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JUNALUSKA. In the fall of 1910 the General Joseph Winston Chapter, D. A. R., unveiled at Robbinsville, Graliam county, a metal tablet, suitably inscribed, to Junaluska and Nicie his wife. The tablet was attached to a large boulder which had been placed on the graves of these two Cherokee. Mrs. George B. Walker of Robbinsville read a paper in which was given the chief facts of the career of this noted Indian chieftain; among which was the recovery by him of an Indian maiden who had been sold into slavery and taken to Charleston, S. C., by proving by microscopic tests that her hair had none of the characteristics of the negro's. He also, on separate occasions, saved the lives of Rev. Washington Lovingood and Gabriel North, whom he found perishing from cold in the mountains. He went with the Cherokees to the west in 1838, but returned, and was allowed to remain, the legislature of North Carolina of 18-17 having, by special act, made him a citizen and granted him 337 acres of land near what is now Robbinsville. The Battle of the Horse Shoe was fought August 27, 1814, according to Alfred M. Williams' Life of Sam Houston (p. 13), and on March 27th, according to other. It was called the Battle of To-ho-pe-ka, and was fought in a bend of the Tallapoosa river, Alabama, by Gen. Andrew Jackson in the Creek War. It was fortified across the neck of the peninsula by a fort of logs against which Jackson's small cannon were ineffective. But in the rear there were no fortifications except the river itself, so that Gen. Coffey, Jackson's coadjutor, could not cross. But Junaluska swain the river and stole the canoes of the Creeks, strung them together and paddled them to the opposite shore, where lies filled them with a large number of Cherokees, recrossed the river, led by himself, and attacked in the rear while Jackson attacked in front, Sam Houston and his Tennesseans scaling the walls and grappling the Creeks hand to hand. The Creeks asked and received no quarter, Houston himself being desperately wounded. This ended the last hope of the Creeks as a nation. I-su-nula-hun-ski, which has been improved into Junaluska, is Cherokee for "I tried but failed," and was given this chief because at the outset of the Creek War he had boasted that lie would exterminate the Creeks, but, at first, had failed to keep his promise. The following is the inscription on the tablet: "Here lie the bodies of the Cherokee chief Junaluska, and Nicie, his wife. Together with his warriors, he saved the life of General Jackson, at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, and for his bravery and faithfulness North Carolina made him a citizen and gave him land in Graham county. He died November 20, 1858, aged more than one hundred years. This monument was erected to his Memory by the General Joseph Winston Chapter, D. A. R., 1910." Before his death Junaluska conveyed his land to R. M. Henry. But Sheriff Hayes administered on the estate of the deceased Indian and got an order from the court for the sale of the land to make assets. Under the sale Gen. Smythe of Ohio became the purchaser, and took possession. The case was carried to the United States court, where Henry won. But Judge Dick held that it was a case in equity, and set aside the verdict of the jury, heard the evidence himself and decided it in favor of Smythe. Henry did not appeal. See record in office of clerk of United States court, Asheville. It was decided in the seventies.

PEYTON COLVARD. This pioneer was of French extraction, the name originally having been spelt Calvert, according to the Rev. Mr. Verdigans of the Methodist Church, South. Peyton Colvard came to Ashe county after the Revolutionary War. The Colvards of Cherokee and Graham are descendants, as is also Dr. J. W. Colvard of Jefferson, Ashe county.

PART OF NEGRO MOUNTAIN FALLS. About the year 1830 Peyton Colvard lived in a log building which stood on the site of the present Jefferson Cash store of Dr. Testerman, and on the morning of February 19, 1827, the day his daughter Rachel, now the wife of Russell Wilbar of Texas, was born, a huge mass of rock fell from the top of Negro mountain and ploughed a deep furrow, still visible, down its side for a quarter of a mile. The main mass of this rock, almost intact, is still visible, with a small tree growing on it, while large trees have since grown in the ravine left by the fall of this immense boulder.

THE FALLING of THE STARS. Several people still living remember this wonderful and fearful event. Col. John C. Smathers, who then lived on Pigeon river above Canton, remembers it distinctly. He remembers hearing women wailing and men praying. Francis Marion Wells, still living on Grass creek in Madison county, remembers it also. He is now over ninety-two years of age. Mrs. Eliza Burleson, still living on the head of Cane creek in Mitchell county, remembers the occurrence. She also is over ninety-two years of age.

FRANKIE SILVER'S CRIME AND CONFESSION. According to Mrs. Lucinda Norman, the only living sister of Charles Silver, now (1912) 88 years of age and residing at Ledger, Mitchell county, N. C., Frances Stewart Silver murdered her husband, Charles Silver, at what is now Black Mountain Station on the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railroad-tho mouth of the South Toe river-on the night of December 22, 1831.<a href="#2" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 2


Letter from S. J. Silver to J. P. A., dated November 18, 1912">[2] She was tried before Judge Donnell, June Term, 1832, and convicted at Morganton, where she was executed July 12, 1833. On appeal her conviction was affirmed by Judge Ruffin (14 N. C., 332). She escaped from jail but was recaptured. She cut her husband's head off with an ax, and then dismembered the body, after which she tried to burn portions of it in the open fireplace of her home. She left a poem lamenting her fate, in which she refers to "the jealous thought that first gave strife to make me take my husband's life." She also pleads that her "faults shall not her child disgrace." She also relates in the poem that

"With flames I tried him to consume
But time would not admit it done."

She must have been educated better than the average woman of that day. Finding that she could not get rid of the body by burning it, she concealed portions of it under the floor, in rock cliffs and elsewhere, claiming that he had gone off for whiskey with which to celebrate Christmas, and had probably fallen into the river, which had soon thereafter frozen over. A negro with a "magic glass" was brought from Tennessee, and as the glass persisted in turning downward, the floor was removed and portions of the body found. The weather growing warmer other parts of the remains revealed themselves, a little dog helping to find some.

TWO BAIRD FAMILIES. Indicative of the almost utter desolation of these early scattered mountain communities is the story of the two Baird families. On the 20th of April, 1795, John Burton sold to Zebulon and Bedent Baird all his lots in Asheville "except what lots is [already] sold and maid over."<a href="#3" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 3


Zebulon settled near French Broad River in Buncombe county, 2 1/2 miles below Asheville, where the National Casket Factory is now, and died there years ago.">[3] In 1819 Bedent Baird represented Ashe county in the House of Commons. He was not the Bedent who had bought the lots from John Burton.<a href="#4" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 4

Bedent settled on Beaver Dam, two miles north of Asheville, at what is now the Way place, where he died in 1839. Letter of Dr. J. s. T. Baird to J. P. A., December 16, 1912. Dr. Baird died in April, 1913.">[4]
Certain it is that another Bedent Baird lived at Valle Crucis in what is now Ashe county, and his descendants constitute a large and influential family in that county at this time, just as the Bairds of Buncombe do in that county. But these two families seem never to have heard of the existence of the other till the 28th of January, 1858, when Bedent E. Baird wrote to Adolphus E. Baird at Lapland, now Marshall, in answer to Baird's note of enquiry, which he had penciled on the margin of a newspaper. In that note he had claimed Bedent as a relative and stated that he resided at Lapland; but he failed to sign his name or state the county in which Lapland was situated. A. E. Baird received the letter promptly, but seems never to have answered it. In it Bedent gave a full family history; and the letter was published in full in the Asheville Gazette News on February 20, 1912. This letter was read and preserved by the numerous Bairds in Buncombe but no one seems to be able to trace the exact relationship between the Buncombe and the Watauga Bairds. That they are the same family no one who knows them can doubt, as they look, and, in many things, act alike, besides having the same given names in many cases.<a href="#5" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 5

Andrew, a brother of Zebulon and Bedent Baird, settled in Burke; but the Valle Crucis Baird did not Claim descent from him John Burton was really the founder of Asheville, as oil July 7, 1794, he obtained a grant for 200 acres covering what is now the center of that city. Condensed from Asheville's Centenary. He afterwards moved to Ashe County and in April, 1799, he entered 200 acres near the Virginia line. Deed Book A., p. 339.">[5]

THE COLD SATURDAY. This date is fixed in Watauga by the fact that John Hartley was born on that day, which is set down in his family Bible as February 8, 1835. On June 5, 1858, a freeze killed corn knee-high, and all fruits, vegetables and white oak trees between Boone and Jefferson, according to the recollections of Col. W. L. Bryan of Boone. There was a slight frost at Blowing Rock on the night of July 26, 1876. There was snow on the Haywood mountains June 10, 1913.

"THE BIG SNOW." Just when occurred what old people call the "big" snow cannot be determined to the satisfaction of everyone. Mrs. Eliza Burleson, of Hawk, Mitchell county, and the mother of Charles Wesley Burleson of Plum Tree, was born on the 5th of April, 1820, on Three Mile creek, her father having been Bedford Wiseman. She married Thomas Burleson, now deceased, in 1840, and after the Big Snow, and still remembers the hunters who came to her father's house from Morganton with guns and dogs and well nigh exterminated the deer, which could not run on the frozen surface of the deep snow, their sharp hoofs plunging through the crust, thus rendering locomotion impossible. Strange to say, near this very place is now the largest private collection of deer in the mountains-Bailey's deer-park being well stocked, while a small number of (leer still wander wild in the neighborhood and are hunted every fall. George W. Vanderbilt's and the Murchison deer parks also contain a number of these animal, as well as several other smaller collections.

