, beyond Locust Gap, is Long Big Flats Ridge then Main long Big Flats Branch, beyond which has a head stream, is the Fur Long Big Flats Branch. Crossing the high Welch Divide, by way of High Rocks and Mount Glory, to the east of Hazel Creek, and trailing down from Bear Wallow Bald is Forney Creek. The first branch to the left up Forney Creek is Ad Valorem.
It is a safe bet that no mountaineer christened a trout stream with that reminder of customhouses, and it is only those in recent years to honor a scientist or other prominent person.
Along the crest of the Smokies, northeast of Newfound Gap, is a section known as The Sawteeth, because the spine resembles the teeth of a saw. And nearby are Curry He Mountain and Curry She Mountain.
On the waters of Deep Creek, south of Fontana and the mountains from which they spring, are some peculiar names. Easy Ridge is a satiric term if you have ever tried to negotiate it with a pack on your back. Nick’s Nest refers to Old Nick and Keg Drive was a favorite spot for bear-driving. A gap at the head of Bee-tree Creek is known as Turkey-fly-up, names by the Indians because turkeys were always to be found there.
Some of the names on Bradley Creek are self explanatory such as Gold-mine Branch, Washout and Bear Wallow. Tow String gets it odd designation from the industry of an old woman who used to live there and made tow string for the settlers. Breackneck Ridge, Bear-foot, Bear Wallow, and Axe Ridge are obvious enough. Turkey Pen on Straight Fork was not an enclosure for keeping tame turkeys but a trap to catch wild ones. Then there is Pretty Hollow Gap and Pretty Hollow Creek which flows into the Rough Fork of Cataloochee.
Scattered across the Smokies are others such as Saddle Tree Gap, Horseshoe Ridge, Sunup Knob, Eagles Rocks, Sheep Wallow Knob, Long Bunk, Whistling Gap, Bee Knob, Horsetrough Ridge, Elbow Ridge, Fern Knob, Firescald Ridge, Gunna Creek, Roughhew Ridge, and Sally Sam Branch.
And now we come to Charlie’s Bunion, which is on the Appalachian Trail northeast of Newfound Gap, between the Jumpoff and the Sawteeth. Back in 1929 when George Masa, the little Japanese photographer, was trampling over the Smokies and making pictures the like of which no photographer ever made of this wilderness, he was being guided by Charlie Conner. Standing on the Sawteeth, Charlie pointed out a 5,375-foot peak to Masa and said: “That looks just like a bunion on Old Smoky’s foot.” It struck the fancy of the mountaineers and became Charlie’s Bunion. You’ll find it on the map, sitting there northeast of Mt. Kephart, which was named for the man they called the Apostle of the Great Smokies.
by bluewaters | Jan 18, 2018 | Uncategorized
In another age and time, the almanacs had an enormous influence on just about all of the mountain folk. Especially country folk who had few if any books outside the Bible. The almanacs were filled with practical information. Folks relied on them, for they told them when to plant and when to reap, whether there would be rain or snow or sun, a cold snap or a dry spell.
They provided entertainment and helpful hints for lightening household chores. There were recipes and proverbs too. Bits of poetry and history, flights of sentiment and a calendar that did away with notching or marking the wall for days of the week and the months.
From an almanac dating from the mid-1890’s here are some excerpts from the monthly calendar that are probably just as practical for now as then:
January – This is the month to put your house in order, a time is as bleak and bare as your fields now but it awaits only your sowing….this month your farm is your cellar and your barn.
February – Plan your garden, order your seeds. Have a look at the bider barrel. Keep a box of wood ashes in your chicken house so the hens can dust out the lice.
March – start shedding, but hold on to the red flannels. This is the best month to split wood. March lambs have a better start but April lambs bring the best wool. No better tonic this time of year than the sun and the wind. January and February are the time for dosing – and dozing.
April – “Out early and in late. Let John O’Dreams sleep on his bank, but spring fever flows no furrow.” And now, “Mother, while the menfolks go prancing around the farm, look to your clothes closet, the world is full of moths”.
May – Your garden should be under way now…watch the apple blossoms swell….pasture fences won’t wait fixin’ much longer.
June – This is the month for bees….Discount your apple blossoms in late May or June unless the weather is right for the bees to pollinate. Damp and stormy weather may quarter your possible crop.
July – Don’t let your grass get too ripe…Chickens should have plenty of outside space…When the water’s pouring off you in the hayfield get the womenfolk to fetch a gallon of oatmeal water.
August – It is time to start cutting brush about the farm…Sell off your old hens before they begin to molt.
September – Grass should be sowed not later than the middle of the month if there is to be a good catch before winter and a good crop next June. And by the way, fair time is coming up. So get ready.
