tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43974667138032447322024-02-22T08:08:08.331-08:00Asheville and Buncombe CountyCCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.comBlogger223125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-8594737721101776602022-12-19T14:26:00.003-08:002022-12-19T14:26:58.475-08:00Buncombe County, North Carolina, 1857 Tax Report<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzD5xbyJ7ZqC1ROn7EpufMbbxOMMSAap0nt3kv8sDZ9nr9njRYBtfIzjQJjpoKbP4plFx_Lvx7lTWS7_GJrK2_6gQuxlsn7yiajpjYt9CF12d62R6GBfB_otR9CZg3IrcFR6GNotZhjy6AzWRBMymJ8E_8EYbZaGuf3KxGatiGJKZc7qHliMIBG6z6/s1670/Buncombe%20County%20Tax%20Report%201857.%20The%20Weekly%20Standard%20(Raleigh,%20NC),%2027%20January%201858.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1670" data-original-width="1048" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzD5xbyJ7ZqC1ROn7EpufMbbxOMMSAap0nt3kv8sDZ9nr9njRYBtfIzjQJjpoKbP4plFx_Lvx7lTWS7_GJrK2_6gQuxlsn7yiajpjYt9CF12d62R6GBfB_otR9CZg3IrcFR6GNotZhjy6AzWRBMymJ8E_8EYbZaGuf3KxGatiGJKZc7qHliMIBG6z6/w402-h640/Buncombe%20County%20Tax%20Report%201857.%20The%20Weekly%20Standard%20(Raleigh,%20NC),%2027%20January%201858.jpg" width="402" /></a></div><br />"Report of the North Carolina Comptroller of Public Accounts, for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 1857."<p></p><p>"Statement, Exhibiting the valuation of real estate, and the Taxes derived from each subject of taxation in the several Counties of the State; also the Taxes levied by the Courts of Pleas and Quarter Sessions for County purposes, as follows."</p><p>Source: <i>The Weekly Standard</i> (Raleigh, North Carolina), Wednesday, 27 January 1858</p><p> [https://www.newspapers.com/image/58243336 - accessed 19 December 2022].</p>CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-69488466946958036232022-01-07T11:02:00.002-08:002022-01-07T11:10:21.084-08:00Thomas Gunn Ancestry<i>Thomas Gunn, Jr. (ca. 1738 VA - 1800 NC)</i>, James B. Kerner (2007)<br />
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Thomas<sup>2</sup> Gunn, Jr. (Thomas Gunn, Sr.<sup>1</sup>) was born in or near Amelia County, VA circa 1738.<sup>18</sup> Amelia County, VA was formed from Brunswick and Prince George Counties in 1734. Nottoway Co., VA was formed from Amelia County in 1788. Before Nottoway County established its own government, it was known as Nottoway Parish, a district of Amelia County. Thomas served in the Virginia Colonial Militia during the French and Indian War. He was paid five pounds, six shillings for militia service in 1756, During the French and Indian War, the Virginia House of Burgesses passed an act for the defense of the frontier of the colony on September 14, 1758. Thomas Gunn was among those soldiers mentioned in the schedules attached to that act. Thomas was listed in the Amelia County unit.<br />
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Thomas Gunn (or his father) was mentioned in court records in Lunenburg Co., VA in 1758. Note: Lunenburg Co., VA was formed from Brunswick Co., VA in 1746. On April 4, 1758, Thomas Gunn of Amelia Co., VA purchased 300 acres near his sister, Edith Hogan, on the north side of the Roanoke River in Lunenburg Co., VA, (present-day Mecklenburg Co., VA). Note: Mecklenburg Co., VA was formed from part of Lunenburg Co., VA in 1765.<br />
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Thomas Gunn (or his father) was listed as a resident of Lunenburg Co., VA per the 1760 tax lists.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br />
On July 15, 1760, Thomas Gunn (or his father) received a land patent for 333 acres on the north side of Little Creek.<br />
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On June 22, 1761, Thomas, or his father, witnessed a deed in Brunswick Co., VA.<br />
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On May 9, 1764, Thomas was living in Brunswick Co., VA pursuant to the Revolutionary War Pension Application of his son, Starling Gunn.<br />
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In 1764, a Thomas Gunn was listed as a tithable in Cumberland Parish, Lunenburg Co., VA, with two tithables.<br />
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In 1765, Thomas (or his father), along with James Gunn, were mentioned in the estate of Samuel Jordan in Amelia Co., VA.<br />
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On January 26, 1777, Thomas Gunn of Nottoway Parish, VA purchased 215 acres in Lunenburg Co., VA (one record states this was Amelia Co., VA).<br />
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In 1780, Thomas was drafted into service by the State of Virginia in the Revolutionary War, but his son, Starling Gunn, went in his stead. Starling's pension application stated that he was living in Amelia Co., VA at that time. Later that same year, Thomas supplied the Patriot Army passing through Amelia Co., VA with twenty-one bushels of wheat and five hundred pounds of beef, for which he was later reimbursed six pounds.<br />
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On February 8, 1783, Thomas sold 60 of the 300 acres he had purchased back in 1758. <br />