"SNEW, BLEW AND FRIZ." T. L. Lowe, Esq., of Banner Elk, thinks that two hundred years ago elk, moose or caribou roamed these mountains, and that there was little or no underbrush or laurel or ivy then. He speaks of a big snow which fell during the Fifties which recalled Dean Swift's great snow in England, When he said "first it blew, then it snew and then it friz." A large number of deer were killed at this time for the same reason, the frozen crust. In Watauga they- still tell of a big snow which entirely obliterated all evidence of fence; and shrubbery; but the year seems to have been prior to 1850.

OTHER WEATHER EXTRAVAGANCIES. From Robert Henry's diary we learn that in "the summer of 1815 no rain fell from the 8th of July till the 8th of September. Trees died." Also that, "oil the 28th day of August, 1830, Caney branch (which runs by Sulphur spring five miles west of Asheville) ceased to run. Tom Moore's creek and Ragsdale's creek had ceased to run some days before; the corn died from the drouth. This has been the driest summer in sixty- years to my knowledge. Our spring ceased to run for some weeks previous to the above: date." Again: "I'll(, summer of 1836 was the wettest summer in seventy years in my remembrance." This is the climax: "Thursday, Friday, and Saturday next before Christmas, 1791, were the coldest days in seventy year," though as he had been born in 1765 he could not their have been quite thirty years of age himself.

A MODERN "BIG SNOW." On the 2d and 3d of December 1886, a snow three feet in depth fell in Buncombe and adjoining counties. On December 6th h the newly elected officers of Buncombe county- were required lay law to present their official bonds to the county commissioners for approval; but, owing to the snow, it was impossible to travel very far. As a consequence R. H. Cole, who had been elected register of deeds, and J. V. Hunter, who had been elected treasurer, could not provide bonds acceptable to the commissioner,, and J. H. Patterson who had been defeated was appointed register of deeds, and J. H. Courtney-, who had also been defeated, was appointed treasurer.

TWO RECENT COLD SNAPS. On the night of February 7, 1895, there was a dangerous fire on Pack Square, Asheville, threatening for awhile the entire southeastern section of the city. The thermometer was seven degrees below zero. On the morning of February 13, 1899, the thermometer was 13 1/2 below zero at Asheville.

MOUNT MITCHELL.<a href="#6" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 6


Condensed and quoted from T. L. Clingman's "Speechescheq and Writings," pp. 138, et seq. ">[6] In 1835 Prof. Elisha Mitchell made the first barometrical measurements of our mountains, and his report was the first authoritative announcement of the superior altitude of the highest southern summit to that of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. In 1844 he and Gen. T. L. Clingman took observations in the Balsam, Smoky and Black mountains, and Gen. Clingman subsequently published a statement to the effect that he had found a higher peak in the Blacks than the one measured by Dr. Mitchell. "It was admitted that Gen. Clingman had measured the highest point, the only question being whether that peak was the same as that previously measured by Dr. Mitchell."

DISCOVERERS DISPUTE. To settle the matter Dr. Mitchell ran a series of levels from the terminus of the railroad near Morganton to the half-way house built by Mr. William Patton of Charleston, S. C., in 1856. From this place Dr. Mitchell started alone to Big Tom Wilson's in Yancey by the route he had followed in 1844. He intended to meet his son Charles at the appointed place on the Blacks the following Monday, he having left the half-way house Saturday, June 27, 1857. His son waited and searched for him till Friday following, when news of the professor's disappearance reached Asheville, and many men set out to search for him. On the following Tuesday- Big Tom Wilson, who had been the professor's guide in 1811, discovered his trail and found the body- in a pool of water at the foot of a waterfall, since called 'Mitchell's creek and Mitchell's fall. The body was taken across the top of the Blacks to Asheville and there interred in the Presbyterian church yard; but a year later it was taken back to the Peak and buried there.<a href="#13" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 13


For Hon. Z. B. Vance's account of the finding of Prof. Mitchell's body, sec "Balsam Groves of the Grandfather Mountain," by S. M. Dagger (p. 261). In this appears a list of those who assisted in the, search. From this account it seems that what is now known :is Mitchell's Peak was put down in Cook's Map as Mt. Clingman. and that Prof. Mitchell insisted that he had measured it in 1844, while Gen. Clingman claimed to have been the first to measure it.">[13]

THE MERITS OF THE CONTROVERSY. Dr. Arnold Guyot of Princeton College, in an article published in the Asheville News, July 18, 1860: "The statements Dr. Mitchell made, at different times, of the results of his measurements failed to agree with each other, and, owing to unfavorable circumstances and the want of proper instruments, the precise location of the points measured, especially of the highest, had remained quite indefinite, even in the mind of Dr. Mitchell himself, as I learned it from his own mouth in 1856… I may, perhaps, be permitted to express it as my candid opinion (without wishing in the least to revive a controversy happily terminated) that if the honored name of Dr. 'Mitchell is taken from Mount Mitchell and transferred to the highest peak, it should not be on the ground that he first made known its true elevation, which he never did, nor himself ever claimed to have done; for the true height was not known before my measurement of 1854, and the coincidence made out quite recently may be shown, from abundant proofs furnished by himself, to be a mere accident. Nor should it be on the ground of his having first visited it; for, though, after his death, evidence which made it probable that he did [came out,] he never could convince himself of it. Nor, at last, should it be because that peak was, as it is alleged, thus named long before; for I must declare that neither in 1854, nor later, during the whole time I was on both sides of the mountain, did I hear of another Mount Mitchell than the one south of the highest, so long visited under that name; and that Dr. Mitchell himself, before ascending the northern peak, in 1856, as I gathered it from a conversation with him, believed it to be the highest. Dr. Mitchell has higher and better claims, which are universally and cheerfully acknowledged by all, to be forever remembered in connection with the Black Mountain …. From these facts it is evident that the honorable senator [T. L. Clingman] could not possibly know when he first ascended it that anyone had visited or measured it before him, nor have any intention to do any injustice to Dr. Mitchell…. As to the highest group in the Great Smoky Mountains, however, I must remark that, in the whole valley of the Tuckaseegee and Oconaluftee, I heard of but one name applied to the highest point, and it is that of Mount Clingman. The greatest authority around the peak, Robert Collins, Esq., knows of no other…. Gen. Clingman was the leader of a party which made, in 1858, the first measurement, and the party was composed, besides himself, of Mr. S. P. Buckley and Dr. S. L. Love. He caused Mr. Collins to cut a path six miles to the top, which enabled me to carry there the first horse ever seen on these heights …. The central or highest peak is therefore designated as Clingman's Dome, the south peak, the next in height, as Mount Buckley, the north peak as Mount Love."

THE MONUMENT. The monument to Professor Elisha Mitchell, on the crest of the highest peak east of the Rocky mountains, was completed August 18, 1888. It is bolted to the bed-rock itself, is of white bronze-an almost pure zinc-treated under the sandblast to impart a granular appearance, cause it to resemble granite, and prevent discoloration; and `vas made by the Monumental Bronze Company, of Bridgeport, Conn. It was erected by Mrs. E. N. Grant, a daughter, and other members of Prof. Mitchell's family. Its dimensions are about two and one-half feet at the base and about twelve feet high. It is a hollow square and without any ornamentation. Vandals have shot bullet holes in it and an ax blade has been driven into one of its sides. Professor `V. B. Phillips, now the professor of Geology at the University of Texas, had charge of its erection. It contains the following inscriptions:

Upon the western side, in raised letters is the single word:

"MITCHELL"

On the side toward the grave is the following:

"Erected in 1888.

"Here lies in hope of a blessed resurrection the body of Rev. Elisha Mitchell, D.D., who, after being for 39 years a professor in the University of North Carolina, lost his life in the scientific exploration of this mountain in the 64th year of his age, June 27th, 1857."<a href="#7" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 7


University Magazine of 1888-89">[7]

A MEMORABLE RIOT. During the Seymour and Blair campaign of 1868 a riot occurred on the public square at Asheville in which one negro was killed and two others seriously wounded. Trouble had been expected, and when a negro knocked a young Mississippian down, twenty or more pistols were discharged into the crowd of negroes, while from several store doors and second-story windows shotguns and rifles were discharged into the fleeing blacks. That night a drum was beaten in the woods where now is Aston park and a crowd of negroes assembled there, and reports spread that they would burn the town. Messengers were sent to surrounding towns, and by daylight three hundred armed white men from adjoining counties arrived. For two weeks the streets were patrolled at night. Oscar Eastman, in charge of the Freedman's Bureau, had an office in the Thomas building on the southwest corner of the square; but after the riot Eastman could not be found for several days, as it was thought he had incited the negroes to arm themselves with stout hickory sticks and shout for Grant and Colfax, the immediate casus belli. Giles McDowell, a large, bushy-headed negro and a Democrat, came up South Main street and shouted "Hurrah for Seymour and Blair," whereupon the other negroes made a rush for him, during which the young Mississippian was knocked down. Giles fled; but another darky by the name of Jim Greenlee fell on his face at the first shot, groaning and hollering. After the shooting was over it developed that Jim was unhurt, but had wisely pretended to be hurt in order to keep anyone from firing at him. In 1874, Eastman, who had made himself very obnoxious, was indicted in Buncombe Superior court twenty-five dines for retailing whiskey and once for gambling. At the Spring Term of 1869 George H. Bell, William Blair, Erwin Hardy, Gaston McDowell, Ben. Young, Natt Atkinson, J. M. Alexander, J. W. Shartle, E. H. Merrimon, Henry Patton, Simon Henry, Robert Patton, John Lang and Armistead Dudley, pleaded guilty to the charge of riot, and were taxed with the costs.