October – This is apple picking time, cider making time. Handle your apples like eggs but twice as carefully. Eggs do not bruise.
November – Harvest time has come and gone. It is a time to give thanks. Give a thought to hunting and sitting by the fire. But first see that everything is bedded down for winter.
December – This is the top of the hill, the end of the year. Time to turn a page. Time to lay aside the old almanac and start reading a new one…
by bluewaters | Jan 17, 2018 | Uncategorized
A famous resort town was founded purely by luck.
A couple of town builders out in Kansas dreamed it up, but fate picked the site. The year was 1875, and this was nothing more than a lofty plateau, lonely and isolated, a wilderness of rhododendron, laurel and fir, home only to the owl, the squirrel, the bear and the wild cat.
Out in Kansas, a January wind whistled through the newborn town of Hutchinson, rattling the windows and doors of a house where to men bent over a map spread out on a table.
The two men were Samuel T. Kelsey and Charles Hutchinson. As they studied the chart – a map of the United States – Kelsey took a pencil and drew a heavy black line from north to south across its face. The line ran from Chicago to Savannah, and then he drew another, starting at New Orleans and moving northeast to Baltimore.
“We will build our town there”, Kelsey said, pointing to the spot where the lines intersected. “That’s where it will be”. As well as the two men could make out, the lines converged at a point where the states of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia came together, but wholly in North Carolina.
With their eyes on the main chance. Kelsey and Hutchinson figured the point of intersection would become the exact center of population between the great population centers of the east.
“It will be like the hub of a wheel,” Kelsey said. “We build a town there and people eventually will come through it to reach every point in that part of North Carolina, in northwestern South Carolina, and points in Georgia.”
They put away their map, and then started making their plans, for they were in a hurry.
Leaving homes and families behind, they set out for Western North Carolina to find the site fate had picked for their town. They arrived in Atlanta late in January. From there they headed northeast by mule-back into the rugged hill country. After wandering around through the region for days they finally climbed out of the Georgia hills and came to an elevated mountain plateau in North Carolina.
By the calendar it was February, 1875. They were deep in great wilderness. But they decided that this was the spot where their town should be built.
They did some scouting around and discovered a trail. They followed it off the plateau and down into a cover where they found their first sign of life. They came to a house and learned they were in Horse Cove and that a sizable settlement called Cashiers was nearby.
The two men from Kansas proceeded to find out who owned the land they wanted for their town site. They were told it belonged to a man named Dobson. They found a made a deal for 800 acres on the west plateau of Satulah Mountain.
About this time they ran into Charles N. Jenks, a noted explorer and miner, who happened to be in the area on a hunting and fishing expedition.
Jenks had a pocket compass. So they persuaded him to help them lay out the town. Once the survey was made, they cut a street through the center of the town to be, running east to west.
Hutchinson was given the choice of a 42 acre tract on either side of Main Street. He picked the south side. Kelsey took the north side. Both knew a trick or so about speculation and promotion. First they erected their own homes. They used massive, hand squared pine logs. They placed them upright, taking a cue from the western stockades. They were weather-boarded on the inside and clapboarded on the outside. With their homes up, they could boast that they had a town started.
It was then that they began to send circulars and advertisements to the ague-shaken folks of Kansas and adjacent states, as well as bombarding the New England states. They called their town Highlands. The response was enough to make Kelsey and Hutchinson realize they hadn’t been wrong in the gamble.
Within two years more than a dozen families had moved in and built homes. Among the first settlers was T. Baxter White. He came down from Massachusetts. He was Highland’s first postmaster. Judson M. Cobb came with his family from Wisconsin and brought the first Jersey cattle to Highlands.
All these early settlers made the journey to Highlands over the Walhalla road, then the only exit from Highlands. It ran through Horse Cove and Franklin, a full day’s journey. So Kelsey and Hutchinson began a campaign for roads, and they got the folks to chip in and build them themselves.
Meanwhile, Kelsey and Hutchinson realized they had to have a school and a church if the town was to prosper and grown. So they build a schoolhouse in 1878. And while it was under construction, a log cabin known as the “Law House” was used for church, Sunday school, magistrate’s court and school.
A few years after the town was built, Hutchinson moved his family back to Kansas and the town he had built that bore his name. But Kelsey stayed around for quite a number of years and went on to build another town in Western North Carolina – one called Linville.
by bluewaters | Jan 16, 2018 | Uncategorized
When a young girl got a hankering to make herself a quilt you knew for a fact she had marrying in her head. That was back in the sunbonnet-and-calico days, a time here in the mountains when quilt making and crocheting went hand-in-hand with courtship and marriage. There may have been other ways of telling how the wind was blowing with the young folks, but a girl’s sudden interest in quilt making left no doubt about her intentions.