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Thomas Gunn, or almost certainly, his nephew of the same name, was listed on the 1784 Tax List of Caswell Co., NC. That Thomas Gunn had 200 acres on Mill Creek in the Nash District and lived near Mary Gunn, who had 600 acres on Mill Creek. Mary Gunn was the widow of John Gunn who died circa 1780 in Caswell Co., NC. John Gunn apparently had a son also named Thomas Gunn, who died in neighboring Person Co., NC in 1796. The Nash District of Caswell Co., NC became part of Person Co., NC at its formation in 1792.<br />
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Thomas Gunn, Jr. died circa November, 1800 in Caswell Co., NC.<sup>19</sup> The Rev. James Gunn Bible states that he died October 28, 1800, but that can't be the right month since his will was signed on November 13, 1800, and the estate was inventoried on December 15, 1800. Rev. James Gunn was probably operating from memory and confused the month of his father's death. Thomas Gunn, Jr. is recognized by the Daughters of the American Revolution as having provided service to the Patriot Cause during the American Revolution.<br />
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Thomas Gunn executed a will on November 13, 1800. It reads as follows:<br />
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In the name of God, Amen. I, Thomas Gunn, of Caswell County, State of North<br />
Carolina, being in low health but of sound mind and memory, thanks be to God, do<br />
constitute this my Last Will and Testament, in manner and form following, to wit:<br />
<br />
Inprimus, I lend to my beloved wife, Elenor Gunn, one third part of my land to be laid off at the lower end where I now live and three negroes called Adam, Sam, and Molly Smith, two cows and one feather bed and furniture during her natural life or<br />
widowhood.<br />
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Item, I give and bequeath to my son, John Gunn, two hundred and fifty acres of land, part of the tract whereon I now live, to be laid off at the upper end to him and his heirs or assigns forever, also three negroes called Rachel, Archy, and Jacob, one feather bed and furniture, and one cow and calf.<br />
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Item, I give and bequeath to my son, Allen Gunn, all the remainder of the tract of land whereon I now live, to him and his heirs and assigns forever, also three negroes called Milly, Charles, and Betty, one horse of the value of one hundred dollars, one cow and calf, one feather bed and furniture.<br />
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Item, I give to my son, Sterling Gunn, two negroes called George and Phillis, now in his possession.<br />
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Item, I give to my son, Daniel Gunn, three negroes called Godfrey, Anny, and Aggy, now in his possession.<br />
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Item, I give to my son, Thomas Gunn, three negroes called Eve, Sie, and Delpha, now in his possession.<br />
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Item, I give to my son in law, Ellis Evans, two negroes called Milly and Arram, now in his possession.<br />
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Item, I give to my son, James Gunn, two negroes called Moses and Esther, now in his possession.<br />
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Item, I give to my son, Griffin Gunn, two negroes called Chloe and Hampton, and one hundred dollars to be raised out of my estate.<br />
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Item, I give to my daughter, Sally Burton, two negroes now in her possession called Chloe Flippin and Davy, and one called Peter.<br />
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Item, I give to my daughter, Priscilla Gunn, three negroes called Anncia, Isaac, and Danbey, also one mare called Crawl Bottom, one cow and calf, and one feather bed and furniture.<br />
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Item, I give to my son, Anderson Gunn, two negroes called Dic and Sydny. Item, I give to my son, Pinkney Gunn, one negro boy called Herod.<br />
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It is my will that old Sam, Lucy, Jack, and Grace live on this plantation where I now live, if they see cause, or (can) go with any of my children (as) they please.<br />
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All the remainder of my estate not disposed of by this Will, it is my desire shall be sold by my Executors and, after my debts are paid, be equally divided among my wife and all my children that are alive, share and share alike.<br />
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Lastly, I nominate and appoint James Burton and my son, Griffin Gunn, to execute this my Last Will and Testament. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal this thirteenth day of November, Anno Dom 1800. Signed Thomas Gunn. Signed, sealed, and delivered in presence of C. Dixon, jurat, Mosey Ingram, jurat, and Ann Green, her mark.<br />