A BACKWOODS ABELABD AND ELOISE. The tomb of the Priest Abelard and his sweetheart Eloise, in Paris, is visited by greater numbers than that of Napoleon. But the grave of poor, ignorant and deluded Delilah Baird near Valle Crucis is neglected and unknown. Yet she as truly as Eloise gave her life for love; for although she knew that John Holsclaw was a married man, she thought he was taking her to Kentucky when as a child of fifteen she followed him to the Big Bottoms of Elk in the spring of 1826, where she lived a, life of faithfulness and devotion to her lover and their son and daughter, and died constant and true to her role as his widow in God's sight, if not in that of man's. Having sold her land the poor repressed, stinted creature indulged in gay dressing in her later years, which caused some of her relatives to fear that she was not competent to manage her money- matters; but a commission of which Smith Coffey was a member, found that she was. (Deed Books R., p. 574, and A., p. 498.) In 1881-82 she wrote to a childhood friend, not a former sweetheart, Ben Dyer, at Grapevine, Texas, to come and protect her interests and she would give him a home. He came, but was not satisfied, and on flay 26, 1882, sued her for his traveling expenses and the worth of his time; but recovered only $47.50, the price of a ticket to Texas. (Judgment Roll and Docket A., p. 172, Watauga county; See Chapter 13, "Lochinvar Redux. ")

NIMROD S. JARRETT. In the early fall of 1873 Bayliss Henderson, a desperado from Tennessee, wandering about, heard that Col. N. S. Jarrett would leave his home at the Apple Tree place on the Nantahala river, six miles above Nantahala station on the Western North Carolina Railroad, and the same distance below Aquone, where his daughter, Mrs. Alexander P. Munday, and her husband lived. Henderson had been told that Jarrett would carry a large sum of money with him as he had to go to Franklin to settle as guardian for wards who had become of age. On a bright Sunday morning he was to start alone, as Henderson had been told, and on that morning he did start and alone. Half a mile below the home where Micajah Lunsford used to live he overtook Henderson, who was strolling idly along the road. Henderson walked a short distance by Jarrett's horse, but falling back a pace drew his pistol and shot the Colonel in the back of the head at the base of the brain. He took his watch and chain and the little money he had in his pocket, and hearing some one coining he waded across the Nantahala river and watched. The person he had heard leas Mrs. Jarrett, the dead man's wife, a cripple, who had ridden rapidly in order to overtake her husband and ride with him to Aquone where she was to have stayed till he returned from Franklin. She went on and told Micajah Lunsford and a crowd soon gathered about the body. The footprints of a man near the body were measured, but before the body was removed Henderson came upon the scene. It was noticed that the heels of his shoes were missing, but that in other respects his shoes made a print exactly like those which had been there before his arrival. He was arrested and taken to Franklin. The trial was removed to Jackson county, where he was convicted and hanged, the Supreme court refusing a new trial. (68 N. C.) While Henderson was in Macon jail he sent a man named Holland to a certain tree near the scene of the murder, where he found the watch, chain and money. Later on Henderson escaped and went back to the place where he had lived before the murder, but was found hiding in a brush-heap soon afterwards and returned to prison. Col. Jarrett was 73 years old.

A FORGOTTEN CRIME. In the spring of 1855 the home of Col. Nimrod S. Jarrett at Aquone, Macon county, was burned in the day time, and one of his children, a little girl, perished in the flames, though her mother had gone into the burning dwelling in the effort to find and rescue her, and had been dragged out by force. :bout 1898 a man named Bill Dills died on the head of Musser creek, and confessed that he had set fire to the house in order to prevent suspicion falling on him for having stolen several small sums of money, his idea being that their loss when discovered, would be attributed to the fire.

QUAKING BALD, "The most famous of the restless mountains of North Carolina is `Shaking Bald."' The first shock, which occurred February 10, 1874, was followed in quick succession by others and caused general alarm in the vicinity. This mountain for a time received national attention. Within six months more than one hundred shocks were felt.

The general facts of these terrestrial disturbances have never been disputed, but concerning their cause, there has been widely diversified speculation. Is there an upheaval or subsidence of the mountains gradually going on'.' Are they the effect of explosions caused by the chemical action of minerals under the influence of electric currents? Are they the effect of gases forced through fissures in the rocks from the center of the earth, seeking an outlet at the surface." These are questions on which scientists differ. Be the cause what it may, there is no occasion to fear the eruption of an active volcano.

"The famous Bald mountain forms the north wall of the valley. Its sterile face is distinctly visible from the porch of the Logan hotel. Caves similar to Bat cave are high on its front. In 1874 Bald mountain pushed itself into prominence by shaking its eastern end with an earthquake-like rumble, that rattled plates on pantry shelves in the cabins of the valleys, shook windows to pieces in their sashes, and even startled the quiet inhabitants of Rutherfordton, seventeen miles away. Since then rumblings have occasionally been heard, and some people say they have seen smoke rising in the atmosphere. There is an idea, wide-spread, that the mountain is an extinct volcano. As evidence of a crater, they point to a fissure about half a mile long, six feet wide in some places, and of unmeasured depth. This fissure, bordered with trees, extends across the eastern end of the peak. But the crater idea is effectually choked up by the fact that the crack is of recent appearance. The crack widens every year and, as it widens, stones are dislodged from the mountain steeps. Their thundering falls from the heights may explain the rumbling, and their clouds of dust account for what appears to be smoke. The widening of the crack is possibly due to the gradual upheaval of the mountain."<a href="#8" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 8


Zeigler & Grosscup, p. 245">[8]

TRIAL OF THOMAS W. STRANGE. On the 27th day of April, 1876, Thomas W. Strange was acquitted in Asheville for the murder on the 19th of August, 1875, of James A. Hurray of Haywood county before Judge Samuel Watts and the following jurors: W. P. Bassett, J. L. Weaver, John H. Murphy, Owen Smith, W. W. McDowell, B. F. Young, John Chesbrough, G. W. Whitson, S. M. Banks, W. A. Weddin, and P. I'. Patton. W. L. Tate of Waynesville was the solicitor. There was much feeling in Haywood and Buncombe counties because of this acquittal. During his confinement in jail Preston L. Bridgers, his friend, voluntarily stayed with Thomas Strange. The court was held in the chapel of the Asheville Female College, now the high school. Judge Watts was from the eastern part of the State and was nick-named "Greasy Sam."

"BIG TOM" WILSON. Thomas D. Wilson, commonly known as "Big Tom," on account of his great size, was born December 1, 1825, on Toe river, near the mouth of Crabtree creek, in the Deyton Bend. The "D" in his name was solely for euphony. He married Niagara Ray, daughter of Amos L. Ray, and settled at the Green Ponds, afterwards known as the Murchison boundary. The place was so called because of several pools or ponds in Cane river, on the rock bottom of which a green moss grows. He died at a great age a few years ago. He was a great woodsman, hunter and trapper, a typical frontiersman, picturesque in appearance and original in speech and manner. He is said to have killed over one hundred bears during his life. His knowledge of woodcraft enabled him to discover Prof. Mitchell's trail, resulting in the recovery of his body, when the scientist lost his life on Black mountain in the summer of 1857.<a href="#13" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 13


For Hon. Z. B. Vance's account of the finding of Prof. Mitchell's body, sec "Balsam Groves of the Grandfather Mountain," by S. M. Dagger (p. 261). In this appears a list of those who assisted in the, search. From this account it seems that what is now known :is Mitchell's Peak was put down in Cook's Map as Mt. Clingman. and that Prof. Mitchell insisted that he had measured it in 1844, while Gen. Clingman claimed to have been the first to measure it.">[13]

LEWIS REDMOND, OUTLAW. He was part Indian, and was born and reared in Transylvania county, having "hawk-like eyes and raven-black hair." When fifteen years of age he was taken into the family of "Uncle Wash Galloway," a pioneer farmer of the county, and after he was grown and had left his home at Galloway's, he began "moonshining." Warrants were issued for his arrest, but the deputy United States marshals were afraid to arrest him. Marshal R. M. Douglass, however, deputized Alfred F. Duckworth a member of a large and influential family of Transylvania county. Redmond had sworn he would not be arrested, but young Duckworth went after him notwithstanding. Another deputy by the name of Lankford accompanied him. They came up with Redmond in the neighborhood of the East Fork, March 1, 1876. Redmond and his brother-in-law Ladd were driving a wagon. Duckworth told Redmond to stop, as he had a warrant for his arrest. Redmond stopped the wagon, and asked to hear the warrant read. Duckworth dismounted from his horse and began reading the warrant, but holding his pistol in one of his hands while he did so. Redmond said, "All right, put up your pistol, Alf, I will go along with you. " While Duckworth was putting his pistol in his pocket, Ladd passed a pistol to Duckworth, and before "a man standing near by could speak," Redmond put the pistol to Duckworth's throat and fired. Then he and Ladd jumped from the wagon and ran. Duckworth followed them a dozen or more step, firing his pistol as he ran; but fell in the road from the shock of his wound. He died soon after being taken to his home, and Redmond escaped. Redmond was caught later in South Carolina for some offence committed there, but escaped.<a href="#9" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 9


Letter of C. C. Duckworth to J. P. A., May 1, 1912.">[9] Later on he was captured in Swain county at or near Maple Springs, five miles above Almond. He was living in a house which commanded a view of the only approach to it, a canoe landing and trail leading from it. A posse crossed in the night and were in hiding nearby when daylight came. Redmond left the house and went in the upper part of the clearing with a gun to shoot a squirrel. One of the posse ordered him to surrender. Redmond whirled to shoot at him, when another of the posse fired on him from another quarter, filling his back with buckshot, disabling but not killing him. He was taken to Bryson City, and while recuperating from his wounds received a visit from his wife. She managed to give him a pistol secretly which Redmond concealed under his pillow. A girl living in the house found it out, and told Judge Jeter C. Pritchard, who was one of the men guarding him at that time. He told his companions, and it was agreed that he should disarm him. This was done, warning having first been given Redmond that if he moved he would be killed. "Redmond served a term in the United States prison at Albany N. Y., and after being released moved to South Carolina, where, I am informed, he killed another man, an officer, and was again sent to prison."<a href="#9" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 9