As a matter of fact, it was a heap more dependable because folks hereabouts were as unfamiliar with engraved announcements as there were with engagement rings, both being a wondrous rarity.
In a way, a young girl’s visit to a quilt maker was sort of like showing off an engagement ring and announcing that she was aiming to get hitched up. Such a visit was made on the pretext of just dropping by to admire the quilts which, the blushing bride was quick to explain, she had heard so much about from her mother and she wanted to see for herself.
Of course the quilt maker, now old but once young herself, recognized the real reason for the visit. But she never let on, knowing sooner or later it would all come out. Patiently, the quilt maker then would spread out her quilts and would go to great lengths to explain the design of each one, talking pretty about this one call Around the World and that one call Grandmother’s Flower Garden. She would show off the one called Forget-Me-Nots and the one named Johnny Around the Corner and another called Double Hearts.
The most meaningful one she saved until the last, one designed to bring an admission of intentions from the young visitor – the one that was called the Double Wedding Ring. Once it was spread out the quilt maker knew she would have to get busy and call in the other women folk right soon for a quilting bee. Together, the quilt maker and the prospective bride then would set a day to begin work on the quilt.
Just as some men back then were more skillful than others at house raisings and were picked to notch the corners, so some women were particularly clever at finishing the quilt corners. It was a hard day’s work for ten women to quilt one quilt. So if it was not finished by sundown the quilt was drawn up overhead by the ropes and another day set to complete their work. Of course, the bride to be was always in a hurry to get the quilt finished, albeit the wedding might be months away.
When the quilt was finally finished and taken out of the frames one of the older women would urge the younger girls to shake a cat on the new quilt. The old folks believed the girl toward whom the cat jumped would be the next to marry. Of course, if the cat happened to jump away from the girls there was a sad time. For this was a sign that neither of them would ever marry.
It was also believed that a bride to be who went to the oldest woman in the community to set up the quilt for her marriage bed would be insured a long life and joy.
by bluewaters | Jan 12, 2018 | Uncategorized
The antiquated dinner bell is a time honored reminder of delicious home-cooked meals. But like many another sound once so familiar, it is seldom heard nowadays.
For dinner bells and farm bells have gone the way of the cow-horn trumpet and conch-shell horn. For some folks the old bell possesses the miraculous power of formenting a bewitching nostalgia. It rouses a thousand memories of the recent past, a period with which most can identify, a time when there seemed to be a bell for everything.
Back in the day, every bell had a special sound and a special meaning. The farm bell, usually fastened to a post in the yard back of the house, was more than a dinner bell. It was never rung just for fun. The farm bell was meant to serve a definite purpose.
Each family had a code for calling individual members to the house. So many tolling notes, repeated at one or two minute intervals, meant company had come for pleasure or business or the cow had gotten loose or there was an errand to run.
When wild clanging notes rang out without a break, everyone ran for the house. This meant something was wrong, either at home or at a neighbor’s. It meant fire or accident or sudden sickness – a call for help.
Mostly, however, the farm bell was rung as a summons to dinner. There was a time when the hand-held dinner bell was a familiar sound along main street at noon.
When court was in session, the sheriff had a similar hand bell which he rang from the high balcony to announce that the judge was ready to take his seat on the bench and begin trial proceedings.
Then there was the wild clanging of the engine bell as the passenger train pulled into the station on its twice daily runs east and west between Asheville and Murphy. And it went on ringing as the passengers got off and the mail and freight handlers moved to and from the baggage car.
This was in that period when there were school bells and shop bells and harness bells. The old-timers tell of a great big bell at the school house that summoned the children to school in the morning. There was a first bell and a second bell, rung thirty minutes apart. At recess and at noon, a hand bell was used by the principal to signal the time for lining up by grades at the school house entrance and marching back to classrooms. The same hand bell signaled the change of classes.
In the day, the fire wagon was a push cart affair. At it had a bell attached with a long rope that was rung as the volunteer fireman raced to a fire.
There were clear tones of church bells – the big bells that hung in the steeples and were pulled with a rope. But they fell victim to mechanical chimes.
Gone too is the bell tone of the hand cranked telephone that hung on the wall of home and store and shop.
There were also turkey bells and sheep bells and cowbells. Of them all, only the cowbells have survived in any great number. But they are not the fine, wonderfully sound cowbells they used to be. For the truly fine cowbells were handcrafted of good metal and each had its own particular voice. A few fine cowbells are still around. But for the most part, they have been relegated to the collector’s shelf.
In another period, a time not so long ago, the sound of many toned bells was a part of the countryside. And none was prettier or more welcome than the ringing of the dinner bell, pealing out a summons to a home cooked meal.