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The will was proven in the Caswell County Court during the January, 1801 term. James Burton and Griffin Gunn were appointed Executors of the estate. His estate was inventoried on December 15, 1800, and an estate sale was held in which all of his adult children bought items. His estate was quite large and varied and consisted of the following items, among many others: slaves, 740 acres of land, including a ten-acre section with a mill, a copy of Thomas Paine's Common Sense, a book of the works of Fletcher, a dictionary, hymn books, prayer books, American magazines, feather beds, chairs, trunks, furniture, decanters, wine glasses and tumblers, pewter plates, oxen, hogs, geese, ganders, bay horses, cows, barrels of corn, and farm implements of every sort. In January, 1804, the estate Executors submitted their report to the Court of moneys netted from the sale of estate items. They reported that they had one thousand seventy pounds, five shillings and seven pence to distribute to the heirs.<br />
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According to Gwen Gunn Shoemaker: "On 5 October, 1801, Elinor Gunn [his widow] deeded to Griffin Gunn and James Burton (the executors of Thomas Gunn estate) 10 acres, her right of dower in 3rd part of said land on fork of Moon Creek. This was probably the 10 acres with mill which was bought at the estate sale by Starling Gunn. When Allen Gunn died in 1848 his brother John bought much of the real estate Allen owned, including the 'home place.' We have not learned who the present owner of this land is so we have not identified the exact place where Thomas Gunn lived."<br />
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Thomas Gunn's son, Allen Gunn, died in June 1848, without a will in Caswell Co., NC. He was well off but never married and had no children. Accordingly, a Chancery Court proceeding had to be held to determine his heirs at law and distribute his large estate. His estate records are voluminous, but much genealogical information about the Thomas Gunn family can be found therein. In one pleading, dated August 1, 1848, Allen Gunn's siblings petitioned the Court to sell his real estate as follows: <br />
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"Allen Gunn, Senr., late of Caswell County, departed this life intestate in the month of June last being seised [sic] of considerable real estate in Caswell, that is to say as follows, one tract of land of about seven hundred and fifty acres known as the Homestead on the waters of Moon Creek adjoining the land of John Gunn, Senr., and others, one tract of land about two? hundred and fifty acres, known as the Ingram Tract . . . on Moon Creek, which runs through it, one other known as the Mill tract, with the good grist mill on it containing sixty acres more or less . . . (he also owned) a certain house and lot in Yanceyville on the corner of the public square known as the John H----- (illegible) house and lot. [This could be the John Herndon Graves house.]<br />
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Now your petitioners would respectfully show unto your Honor that the said Allen Gunn, Senr. never married and left no lineal descendants or heirs at law and his real estate, therefore properly descends to his brothers and their descendants, namely, your petitioners: Starling Gunn, John Gunn, and Sally Burton, and Priscilla Burton, the last two sisters, and the two first brothers of the intestate, and Thomas Gunn and James Gunn, who are also his brothers, and the children of his deceased brother, Griffin Gunn (these are named),....(and the) children of Mary Evans, deceased (these are named), who was sister of the said intestate, and the children and descendants of Daniel Gunn, deceased, and of Anderson Gunn, deceased, and of Pinkney Gunn, deceased(unnamed because these names were then unknown to petitioners). The petitioners then asked the Court to sell the real estate and divide the proceeds among the heirs.<br />
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Another petition was filed in about 1850 by Allen Gunn's heirs to sell Allen Gunn's considerable personal property consisting of slaves, stocks of horse and cows, sheeps, hogs, goods, money, etc., all in "large amounts." They stated as follows in pertinent part: "Allen Gunn, Senr., in or about the year 1848, departed this life intestate and a single man, having your orator (John Gunn) and your oratrix (Sally Burton), as two of his next of kin, and also the following others him surviving - namely, Starling Gunn, a brother who resides in Caswell County, and Thomas Gunn, another brother who resides in the State of Tennessee . . . (and the) children of his deceased brothers and sisters as follows, to wit, the children of Griffith Gunn, deceased (these are named) . . . and the children of James Gunn, deceased, another brother, namelyAlexander, William, James, and Wynn, and several others whose names cannot be ascertained, and thechildren also of another brother, now deceased, to wit, Daniel Gunn (these are unnamed as unknown) . . . and the children also of another deceased brother, Anderson Gunn (names unknown) . . . and the children also of Mary Evans, deceased, sister of the said intestate (these are named) . . . and another sister residing inTennessee whose name is Priscilla Payne or Priscilla Burton. The above, your orator and oratrix furthershow that the above is a true statement of all the next of kin of the said intestate. . . ."<br />