Letter of C. C. Duckworth to J. P. A., May 1, 1912.">[9]
During the term of Gov. Wade Hampton a long petition, extensively signed by many ladies of South Carolina, was presented to the governor for his pardon. He called himself a "Major," and claimed to be dying of tuberculosis. The pardon was granted in 1878, and Redmond has given no trouble since. He was never tried for killing Duckworth.<a href="#10" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 10

Letter from C. C. Duckworth to J. P. A., May 1, 1912; letter from D. K. Collins, June 1912; statement of Hon. J. C. Pritchard, June, 1912. In "The Child That Toileth Not" (p. 448) Pickens county, s. C., is given as the one in which Red mond held forth twenty years ago, etc .">[10]

ESCAPE OF RAY AND ANDERSON. In the summer of 1885 several prisoners escaped from the county jail on Valley street in Asheville. They were J. P. Sluder, charged with the murder of L. C. Sluder; C. M. York, also charged with another murder; and E. W. Ray and W. A. Anderson of Mitchell county , who had been convicted in Caldwell county-Anderson of murder and Ray of manslaughter, for the killing of three men in a struggle for the possession of a mica mine in Mitchell county. The last two men were members of prominent families. On the night of July 3, 1885, these men with an ax broke a hole in the brick wall of the jail, and escaped. They had forced the sheriff, the late J. R. Rich, and J. D. Henderson, the jailor, into the cage in which the prisoners were confined, when they- were tied and gagged. The military company was called out to recapture the prisoners, but without result. Proceedings were instituted against Rich and Henderson for suffering these escapes, but both were acquitted in January, 1886.

PHENOMENA NOTED AND EXPLAINED. In his "Speeches and Writings" (Raleigh, 1877), Gen. Thomas L. Clingman has described and explained many phenomena, among which was the meteor of 1860 (p. 53), which was originally published in Appleton's Journal, January 7, 1871; the falling of several destructive water-spouts in Macon and Jackson counties (p. 68) on the 15th of June, 1876; and what he terms " Low volcanic action" in the mountains of Haywood, at the head of Fines creek, which he visited in 1848 and 1851, and which had caused "cracks in the solid granite…chasms, none of them above four feet in width, generally extending north and south" where large trees had been thrown down, hillocks on which saplings grew obliquely to the horizon, showing they had attained some size before the hillocks were elevated. He again visited this place in 1867, when he saw evidences of further disturbances, a large "oak tree of great age and four or five feet in diameter having been split open from root to top and thrown down so that the two halves lay several feet apart" (p. 78 et seq.). This was first published in the National Ingelligencer of November 15, 1848.

A CRIME NECESSITATING LEGISLATION. It was on the Cherokee county boundary line that on the 11th day of July, 1892, William Hall shot and killed Andrew Bryson. Ile stood on the North Carolina side of the boundary line between the two States and, shooting across that line, killed Bryson while he was in Tennessee. William Hall and John Dickey were tried with Hall as accessories before the fact, and all were convicted of murder at the spring term of the Superior court of Cherokee county in 1893. But the Supreme court granted a new trial at the February terns of 1894<a href="#11" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 11


State v. Hall , 114 N. C., p. 909.">[11] on the ground that Hall could not be guilty of homicide in Tennessee. This decision was immediately followed by efforts on the part of the State of Tennessee to extradite the defendants under the act of Congress, but the Supreme court of -North Carolina held on habeas corpus proceedings<a href="#12" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 12

State v. Hall , 115 N. C., p. 811">[12]
that no one can lie alleged to have fled front the justice of a State in whose domain he has never been corporeally present since the commission of the crime. The prisoners were discharged and have never been tried again in North Carolina. These decisions were folio-wed by remedial legislation embodied in the Acts of 1895, Chapter 169, making similar homicides crimes in North Carolina as well as in Tennessee.

THE EMMA BURGLARY. Following are the facts of a sensational burglary which occurred in Buncombe county February 8, 1901, as taken from the case of the State v. Foster, 129 N. C. Reports, p. 704:

"Indictment against Ben Foster, R. S. Gates, Harry Mills and Frank Johnston, heard by Judge Frederick Moore and a jury, at June (Special) Term, 1901, of the Superior Court of Buncombe County. From a verdict of guilty and judgment thereon, the defendants appealed.

"The facts are substantially as follows:

"D. J. McClelland was the owner of a store at a place called `Emma', a few miles from the city of Asheville, in the county of Buncombe. Samuel H. Alexander is his clerk, find had been for more than three years boarding in the family of -McClelland and sleeping in the store. There was a room in said store building fitted up and furnished with a bed and other furniture as a sleeping apartment, in which said Alexander kept his trunk and other belongings, and slept there, and had done so regularly for three years or more. On the night of the 8th of February, 1901, he closed and fastened all the windows and outer doors of said store building, and between eight and nine o'clock he went into his bedroom, but, thinking some customer might come, and not being ready to retire, he left a lamp burning in the store-room. There was a partition wall between his sleeping-room and the store-room, in which there was a doorway and a shutter, but the shutter was rarely ever closed and was not closed that night. Soon after lie went into his sleeping room, he heard a noise at one of the outer doors of the store building, and, thinking it was some one wanting to trade, he went to the door and asked who was there. Some one answered `We want to come in; we want some coffee and flour.' lie then took down the bar used in securing the door, unlocked the same, and when lie had opened the door about twelve inches, still having the knob in his hand, two men forced the door open, rushed in the house, covered him with pistols, told him to hold up his hands, that they had come for business. With the pistols still drawn upon him, they marched him into his bed-room, where they searched him an,] the things he had in his room, taking his pistol and other things. They then carried him into the store-room and made an effort to break into the postoffice department, there being a postoffice kept there. But not succeeding readily in getting into this, they abandoned it for the present, saying they supposed there was nothing in it, except postage stamps, and they would attend to them later. They then turned their attention to an iron safe and compelled him to assist in opening it, one of them still holding his pistol on him. After the safe was open and one of them wing through it, taking what money and other valuables he found, a cat made a noise in the back part of the store, and the man with the pistol bearing on him turned his attention to that; and, as he did so, Alexander seized his own pistol they had taken from his room and which the man who was robbing the safe had laid on the end of the counter, and shot the man robbing the safe, and also shot the other man, but, in the meantime, the man whose attention had been attracted by the cat shot Alexander. They were all badly shot, but none of them died."

This testimony was that of Alexander alone, neither prisoner going on the stand. Henry Mills and R. S. Gates, indicted as being present, aiding and abetting, were tried with Ben Foster and Frank Johnston, charged as principals. All were convicted of burglary in the first degree. The judgment was sustained and Ben Foster and Frank Johnston were hanged at Asheville, the governor having commuted the sentence of the two others to life imprisonment in the penitentiary.

NANCY HANKS TRADITION. For a hundred years a tradition has persisted in these mountains to the effect that between 1803 and 1808 Abraham Enloe came from Rutherford county and settled, first on Soco creek, and afterwards on Oconalufty, about seven miles from Whittier, in what is now Swain county; that he brought with his family a girl whose name was Nancy Hanks; that this girl lived in Enloe's family till after his daughter Nancy ran away with and married a man named Thompson, from Hardin county, Ky. An intimacy had grown up between Nancy Hanks and Abraham Enloe, and a son was born to her, which caused Enloe's wife, whose maiden name had been Edgerton, to suspect that her husband was the father of Nancy's child. Soon after the birth of this child, the tradition relates, Mrs. Nancy Thompson came to visit her parents and on her return to Kentucky or Tennessee took Nancy- Hanks and her son with her, much to Mrs. Enloe's relief. Abraham Enloe is said to have been a large, tall, dark man, a horse and slave trader,<a href="#14" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 14


"Truth Is stranger Than Fiction," pp. 130-137-139.">[14] a justice of the peace and the leading man in his community. Thus far the tradition as given above is supported by such reputable citizens as the following, most of whom are now dead: Col. Allen T. Davidson, whose sister Celia married into the Enloe family, Captain James W. Terrell, the late Epp Everett of Bryson City, Phillip Dills of Dillsborough, Abraham Battle of Hay wood, Win. H. Conley of Hay wood, Judge Gilmore of Fort Worth, Texas, H. J. Beek of Ocona Lufty, D. K. Collins of Bryson City, Col. W. H. Thomas and the late John D. Mingus, son-in-law of Abraham Enloe.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN TELLS OF HIS PARENTAGE. That the child so born to Nancy Hanks on Ocona Lufty was Abraham Lincoln is supported by the alleged statements that in the fall of 1861 a young man named Davis, of Rutherford, had, during the fifties, settled near Springfield, Ill., where he became intimate with Abraham Lincoln and "in a private and confidential talk which he had with Mr. Lincoln, the latter told him that he was of Southern extraction; that his right name was, or ought to have been, Enloe, but that he had always gone by the name of his step-father."<a href="#14" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 14


Ibid., p. 86">[14] After the Civil War a man representing himself as a son of Mrs. Nancy Thompson, a daughter of Abraham Enloe of Ocona Lufty, called on the late Col. Allen T. Davidson, a lawyer, in his office in Asheville, and told him that President Lincoln had appointed him Indian agent or to some other office in the Indian service "because he (Lincoln) was under some great obligation to Thompson's mother, and desired to aid her, and at her request he made her son Indian agent."<a href="#15" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 15

Ibid., p. 74">[15]
Col. Davidson as a lawyer had settled the Abraham Enloe estate, had heard of this tradition all his life and had no doubt as to its truth. There is another version to the effect that the child Abraham was not born till after his mother had reached Kentucky and also that Felix Walker, then congressman from the mountain district, aided Nancy Hanks in getting to Tennessee, where Thompson lived.

"TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION." The above facts or statements have been taken from a small book of the name given, by James H. Cathey, once a member of the North Carolina legislature, and a resident of Jackson county. It was published in 1899. The various statements upon which the tradition was based are set forth in detail, accompanied by short biographies of each person named. No one can read these accounts without being impressed with their air of truthfulness.

EVIDENCE SUSTAINING THE ENLOE PARENTAGE. The late Captain James W. Terrell refers to an article in Bledsoe's Review "in which the writer gives an account of a difficulty between Mr. Lincoln's reputed father and a man named Enloe" (p. 47) and states, as one of the reasons for sending Nancy Hanks to Kentucky, the fact that at that time some of the Enloe kindred were living there (p. 49). On page 54, a Judge Gilmore, living then within three miles of Fort Worth, Texas, told Joseph A. Collins of Clyde, Haywood county, North Carolina, that he knew Nancy Hanks before she was married, and that she then had a child she called Abraham; that she afterwards married a man by the name of Lincoln, a whiskey distiller, and very poor, and that they lived in a small house.'<a href="#16" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 16


According to Herndon, Thomas set up house-keeping in Indiana with the tools and liquor he had recovered from his capsized river boat, p. 17.">[16] Col. T. U. C. Davis of St. Louis, Mo., a native of Kentucky, a cousin of President Jefferson Davis, a lawyer who once practiced law with Mr. Lincoln in Illinois, is quoted as saying that he knew the mother of Lincoln; that he was raised in the same neighborhood; and that it was generally understood, without question, in that neighborhood, that Lincoln, the man that married the President's mother, was not the father of the President, but that his father's name was Enloe" (p. 78). The foregoing are the most important facts alleged; but there is one statement, or, page 55, to the effect that a man named `yells visited the Enloe home while Nancy Hanks was there and witnessed a disagreement or coolness between Enloe and his wife on her account. This man said he had gone there while selling tinware and buying furs, leathers and ginseng for William Johnston of Waynesville. This could not have been true, as William Johnston did not emigrate from Ireland to Charleston till 1818. Soon after the appearance of this book the writer visited Wesley Enloe at his home on Ocona Lofty for the purpose of learning what he could of his connection with Abraham Lincoln; but, like the correspondent of the Charlotte Observer of September 17, 1893 (quoted on pages 63 et seq.), I did riot observe any likeness between hint and the pictures of Mr. Lincoln which I had seen, as Mr. Enloe was blue-eyed and florid. He also stated to me that he had never heard his father's name mentioned in his family in connection with Abraham Lincoln's, just as he stated to that correspondent, on page 70.

CLARK W. THOMPSON. Col. Davidson was a man of such unquestioned integrity that any- statement from him is worthy of belief; and in the interest of truth a letter was written t,, the Commissioner of Indian Affair, Washington, on March 8, 1913, asking "whether a man named Thompson was ever appointed by President Lincoln to some position in the Indian Service," and on the 25th of the same month, Hon. F. H. Abbott, acting commissioner, wrote as follows: "… You are advised that the records show that Clark W. Thompson, of Minnesota, was nominated by President Lincoln to be Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the northern superintendency on March 26, 1861, and his appointment was confirmed by the Senate on the following day. There is nothing in the record to show reasons influencing this appointment… " Of course this does not prove that Clark W. Thompson was a son of Mrs. Nancy Enloe Thompson, and is merely given for what it may be worth. In "The Child That Toileth Not," Major Dawley, its author, says (p. 271) : "Where Mingus creek joins Ocona Lufty, in a broad bottom, is an old, partially demolished log-house, used as a barn, in which tradition says that Nancy Hanks, the mother of Lincoln, served as a house girl," etc.

THE NANCY HANKS HISTORY. As opposed to this traditional evidence we have the voluminous history of Nickolay and Hay, Mr. Lincoln's secretaries, called "Abraham Lincoln," in which the fact that the immortal President's mother was married to Thomas Lincoln June 12, 1806, by Rev. Jesse Head, at Beechland, near Elizabethton, Washington county, Ky., and a copy of his marriage bond for fifty pounds, as was then required by the laws of Kentucky, is set forth in full, with Richard Barry as surety. In addition to this, there `vas published by Doubleday & McClure Co., New York, in 1899, by Carolina Hanks Hitchcock, " Nancy Hanks, the Story of Abraham Lincoln's Mother," giving in detail the facts of her birth in Virginia, her removal to Kentucky with her family, and her marriage to Thomas Lincoln on the date above given, and many other facts which, it would seem, place this date beyond all doubt. Col. Henry Watterson, in an address, presenting the Speed statue of Lincoln to the State of Kentucky and the Nation, November 8, 1911, said: "Let me speak with some particularity and the authority of fact, tardily but conclusively ascertained, touching the maternity of Abraham Lincoln. Few passages of history have been so greatly misrepresented and misconceived. Some confusion was made by his own mistake as to the marriage of his father and mother, which had not been celebrated in Hardin county, but in Washington county, Kentucky, the absence of any marriage papers in the old court house at Elizabethton, the county seat of Hardin county, leading to the notion that there had never been any marriage at all. It is easy to conceive that such a discrepancy might give occasion for any amount and all sorts of partisan falsification, the distorted stories winning popular belief among the credulous and inflamed. Lincoln himself died without surely knowing that he was born in honest wedlock and came from an ancestry upon both sides of which he had no reason to be ashamed. For a long time a cloud hung over the name of Nancy Hanks, the mother of Abraham Lincoln. Persistent and intelligent research has brought about a vindication in every way complete. It has been clearly established that as the ward of a decent family she lived a happy and industrious girl until she was twenty-three years of age, when Thomas Lincoln, who had learned his carpenter's trade of one of her uncles, married her, June 12, 1806. The entire record is in existence and intact. The marriage bond to the amount of 50 pounds . . was duly recorded seven days before the wedding, which was solemnized as became well-to-do folk in those days. The uncle and aunt gave an `infare', to which the neighboring countryside was invited. Dr. Christopher Columbus Graham, one of the best known and most highly- respected of Kentuckians, before his death in 1885, wrote at my request his remembrances of that festival and testified to this before a notary- public in the ninety-sixth year of his age." (The affidavit is set forth in full.)<a href="#17" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 17


From Louisville Courier Journal , of Thursday, November 9, 1911.">[17]

WHY THE TRADITION PERSISTS. After reading the foregoing article, a feeling of indignation naturally arises that anyone should longer doubt or discuss the legitimacy of the Great Emancipator, and it was that feeling which led to an examination of the "authority of fact tardily but conclusively ascertained touching the maternity of Abraham Lincoln. " Naturally, too, the story was ascribed to "partisan falsification." Nicolay and Hay's account seemed to fix the (late of the marriage as in June, 1806, since the marriage bond is dated on June 10th; and Miss Tarbell has settled the exact date as of June 12th of that year. So far, so good. But Miss Tarbell states (Vol. I, 7) that Mrs. Caroline Hanks Hitchcock had compiled the genealogy of the Hanks family, which, "though not yet printed, has fortunately cleared up the mystery of her birth. " This little book, now out of print,<a href="#18" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 18


"The story of Abraham Lincoln's Mother," by Carolina Hanks Hitchcock, 1889.">[18] I was obtained after great trouble, and what was found'.' That instead of clearing up the mystery of Nancy Hanks' birth, 'Mrs. Hitchcock has only made confusion worse confounded. In fact, she shows that Thomas Lincoln married an altogether different Nancy Hanks from the one the President remembered, the one Dennis Hanks knew, and the one Herndon has so particularly described in his carefully prepared work on the origin of Abraham Lincoln. She also discredits every subsequent statement by trying to show that Thomas Lincoln was not "the shiftless character" be has been represented as being (p. 54). After that, one naturally looks with suspicion upon every statement of fact in the little volume.

THE LINEAGE of LINCOLN'S REAL MOTHER. Almost immediately after the death of Mr. Lincoln his former law partner, William H. Herndon, Esq., set out to interview every member of the Lincoln and Hanks families then living. He kept up this investigation for years. What did Abraham Lincoln himself have to say as to who his mother was? Herndon says (p. 3) that in 1850, while they were in a buggy together, going to Menard county court, Lincoln told him that his mother "was the daughter of Lucy Hanks and a well-bred but obscure Virginia farmer." Who that farmer was is not stated; but Lucy Hanks, after the birth of Nancy, married a man named Henry Sparrow, and Nicolay and Hay say that Nancy Hanks was sometimes called Nancy Sparrow (Vol. I, p. 7). Herndon also says with exactness (p. 10) that "Nancy Hanks, the mother of the President, at a very early age, was taken from her mother Lucy--afterwards married to Henry Sparrow-- and sent to live with her aunt and uncle, Thomas and Betsy Sparrow, under this same roof the irrepressible and cheerful waif, Dennis Hanks,…also found shelter." Now who was Dennis Hanks? He was the illegitimate son of Nancy Hanks and Friend. Which Nancy Hanks was this? The sister of Lucy Hanks (p. 10). Miss Tarbell calls him Dennis Friend (pp. 14 and 25) and says misfortune had made him an inmate of Thomas Lincoln's Indiana home.