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The petitioners went on to express their dissatisfaction with the speed in which the Administrator of the estate, Dr. Allen Gunn, was disposing of the personal property.<br />
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Thomas Gunn, Jr. married either two, three, or four times. He first married Susannah Burnett in Virginia, circa 1760. The marriage likely occurred in or near Brunswick Co., VA. Her identity is based upon family tradition, and I have seen no proof as to Susannah’s surname, but family tradition states that her father was Richard Burnett. Her son, Rev. James Gunn's Family Bible, states that Susannah Gunn died Dec. 27, 1796. The listing is right next to the listing for James’ father. It would only be natural for James to list his parents' deaths. In my view this listing refers to his mother, Susannah Burnett Gunn, and thus the later marriages to Sarah Davenport and Ann Worsham were for a different Thomas Gunn. Other researchers disagree, but the evidence for the other two marriages is scant, in my view. Additionally, Starling Gunn, in his Revolutionary War pension application, stated that he gave his mother [Susannah Burnett Gunn] his discharge papers after the surrender of Cornwallis at the Battle of Yorktown. That surrender took place on October 19, 1781. Thomas Gunn, Jr.’s supposed second and third marriages took place in December, 1778 and January, 1782 respectively. Starling Gunn's mother was Susannah Burnett Gunn, so if this is accurate, then the marriage to Sarah Davenport was clearly for another Thomas Gunn.<br />
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There was another Thomas Gunn who died in 1796, who was living in either Amelia Co., VA or Mecklenburg Co., VA in 1782. One or both of these questionable marriages were probably his. Susannah Burnett was born in VA July 12, 1740.<br />
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Thomas Gunn, Jr. possibly next married Sarah Davenport (very questionable) in Amelia Co., VA, December 1, 1778.<sup>20</sup> Security was John Tucker. I have listed this marriage to recognize that several researchers believe it to be for our Thomas Gunn, Jr., but based upon the foregoing evidence, it does not appear to be so. This marriage, however, has helped descendants join the DAR. The following record appeared in deed records of Amelia Co., VA: "To all whom these presents shall come, Sarah Davenport of the County of Amelia, sendeth greetings, whereas a marriage is shortly intended to be solemnized between the said Sarah and Thomas Gunn of the County aforesaid . . . Sarah Davenport and Thomas Gunn, both of Amelia County, planning to marry, in love and affection that said Gunn has for Sarah's children, Sarah Davenport and Samuel Davenport, and five shilling, gift of three negroes from the estate of George Davenport, dec'd, father of children, Sarah and Samuel. . . ." Curiously, Thomas Gunn signed with only one "n" in Gunn, further evidence that marriage may have been for a different Thomas Gunn. The document was dated Dec. 1, 1778 and was proven in court on April 25, 1782. If our Thomas Gunn, Jr. actually next married Ann Worsham, then Sarah would have died circa 1778-1782, possibly in childbirth. On April 27, 1782, the Executors of George Davenport, Dec'd, assignees of Thomas Gunn, filed a "Claim against the Public on Account of Horses and Other Property Impressed or Taken for Public Service" in the Amelia County, VA Court. They filed same for, "2 Beeves, 470 pounds of meat, Sep. 1781, for Continental use, five pounds, 17 shillings and 6 pence." It appears as though George Davenport, not Thomas Gunn, actually provided this service to the Patriot Cause. However, Thomas Gunn was also reimbursed for 21 and 1/2 bushels of wheat for five pounds, 7 shillings and six pence. Sarah Davenport was most likely born in Virginia. Sarah was the widow of George Davenport, whose will was proven on September 2, 1773 in Amelia Co., VA (Will Book 2, pages 104-105, 116). George Davenport and Sarah had nine children together.<br />
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Thomas Gunn, Jr. possibly next married Ann Worsham (questionable) in Amelia Co., VA, January 11, 1782.<sup>21</sup> William Osborne was surety. In 1782, there were two Thomas Gunns listed in the Virginia Tax Lists, one in Amelia Co., VA (with 11 whites and 18 blacks), and one in Mecklenburg Co., VA (with 12 whites and no blacks). Mecklenburg Co., VA had been formed from a section of Lunenburg Co., VA in 1765. Our Thomas Gunn, Jr. appears to be the one listed in Amelia Co., VA based upon his son, Starling Gunn's, pension application which placed Thomas in Amelia Co., VA in 1780 and 1781, and based upon the fact that the neighbors of the man in the 1785 listing (who is certainly our man), are mostly the same men as in the 1782 listing. <br />