THE LINEAGE of MRS. HITCHCOCK'S NANCY HANKS. Her father was Joseph Hanks and her mother Nancy Shipley, and was born February 5, 1784, (p. 25) and came with her parents from Virginia to Kentucky about 1789, and settled near Elizabethtown what is now Nelson county (p. 40). Her father died January 9, 1793, and his will was probated May 14, 1793, by which her brother Joseph got all her parents' land and she herself got a pied heifer, although there were eight children Joseph Hanks, Sr.'s widow and his son William being executors (pp. 43-45). Miss Tarbell adopts the same lineage for her Nancy (p. 8), and they- both place this Nancy in the home of Lucy Shipley, wife of Richard Berry, when Nancy least nine years old.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LINCOLN'S REAL MOTHER. Herndon says (p. 10) that "at the time of her marriage to Thomas Lincoln, Nancy was in her 23d year. She was above the ordinary height in stature, weighed about 130 pounds, was slenderly built, and had much the appearance of one inclined to consumption. Her skin was dark; hair (dark brown; eyes gray and small; forehead prominent; face sharp and angular, with a marked expression of melancholy which fixed itself in the memory of everyone who ever saw or knew her …. "

PHYSICAL FEATURES OF MRS. HITCHCOCK'S NANCY. "Bright. scintillating, noted for her keen wit and repartee, she had withal a loving heart," is Mrs. Hitchcock's (p. 51) notion of Nancy Hanks' manner. "Traditions of Nancy Hanks' appearance at this time [of her marriage] all agree in calling her a beautiful girl. She is said to have been of medium height, weighing about 130 pounds (p. 59), light hair, beautiful eyes, a sweet, sensitive mouth, and a kindly and gentle manner." In another place (p. 73) she says that when Nancy Hanks went to her cousins', Frank and Ned Berry, the legend is that "her cheerful disposition and active habits were a dower to those pioneers." Frank and Ned were sons of Richard Berry.

HERNDON'S THOMAS LINCOLN. "Thomas was roving and shiftless… He was proverbially slow of movement, mentally and physically; was careless, inert and dull. He had a liking for jokes and stories …. At the time of his marriage to Nancy Hanks he could neither read nor write (p. 8). He was a carpenter by trade, and essayed farming, too; but in this, as in almost every other undertaking, he was singularly unsuccessful. He was placed in possession of several tracts of land at different times in his life, but was never able to pay for a single one of them" (p. 9). He hunted for game only when driven to do so by hunger (p. 29).

MRS. HITCHCOCK'S THOMAS LINCOLN. "Thomas Lincoln had been forced to shift for himself in a young and undeveloped country (p. 56). He had no bad habits, was temperate and a church-goer" (p. 54). She quotes an affidavit of Dr. C. C. Graham to the effect that he was present at the marriage of Thomas Lincoln, but he says nothing more of him, except that he had one feather bed, and when the doctor was there, Thomas and his wife slept on the floor. This same Dr. Graham is quoted as saying that it is untrue that Thomas kept his family in a doorless and windowless house. But Miss Tarbell (p. 19) and Herndon (p. 18) say that Thomas Lincoln kept his family in a "half-face camp" for a year, and that after the cabin was built it had but one room and a loft, with no window, door or floor; not even the traditional deer-skin hung before the exit; there was no oiled paper over the opening for light; there was no puncheon floor on the ground…and there were few families, even in that day who were forced to practice more make-shifts to get a living"; and that sometimes the only food on the table was potatoes (p. 20). And yet Mrs. Hitchcock says he was not shiftless!

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND HIS PARENTS. Mr. Herndon says (p. 1) that if Mr. Lincoln ever mentioned the subject of his parents at all it was with great reluctance and with significant reserve. "There was something about his origin he never cared to dwell upon." To a Mr. Scripps of the Chicago Tribune, in 1860, Mr. Lincoln communicated some facts concerning his ancestry which he did not wish to have published then and which Scripps never revealed to anyone" (p. 2). In the record of his family which Mr. Lincoln gave to Jesse W. Fell, he does not even give his mother's maiden name; but says that she came "of a family of the name of Hanks." (Footnote on page 3). He gives but three lines to his mother and nearly a page to the Lincolns. And "Mr. Lincoln himself said to me in 1851… that whatever might be said of his parents and however unpromising the early surroundings of his mother may have been, she was highly intellectual by nature, had a strong memory, acute judgment, and was cool and heroic" (p. 11). His school days he never alluded to; and Herndon says he slept in the loft of the Indiana cabin, which he reached by climbing on pegs driven in the wall, while 'Miss Tarbell says that "he slept on a heap of dry leaves in a corner of the loft" (p. 19), while his parents reclined on a bedstead made of poles resting between the logs and on a crotched stick, with skins for the chief covering." Although in the highest office in the land for four years before his death, Mr. Lincoln left his mother's grave unmarked, and when his father was dying he allowed sickness in his own family to deter him from paying him a last visit, writing instead a letter advising him to put his trust in God.

HERNDON'S ESTIMATE OF THE HANKSES. "As a family the Hankses were peculiar to the civilization of early Kentucky. Illiterate and superstitious, they corresponded to that nomadic class still to be met with throughout the South, and known as `poor whites.' They are happily and vividly depicted in the description of a camp-meeting held at Elizabethton, Ky., in 1806, which was furnished me in August, 1865, by an eye-witness (J. B. Helm). `The Hanks girls', narrates the latter, 'were great at Camp meetings, "' and the scene is then described of a young man and young woman with their clothing arranged for what was to follow, who approached and embraced each other in front of the congregation: "When the altar was reached the two closed, with their arms around each other, the man singing and shouting at the top of his voice, `I have my Jesus in my arms, sweet as honey, strong as baconham.' She was a Hanks, and the couple were to be married the next week; but whether she was Nancy Hanks or not my informant does not state; though, as she did marry that year, gives color to the belief that she was. But the performance described must have required a little more emotion and enthusiasm than the tardy and inert carpenter was in the habit of manifesting" (p. 12).

CONFIRMATION of THE ENLOE TRADITION. One might suppose that the Enloe story has no other basis than that recorded in Mr. Cathey's look. But this is far front being the fact, though most of the biographers of Lincoln make no reference to the Enloes whatever. But Mr. Herndon, on page 27, remarks of Thomas Lincoln's second wife, Sarah Bush, that her social status is fixed by the comparison of a neighbor who contrasted the "life among the Hankses, the Lincolns, and the Enloes with that among the Bushes, Sarah having married Daniel Johnston, the jailer, as her first matrimonial venture. Dr. C. C. Graham, in his hundredth year, made a statement as to the Lincoln family, which is published in full by McClure's in magazine form and called "The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln," by Ida M. Tarbell. This is dated in 1896. Herndon and all the biographers agree that, although so old, Dr. Graham was a competent witness as to Lincoln's early life. Indeed, all of pages 227 to 232 of this little magazine book are devoted to testimonials establishing his credibility. But, although Tarbell's Life of Lincoln is an enlargement of this magazine story, and contains four large volumes, very little of Dr. Graham's long statement, covering over five closely printed pages, is preserved. And among the things that have been suppressed is this: "Some said she (Nancy Hanks, Thomas Lincoln's first wife) died of heart trouble, from slanders about her and old Abe Enloe, called Inlow while her Abe, named for the pioneer Abraham Linkhorn, was still living." Neither Mrs. Hitchcock nor Miss Tarbell seems to have attached the slightest importance to this statement. But that is not all. Herndon records the fact (p. 29) that when he interviewed Mrs. Sarah Bush Lincoln, Thomas Lincoln's second wife, in September, 1865, "She declined to say much in answer to my questions about Nancy Hanks, her predecessor in the Lincoln household, but spoke feelingly of the latter's daughter and son."

Thus, it will be observed, that most of the testimony on which the stories concerning Nancy Hanks are based do not rest on the fabrications of his political enemies, but on the statements and significant silence of himself, his friends, relatives and biographers.

THE CALHOUN TRADITION. If anywhere in the world Lincoln had enemies, it was in South Carolina. If anywhere in the world a motive could exist to ruin his political fortunes, it was among the politicians of the Palmetto State. It is true that for years there has been an intangible rumor about John C. Calhoun and Nancy Hanks; but the world must perforce bear witness that such rumors have met with little or no encouragement from the people of that State. Yet, during all the years that have flown since early in the last century, many men and women knew of a story which connected the name of the Great Nullifier with that of Nancy Hanks, the mother of Abraham Lincoln. It has lain untold all these years; but in 1911, Mr. D. J. Knotts of Swansea, S. C., brought it to the light of day. The reason for this delay was due to the respect that the custodians of the secret entertained for the wishes of the Calhoun family. For, even now, some of those to whom the facts had been communicated by Judge Orr and Gen. Burt, will not permit their names to be used in connection with the story. But the main facts seem to be well established by other testimony, and although these article have been before the public since 1910, no one has as yet attempted their refutation. Abbeville "District," as it was called, in South Carolina, was the home of John C. Calhoun and of Gen. Armistead Burt, who married Calhoun's niece. They were fast friends and political supporters of State Rights. Judge James L. Orr was born in Craytonville, S. C., May 12, 1822, and was in Congress from 1849 to 1859, having been speaker of the 35th Congress. He thus began his congressional career the year after Mr. Lincoln had completed his single term; but John C. Calhoun was serving then as senator, dying :March 31, 1850. Judge Orr was probably born in the very tavern which had previously been kept by Ann Hanks at Craytonville, as Orr's father certainly kept the same hostelry during his life.

THE STORY IS TOLD AT LAST. During 1911 the Columbia State published four articles on the "Parentage of Lincoln," by D. J. Knotts, of Swansea, S. C. Briefly stated, his story is to the effect that in 1807, John C. Calhoun began the practice of law in Abbeville county, where he lived till his removal to Fort Hill in 1824. Anderson county was not established till 1828; but in 1789 Luke Hanks died and left a will, which was probated in Abbeville county in October of that year, by which his widow, Ann Hanks, a relative of Benjamin Harris of Buncombe county, N. C., and John Haynie were made executors. No deed can be found to land of Luke or Ann Hanks, but there is a grant to 210 acres to her brother in 1797. However, the appraisers of the property under Luke Hanks' will valued these 210 acres at one dollar per acre, and the personal property at $500. Just how long after Luke's death it was that his widow, Ann Hanks, took charge of a tavern at the cross roads, called Craytonville and Claytonville, was not stated; but it is alleged that she kept this tavern in 1807, and for several years thereafter. This crossroads place is between Anderson, Abbeville and Pendleton-all flourishing towns at this time. At this tavern John C. Calhoun stopped in going to and from the courts, and became involved in a love affair with Ann Hanks' youngest child, Nancy. At this tavern also stopped Abraham Enloe on his way South from Ocona Lufty with negroes and stock for sale. With him came as a hireling Thomas Lincoln, the putative father of the President. Nancy Hanks began to be troublesome and 'Mr. Calhoun is said to have induced Thomas Lincoln to take her with him on his return with Abraham Enloe-paying him $500 to do so. Lincoln is said to have conducted Nancy to the home of Abraham Enloe, where she became a member of the family. This is a confirmation of the Enloe tradition, except that Nancy is said to have gone there from Rutherford county.

THE PETITION FOR PARTITION. Ann Hanks, who seems to have had a life estate in the 210 acres of land, must have died about 1838 or 1839, for we find that Luke Hanks' heirs tried to divide the property without the aid of a lawyer, making two efforts to that end, but failing in both. In 1842, however, an Anderson attorney- straightened things out by bringing in Nancy Hanks as the twelfth child of Luke and Ann Hanks, and the property was divided into twelve equal shares, it having been alleged that Nancy- Hanks had left the State and that her whereabouts were unknown. Col. John Martin became the purchaser of this land, which is in a neighborhood called Ebenezer, and is within three or four miles of the tavern at Craytonville.

LINCOLN IS TOLD OF A REMARKABLE RESEMBLANCE. In 1849, while John C. Calhoun and Gen. Burt were attending Congress, young James L. Orr, not yet a member, but wishing to see the workings of that body over which he was one day to preside, made a visit to Washington, D. C., and as he had grown up with the Hanks family near Craytonville, he was at once impressed with the remarkable resemblance between those Andersen county Hankses and a raw-boned member from the State of Illinois, by name Abraham Lincoln. He told Lincoln of the fact, and the latter replied that his mother's name was Nancy Hanks. Thereupon, it is stated, Orr wanted to go into particulars, but Lincoln at once became reticent and would not discuss the matter further. This aroused Orr's suspicions, and on his return to Anderson he mentioned it to the Hankses of Ebenezer, who having lout recently heard the almost forgotten story of ,John C.". Calhoun's connection with Nancy and her disappearance from the State early in the century (in the partition case) related it to Judge Orr in all its detail. Gen. Burt also became possessed of the story, but guarded his secret jealously, his wife being Calhoun's niece. But, when Lincoln was assassinated Judge Orr, who was a brother inlaw of Mrs. Fannie Marshall, a second cousin of John C. Calhoun, told her and her husband what lie had learned from the Anderson Hankses: and in 1866 Gen. Armistead Burt, under the seal of an inviolable secrecy, told what he knew to a group of lawyers all of whom were his friends. So inviolably have they kept this secret that even to this day several of them refuse to allow their names to be mentioned in connection with it. But the Hankses also told their family physician, Dr. W. C. Brown, the story of their kinswoman and John C. Calhoun, and he mentioned it to others. John Hanks, also, is said to have told Dr. Harris that Nancy Hanks had gone to an uncle in Kentucky when her condition became known at the Enloe farm; for it seems that a Richard Berry has been located as buying land in Anderson county in 1803, and as disappearing entirely from the records of Anderson county thereafter.

Mr. Knotts introduced much other evidence, and has accumulated much additional testimony since, which he will soon publish in full, giving book and page of all records and full extracts from all documents.

MINOR MATTERS. Mr. Knotts also states that Dr. V. C. Brown was a brother of "Joe" Brown, the "War Governor" of Georgia; that Mr. Herndon's first life of Lincoln contained several statements which Lincoln had made as to his illegitimacy; but that friends of Lincoln "had tried to recall the volumes and failed to get a few of them in for destruction"; but that Mr. Knotts had secured a copy, from which he made (pp. 5 and 6) the following statement: "Mr. Herndon, says Mr. Weik, his co-laborer in the work, spent a large amount of time and trouble hunting down this tradition in Kentucky, and finally found a family in Bourbon county named Inlow, who stated to him that an older relative, Abraham Inlow, a man of wealth and influence, induced Thomas Lincoln to assume the paternity of Abraham Lincoln, whose mother was a nice looking woman of good family named Nancy Hanks, and that after marriage he removed to Hardin or Washington county, where this infant was born." Mr. Knotts also makes the point that there could have been no contemporaneous record of Lincoln's birth, and that he made the date himself in the family Bible, years after he became a man; that in that record he nowhere records the fact or the date of his father's marriage to Nancy Hanks, although he is careful to record his father's second marriage to Sarah Bush Johnston, and his own marriage to Mary Todd; also that he speaks of his sister Sarah, when she married Aaron Grigsby, as the daughter of Thomas Lincoln alone; and when she died, he again speaks of her as the daughter of Thomas Lincoln and wife of Aaron Grigsby, but never mentions her as the daughter of Nancy Lincoln. No one has ever accounted for the mutilation of the family record made by Abraham Lincoln himself in the family Bible. In every instance in which discredit might fall on Nancy Hanks, the dates have been carefully obliterated in some vital point. Surely Lincoln's political enemies did not do this thing, the doing of which has cast more suspicion on his legitimacy than all things else combined.

THE RUTHERFORD COUNTY HANKES. When this last tradition was called to the writer's attention, it was apparent that the only way to discredit it was to follow the clue which stated that the Nancy Hanks of Abraham Enloe's household had gone there from Rutherford county. Accordingly, diligent enquiries were instituted in the counties of Rutherford, Lincoln and Gaston with the result that no trace could be found of Nancy Hanks in either of them, or elsewhere in the State. All persons who seemed to know anything of the Hanks family referred to Mr. L. M. Hoffman of Dallas, N. C., who wrote, June 2, 1913, to the effect that for several years he had been working on a genealogical history of all the families who first settled that section from whom he is descended. Among these were a Hanks family; and while he obtained 600 manuscript pages concerning all the other families from which he has descended "the want of time and the difficulty of getting reliable information has caused me (him) to nearly close my (his) search… " Further correspondence resulted in discovering little chore than that there once existed a Bible of the Hanks family in the possession of the Jenkins family; but Mr. Hoffman, who examined and made extracts from it, found nothing of record regarding Nancy Hanks. He then gave several discoveries that he made, and add,: "This only illustrates how I failed to get anything like a connected story of the Hanks family. There arc: several of the Hanks family here still, but they know almost nothing of their ancestors… " When it is remembered that there are several Hanks men in Anderson county, S. C., who are said to resemble Abraham Lincoln in a most striking way, it is evident that the probabilities are largely that Nancy Hanks went to Abraham Enloe's from South Carolina rather than from Rutherford county, N.C."

THE TENNESSEE TRADITION. On the farm of G. V. Wagner, formerly owned by Isaac Lincoln--a few miles from Elizabethton and opposite the little station called Hunter--is a tombstone on which is carved: "Sacred to the memorv of Isaac Lincoln, who departed this life June 10, 1816, aged about 64 years."<a href="#19" class="toolTip" title="Footnote: 19


Tradition as related by James D. Jenkins, Esq., recorder of Eilizabethton Tenn., who also stated that Isaac Lincoln's wife was Sarah Stover, of Pennsylvania. Also that President Andrew Johnson had died on the Isaac Lincoln farm.">[19] In McClure's Early Life of Lincoln, Isaac Lincoln is mentioned as one of the brothers of Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather of the President (p. 223). Tradition says that to this farm came Thomas Lincoln after the death of his father in 1788 had, according to Miss Tarbell (p. 6), turned him " adrift to become a wandering laboring boy before he had learned to read." Tradition also says that a Nancy Hanks at one time lived in that neighborhood; but that Thomas was so shiftless that his Uncle Isaac drove him away, when Nancy disappeared also. The lady referred to on page 73 of J. H. Cathey's book by Col. Davidson was his sister, Miss Elvira Davidson, who was a visitor in the home of Felix Walker, one of whose eons, she afterwards married: and it was while there, according to her statement to her niece, that she had seen Abraham Enloe call Felix Walker to the gate and talk earnestly with him, and that when Walker came back he told Mrs. Walker Abraham Enloe had arranged with him (Walker) to have Nancy Hanks taken to Tennessee, instead of Kentucky, when Mrs. Walker remarked that Mrs. Enloe would "be happy again." Mrs. Enloe and Mrs. Walker were great friends. Elvira Davidson was a young girl at this time. She first married Joseph Walker and years afterwards was left a widow. Her second husband was Thomas Gaston, whose descendants are in Buncombe today.