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The 1785 VA Tax List shows only one Thomas Gunn, in Amelia Co., VA. This man in 1785 is almost certainly our Thomas Gunn, as he was listed as a close neighbor of Ellis Evans (his son in-law, who married his daughter in 1785). Thomas was listed with 11 white souls, 1 dwelling, and 8 other buildings. Slaves weren't listed that year. The 1787 VA Tax List shows Thomas Gunn living in Amelia Co., VA with one male age 16-21 (Thomas, III who was born 1770?), 23 slaves, 5 horses, mares, colts and mules, and 28 cattle. This also seems to be our Thomas Gunn, Jr. In 1788, Nottoway Co., VA was formed from part of Amelia Co., VA. Nottoway Co., VA Court Orders dated June 4, 1789, show Thomas Gunn and Ellis Evans [his son-in-law] as being neighbors near, "The falls of Great Nottoway into the main road at Bolling's old field." Researchers appear to be split on the issue of whether the Thomas Gunn who married Ann Worsham was actually ours. It appears possible, considering that court records apparently show, (I have not seen these records), that Thomas Gunn, Jr.’s daughters, Sarah Gunn (born April 9, 1782), and Priscilla Gunn (born November 10, 1786), were only half-sisters, and thus had different mothers. However, Gwen Gunn Shoemaker, who had access to the voluminous Allen Gunn estate records located at the North Carolina Archives, did not include Ann Worsham as one of the wives of Thomas Gunn, Jr. The Allen Gunn estate records, which I have copies of, unfortunately do not list the wives of Thomas Gunn, Jr. The only time a half-sibling was mentioned in those records was for Anderson and Pinckney Gunn. In fact, the Allen Gunn estate records offer no evidence whatsoever that Thomas Gunn, Jr. married Sarah Davenport or Ann Worsham and I'm starting to believe that the man who married these two women was actually the Thomas Gunn who died in Person Co., NC circa 1796. Additionally the Rev. James Gunn Family Bible records that Thomas Gunn, Jr. had only two wives, with Anderson Gunn and Pinckney Gunn being the only offspring from the "second wife." Additionally, a power of attorney form dated September 11, 1852, prepared by John W. Gorham of Robertson Co., TN, to make a claim on the estate of Allen Gunn in North Carolina stated the following: ". . . The said Allen Gunn, deceased, late of the County of Caswell . . . through his full brother, James Gunn, deceased, late of the County of Robertson . . . whose daughter intermarried with Wm. B. Gorham, and they had the following children . . . myself, and Priscilla, who intermarried with John L. Yates . . . my mother . . . has been dead many years and my father . . . is also dead."<br />
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John W. Gorham's sisters, Emily and Priscilla, made similar statements in power of attorney documents. Clearly, the Gorham siblings would have had access to their grandfather, Rev. James Gunn's, Bible record when they stated that Allen Gunn and James Gunn were "full brothers." Additionally, Daniel Gunn's children, when filing their power-of-attorney forms in the Allen Gunn estate stated that their father was a "full brother" to Allen Gunn. All these statements concur with the James Gunn Bible record, but same are clearly incorrect if Thomas Gunn, Jr. actually married Ann Worsham, in which case Allen Gunn would have been only a half-brother to James and Daniel Gunn, not a full brother. Gwen Gunn Shoemaker opined that James Gunn was possibly too young to remember his father's second wife, Sarah Davenport, and therefore assumed that most of his siblings born before 1797 were James' full siblings. This seems a little spurious.<br />
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It may very well be that Thomas Gunn, Jr. actually only had two wives, Susanna Burnett and Eleanor Alverson, especially when one considers that the Rev. James Gunn Family Bible records that a Susannah Gunn died December 27, 1796. It would be natural for James Gunn to record his mother's death, not his stepmother's death, in his personal Bible. That Susannah Gunn is very likely the first wife of Thomas Gunn, Jr., Susannah Burnett. Further, Starling Gunn’s Revolutionary War pension application proves that Starling’s mother (Susannah) was alive after the Battle of Yorktown, which took place on October 19, 1781. If Susannah Burnett-Gunn died in 1796, then that date matches perfectly the rest of the entries showing Anderson Gunn (born 1798) and Pinckney Gunn (born 1800) being the children of "the second wife," i.e., Elenor Alverson, whom Thomas Gunn, Jr. indisputably married on October 24, 1797. To further complicate the matter, Sarah Gunn's husband, James Burton, apparently stated in a court record in 1802 (that I have not seen), that Sarah Gunn [born Apr., 1782] and Priscilla Gunn [b. Nov. 1786], a minor, were only "half-sisters." James Burton was made Priscilla Gunn's guardian at this time.<br />
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In any event, Thomas Gunn, Jr. had either two, three, or four wives, the identity of only Eleanor Alverson being proven beyond reproach. Ann Worsham was born circa 1750-1760 (?). Her father, Henry Worham, was born in 1727. She conceivably may have gone by Susannah, per the apparent 1796 death listing in the Rev. James Gunn Family Bible. ANN was the daughter of Henry Worsham. Ann died December 27, 1796 (?) in Caswell Co., NC.22 Thomas Gunn, Jr. lastly married Elenor (Nelly) Alverson in Caswell Co., NC, October 24, 1797.23 James Burton, his future son-in-law, was bondsman. Nelly was born circa 1755-1774.24 Her parents are unknown, but Caswell Co., NC deed records for the time period of her marriage to Thomas Gunn show Elisha, James, and Jesse Alverson, who were likely relatives. Some researchers have speculated that her name may have actually been Anderson based on the name of her firstborn son, Anderson Gunn.<br />
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After Thomas Gunn, Jr. died, Eleanor married Jacob Quine in Caswell Co., NC, November 9, 1801.<sup>25</sup> Benjamin Quine was bondsman. In 1804, Jacob Quine was listed in Caswell Co., NC Guardian Account records as being the guardian for Pinckney Gunn and Anderson Gunn. On October 21, 1809, Daniel Gunn sold to Allen Gunn his interest in Moon Creek land that had been laid off for life to the widow of Thomas Gunn, deceased, Eleanor Gunn (now Quine). On February 10, 1810, Griffin Gunn sold land on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC, which Griffin had acquired from Jacob Quine, who had inherited same from William Quine, deceased. Jacob was the son of William Quine from the Isle of Man. Jacob may have moved to Grainger Co., TN after the marriage to Elenor Alverson Gunn.<br />
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Elenor next married James Davis in Caswell Co., NC, October 23, 1816.<sup>26</sup> She was married as Nelly Quine. The bondsman was Thomas Hooper, witness was Azariah Graves. On March 21, 1817, James and Eleanor Davis of Caswell Co., NC sold 243 acres on Moon's Creek to Allen Gunn, "Eleanor Davis being the widow of Thomas Gunn, deceased."<br />
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A Thomas Gunn was listed as the head of a family on the 1790 Census in Caswell Co., NC.<sup>27</sup> This census listing was more likely that of Thomas Gunn, his nephew by the same name, since the census lists the property as being in the Nash District, which became part of Person Co., NC in 1791. However, in 1791, our Thomas Gunn purchased a very large tract of land for 500 pounds, consisting of 740 acres on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC. He purchased the land from Abraham Miles as "Thomas Gunn of Nottoway Co. VA." This tract of land, northeast of Yanceyville, NC apparently stayed in the Gunn family until at least 1848, when it was sold in his son, Allen Gunn's, estate sale. On December 8, 1798, Thomas Gunn, Sen. purchased 2 1/2 acres on Moon's Creek. The deed was witnessed by G. Gunn and Jas. Burton.<br />
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On July 16, 1799, Thomas Gunn, Sen. of Caswell Co., NC, purchased 7 more acres on Moon's Creek. James Burton witnessed the deed.<br />
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On October 5, 1801, Elenor Gunn, widow and relict of Thomas Gunn, deceased, quit-claimed 10 acres with a mill on Moon's Creek to James Burton and Griffin Gunn, the executors of the Thomas Gunn estate. The land represented the one-third part which she claimed as widow's dower. On April 7, 1806, Starling, Daniel, Thomas, James, Griffin, and John Gunn, along with James Burton, and John Payne, all of Caswell Co., NC transferred "for love and affection" their rights to 247 acres on Moon's Creek, adjacent to James Burton and Allen Gunn, it being one-third part of tract of Thomas Gunn, deceased, and laid off for Eleanor Gunn, now Quine, widow of said Thomas Gunn for her life. On March 21, 1817, James Davis and Eleanor Davis of Caswell Co., NC sold to Allen Gunn 243 acres on Moon's Creek, "being land allotted to Eleanor Gunn, widow of Thomas Gunn, deceased, and now Eleanor Davis." The land was adjacent to that of James Burton. Thomas Gunn, Jr. was listed as the head of a family on the 1800 Census in Caswell Co., NC. (m. 45+, f. 26-45, m. 16-26, m. 10-16, f. 10-16, and 2m. <10). He owned 26 slaves.<br />
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Thomas Gunn, Jr. and Susannah Burnett had the following children:<br />
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1. Elisha Gunn was born in Virginia July 11, 1761.<sup>28</sup> This Elisha Gunn is often confused with Elisha Gunn (1757 VA - ca. 1839 TN), the son of James Gunn and a Revolutionary War Veteran. Elisha, by most accounts, died fairly young as he is not listed in his father's will in 1800 and no record of him seems to exist after that date. One source states that he married Elizabeth Nance in 1780 in Virginia.<br />
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2. Starling Gunn was born in Brunswick Co., VA May 9, 1764.29 STARLING died August 13, 1852 in Caswell Co., NC, at 88 years of age.<sup>30</sup> He wrote a will on May 15, 1849. The will was proven in October, 1852 in Caswell Co., NC. He is buried at Yanceyville Methodist Church. Starling Gunn is recognized by the Daughters of the American Revolution as being a soldier in the American Revolution. His tombstone reads as follows:<br />