THE SOUTH CAROLINA RECORD. This record is in the office of the Ordinary, corresponding to that of probate judge in most States, its number is 964, and is entitled: " Valentine Davis and wife, applicant, v. Luke Hanie and others." The summons in relief was filed before William McGee, Ordinary of Anderson District, S. C., December 26, 1842; it relates to the real estate of Ann Hanks, and is recorded in real estate book, volume 1, p. 59. The summons is to the "legal heirs and representatives of Ann Hanks, who died intestate," and requires the parties named therein-among whom is Nancy Hanks-to appear on the 3d day of April, 1843, and "show cause why the real estate of Ann Hanks, deceased, situated in said district on waters of Rocky river, bounding Brig. R. Haney, John Martin and others, should not be divided or sold, allotting the same as it proceeds among you. " Valentine Davis was appointed and consented to act as the guardian ad litem of the minor heirs named in the summons; a large number of heirs accepted legal service of the summons; while the Ordinary notes that he "cited" several others to appear in court, etc. A rule was also issued December 26, 1842, to twenty-seven of the defendants "who reside without the State," among whom is the name of Nancy Hanks, all of whom are required to "appear and object to the sale or division of the real estate of Hanks on or before the third day of April next, or their consent to the same will be entered of record." There is also in this record an assignment to 'Mary Hanks by her son James R. Hanks, of Crittenden county, Kentucky, of his interest "in the real estate of my grandmother Ann Hanks, which came to me by right of my father, George Hank, which was sold by the Court of Ordinary in Anderson District, South Carolina, in June, 1843, which claim or claims I renounce to my said mother Mary during her natural life, from me, my executors or assigns, so long a; the said 'Mary Hanks shall live, but at the said Mary's death to revert back me to and my heirs," etc.

This assignment of interest is dated April 1, 1844, and was probated before James Cruce, justice of the peace of Crittenden county, Ky., by William Stinson and Reuben Bennett, subscribing witnesses, on the first of April, 1844.

The record fails to show any receipt from Nancy Hanks for her share in the proceeds of this real estate, which would seem to indicate that she was dead and that her heirs received no actual notice of this proceeding. The foregoing excerpts have been furnished by Thomas Allen, Esq., of the Anderson. S. C., bar.

REALITY OF ISAAC LINCOLN'S RESIDENCE. Of the residence of Isaac Lincoln and Mary (nee Ward) his wife, in what is now Carter county, Tenn., there can be no doubt, the deed books of that county showing many conveyances to and from Isaac Lincoln, one of which (B, p. 14) is indexed as from Isaac "Linkhorn" to John Carter, which bears the early date of March 4, 1777, and conveys 303 acres on the north side of Doe river known by the name of the "Flag Pond," for one hundred pounds. The deed, however, is signed "Isaac Lincoln," not "Linkhorn"; but it was not registered till July 22, 1806. Lincoln and Carter are both described as of "Watauga" simply. Other coil conveyances that lie owned several lots in what is now Elizabethton, the county seat of Carter county (B, 18). There is also a conveyance from Johnson Hampton, with whom Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks arc said (according to a letter from D. J. Knott, to J. D. Jenkins, 1913 (to have gone from Abraham Enloe, to Thomas Lincoln's brother's home on Lynn mountain, five miles above Elizabethton, on Watauga river. But this conveyance is dated March 13, 1834, and is to Mordeca (sic) Lincoln and John Berry of the "county of Green and Carter,'' Term. (Book D, p. 373). The site of the cabin in which Isaac and Mary lived is still pointed out at the base of Lynn mountain.

ISAAC AND MARY LINCOLN SLAVEOWNERS. The Will of Isaac Lincoln, dated April 22, 1816, is filed in the office of the clerk of the circuit court of Carter county, Tenn., and, though yellow with age, is in a good state of preservation. By it he leaves all his property to his wife Mary: and when her will (filed in the same office) is examined, it is found to bequeath at least 28 negroes, naming each one separately, and providing for the support of two of them during life. William Stover, who got the bulk of her estate, was the son of her sister and Daniel Stover; and Phoebe Crow, wife of Campbell Crow, to whom she left the "negro girl Margaret and her four children, to wit: Lucy, Mima, Martin and Mahala, was Phoebe Williams, a niece of Mary Lincoln. Campbell Crow was left "the lower plantation, it being the one on which he now lives, adjoining the land of Alfred M. Carter on the west and south and of John Carriger on the east." To Christian Carriger, Sr., she bequeathed seven negroes; to Mary Lincoln Carriger, wife of Christian Carriger Sr., she left two negro girls. Christian Carriger, Sr., had married a sister of Mary Lincoln. Daniel Stover--J. D. Jenkins' great-grandfather--married another sister of Mary Lincoln. Daniel Stover's son William had a son Daniel, who married 'Mary, a daughter of Andrew Johnson, the successor of Abraham Lincoln in the Presidency, and he (Johnson) died in her house, a few miles above Elizabethton, July 31, 1875. P. T. Brummit lives there now. It was not a part of the Lincoln farm. The house is still visible from the railroad, the log portion thereof having been torn away; but the room in which Andrew Johnson died, in the second story of the framed addition to the original house, still stands. W. Butler Stover, great-grandnephew of Mary Lincoln, of Jonesboro (R. F. D.), Tenn., still has Mary Lincoln's Bible; but he wrote (March 6, 1914) that "it gives no dates of births or deaths or marriages of any of the Lincoln". " William Stover was Butler Stover's grandfather and inherited the farm on which Mary and Isaac Lincoln are buried, as their tombstones attest, Mary's stating that she died August 27, 1834, "aged about 76 years." It is said that Isaac and Mary Lincoln had but one child, a boy, who was drowned before reaching manhood. Mrs. H. M. Folsom of Elizabethton is related to Mordecai Lincoln, while Mrs. W. M. Vought of the same place was a Carriger. Dr. Natt Hyder, who died twenty-odd years ago, and whose widow still live at Gap Creek, in the Sixth District, told James D. Jenkins that old people had told him--"Old Man" Lewis particularly--that Abraham Lincoln was born on the side of Lynn mountain, and was taken in his mother's arms to Kentucky, going by way of Stony Fork creek and Bristol. An anonymous writer--supposed to be B. Clay Middleton--in an article which was published in the Carter County News, February 13, 1914, says: "Tradition says that it was here, in the beautiful Watauga Valley, so rich in history, that the young Thomas Lincoln first met and wooed the gentle Nancy Hanks, whose name was destined to become immortal through the achievements of her illustrious son. Tradition further says that for a while before Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks left for Kentucky they lived for a time together as common law husband and wife in a little cabin on Lynn mountain, which overlooks the Watauga valley. I have been informed that old people in that vicinity still recall the site of what was known as the Tom Lincoln cabin, and traces of the spot where the cabin stood still remain in the way of stone foundations, etc." He also cites as "a little singular that the life of Andrew Johnson in a way should be interwoven with the name of Lincoln, whom he succeeded as President of the United States. When he married Miss Eliza McCardle, at Greenville, Tenn., it was `Squire Mordecai Lincoln who performed the ceremony. His daughter Mary married Col. Dan Stover, the great nephew of Isaac Lincoln.'"

NOTES:

  1. Statements made to J. P. A. in 1912.
  2. Letter from S. J. Silver to J. P. A., dated November 18, 1912
  3. Zebulon settled near French Broad River in Buncombe county, 2 1/2 miles below Asheville, where the National Casket Factory is now, and died there years ago.
  4. Bedent settled on Beaver Dam, two miles north of Asheville, at what is now the Way place, where he died in 1839. Letter of Dr. J. S. T. Baird to J. P. A., December 16, 1912. Dr. Baird died in April, 1913.
  5. Andrew, a brother of Zebulon and Bedent Baird, settled in Burke; but the Valle Crucis Baird did not Claim descent from him John Burton was really the founder of Asheville, as oil July 7, 1794, he obtained a grant for 200 acres covering what is now the center of that city. Condensed from Asheville's Centenary. He afterwards moved to Ashe County and in April, 1799, he entered 200 acres near the Virginia line. Deed Book A., p. 339.
  6. Condensed and quoted from T. L. Clingman's "Speechescheq and Writings," pp. 138, et seq.
  7. University Magazine of 1888-89.
  8. Zeigler & Grosscup, p. 245.
  9. Letter of C. C. Duckworth to J. P. A., May 1, 1912.
  10. Letter from C. C. Duckworth to J. P. A., May 1, 1912; letter from D. K. Collins, June 1912; statement of Hon. J. C. Pritchard, June, 1912. In "The Child That Toileth Not" (p. 448) Pickens county, S. C., is given as the one in which Redmond held forth twenty years ago, etc.
  11. State v. Hall, 114 N. C., p. 909.
  12. State v. Hall, 115 N. C., p. 811.
  13. For Hon. Z. B. Vance's account of the finding of Prof. Mitchell's body, sec "Balsam Groves of the Grandfather Mountain," by S. M. Dagger (p. 261). In this appears a list of those who assisted in the, search. From this account it seems that what is now known :is Mitchell's Peak was put down in Cook's Map as Mt. Clingman. and that Prof. Mitchell insisted that he had measured it in 1844, while Gen. Clingman claimed to have been the first to measure it.
  14. "Truth Is stranger Than Fiction," pp. 130-137-139.
  1. Ibid., p. 86.
  1. Ibid., p. 74.
  2. According to Herndon, Thomas set up house-keeping in Indiana with the tools and liquor he had recovered from his capsized river boat, p. 17.
  3. From Louisville Courier Journal, of Thursday, November 9, 1911.
  4. "The story of Abraham Lincoln's Mother," by Carolina Hanks Hitchcock, 1889.
  5. Tradition as related by James D. Jenkins, Esq., recorder of Eilizabethton Tenn., who also stated that Isaac Lincoln's wife was Sarah Stover, of Pennsylvania. Also that President Andrew Johnson had died on the Isaac Lincoln farm.