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"Sacred to the memory of Starling Gunn, a soldier in the war of Independence, who fired the first cannon at York and was an eye witness to the surrender of Cornwallis. He was for more than 40 years, a prominent member of the Methodist Episcopal church. He died August 13, 1852. Age 88 years, 3 months, and 4 days."<br />
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Starling applied for a federal pension based upon his Revolutionary War Service. His application reads as follows:<br />
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State of North Carolina, Superior Court of Law, County of Caswell, November Term, 1832; On this 6th day of November, 1832, personally appeared in open Court before the Superior Court of Law now sitting, Stirling Gunn, aged sixty-eight years, on the 9th day of May last, who being first duly sworn according to law, doth on his oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefit of the Act of Congress passed June 7th, 1832; That he entered the service of the United States under the following named officers as herein stated: Sometime in the fall of the year 1780, perhaps in the month of September, but at this distant day this Declarant cannot now state, he (the Declarant) substituted himself in the place of his father, Thomas Gunn, who was drafted under the following named officers, to wit, Capt. Edward Momford in the Company commanded by Col. Elliot. That at this time this Declarant resided in the County of Amelia and State of Virginia, and he was marched under the said officers to Petersburg and from thence to a place called Cabin Point, where they were stationed and remained guarding the landing and the coast around until they were discharged after serving a tour of three months, as well as this Declarant now recollects. He was discharged together with all the Amelia troops around Christmas, but whether a little before or afterwards, this Declarant cannot now particularly state. In this tour, this Declarant received no discharge, nor did any of the troops who were discharged at the same time, they being marched back as far as Petersburg under their said captain, and from thence they severally took their course to their several homes. Some time in the month of February, 1781, or thereabouts, the enemy under a General Philips came to Petersburg and took and burnt a part of the town, and this Declarant together with all the force which could be collected in the surrounding country volunteered to go down and drive them away. This Declarant, at this time, volunteered under Captain John Knight and was marched to Petersburg, but when they arrived the enemy had fled and the volunteers, of whom this Declarant was one, was discharged or disbanded and returned home after serving or being absent from home fifteen days. Some time in the month of March, 1781 following, this Declarant was drafted in the Amelia Militia under Captain John Knight, [who was listed as a neighbor of Thomas Gunn per the 1782 VA Tax List], in the Company or Regiment commanded by Col. Meriwither and was marched first to Petersburg, and from thence by forced marches a circuitous route to Richmond and was in sight of the fire when Manchester was burned by the enemy, got in to Richmond and endeavored to prevent the enemy crossing the James River into Richmond, but was compelled to retire and was driven from place to place before the enemy until we got up into the mountains in Culpeper County, being at his time under the General Command of General LaFayette.<br />
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In Culpeper County, this Declarant, together with five other captain's companies, were discharged after serving a tour of three months. After they were disbanded and were on their march home, they were pursued by the enemy's horse and were overtaken (this Declarant thinks) in Goochland County, and the Captain together with a good many of the soldiers were taken prisoners. This Declarant made his escape and got home in Amelia County in the month of June, 1781. Some time in the month of the same June, as well as this Declarant now recollects, though at this distant day it's impossible for him now to recollect, he was drafted again under a Captain Anderson in the Company or Regiment commanded by Col. Richardson. But Captain Anderson, becoming indisposed, retired from the army until after the capture of Lord Cornwallis. And we were put under an officer by the name of Cobb, who took command of the company as captain. This Declarant was marched to old Jamestown under the aforesaid named officer. From thence we marched to Williamsburg and there remained some time. And from there we followed in pursuit of the enemy to Yorktown where we besieged the enemy. At this place this Declarant was, by arrangement of the officers, taken out of the Infantry, into which he had volunteered in Williamsburg, and was put in the Artillery and assisted in digging the trenches and building the forts at Yorktown.<br />
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This Declarant was in the fort and assisted in firing the first gun that he recollects to have been fired upon the enemy. Captain Price and Col. Lamb were his immediate officers in the artillery who acted under the orders of the Brave Genl. Knox. This Declarant also was present at the hoisting of the American flag in the fort. This Declarant continued in the artillery and fought during the siege until the Capture of Cornwallis, and afterwards until his term of service expired or until he was discharged. He thinks he got his discharge about the time of the expiration of his service, but at what particular day, he cannot now recollect. He first applied to his captain and asked to be discharged, being at that time sick, but did not get it, and shortly afterwards Col. Richardson wrote and gave him his discharge and he returned home. He thinks he got home, Amelia County, Virginia, about the first of November, 1781. Therein the whole time which this Declarant served his Country during the War of the Revolution was something about nine months and fifteen days. The country through which this Declarant marched was in and through the State of Virginia.<br />
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This Declarant was well acquainted with a great many regular officers who were with the troops where he served. He knew Col. Lamb, Col. Price, Genl. Mecklenburg, Genl. Wayne, Genl. LayFayette and Genl. Washington. This Declarant would state that he has long since lost his discharges and now has no documentary evidence to prove his services, and knows of but one man in this County where he now lives, Caswell County and State of North Carolina, by whom he can prove his service -- by Sgt. Joseph Dameron. I hereby relinquish every claim whatever to a pension or annuity except the present and declare that my name is not on the pension roll of the agency of any State. The following interrogations propounded by the Court to the applicant and answers:<br />
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Question 1st. Where and what year were you born? Answer -- I was born in Brunswick County and State of Virginia, as I have been told, on the 9th day of May, 1764.<br />
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Question 2nd. Have you any record of your age and if so, where is it? Ans. I have a record of my age recorded in my Family Bible.<br />
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Question 3d. Where were you living when called in service? Where have you lived since your service as a soldier of the Revolution? Answer -- I have lived in this (Caswell) County for forty years and am known to most all of the citizens, any or all whom will prove my character for truth and good behaviour. I am not certain that I can prove my services or any part of my services by any but one man, Joseph Dameron, who was in the army with me at Cabin Point, and I have to rely upon my own oath.<br />
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Question 4th. How were you called into service? Were you drafted, did you volunteer, or were you a substitute?, and if a substitute, for whom? Ans. The first tour of duty which I served I substituted myself in the place of my father, THOMAS GUNN, who was drafted. I next volunteered to drive the enemy from Petersburg. I was next drafted, and again I was drafted in the militia, from which I was permitted to volunteer in the infantry, (after) which I was selected and placed in the artillery at Yorktown.<br />
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Question 5th. State the names of some of the Regular Officers who were with the troops where you served….as you can recollect and the general circumstances of your service. Ans. I knew General Washington, General Lafayette, General Knox, General Wayne, and General Mecklenburg, Colonel Lamb, and Captain Price.…and others. I (served) in three militia regiments, which I have before mentioned. I know of several regular regiments, but it is improbable for me now to recollect their numbers and names. The general circumstances of my service, I have before endeavored in some degree to detail.<br />
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Question 6th. Did you ever receive a discharge from the service?, and if so, by whom was it given, and what has become of it? Ans. For some of the tours which I served, I did not receive written discharges, it being unnecessary or we were disbanded. But for the tour in which I served at Yorktown, I received a written discharge from Col. Richardson, which I afterwards kept as a curiosity, and gave it to my mother. I expect it has long since been destroyed. [Thus Starling Gunn’s mother was still alive by October 19, 1781, putting Thomas Gunn, Jr.’s supposed marriage to Sarah Davenport on December 1, 1778 in serious doubt].<br />
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Question 7th. (Do you know of anyone who can attest to your) services as a soldier of the Revolution? Ans. I have lived in this (Caswell) County for forty years and (am) known to most all of the citizens, any one of whom will prove my character for truth and good behaviour. I am not certain that I can prove my services or any part of my services by any but one man, Joseph Dameron, who was in the army with me at Cabin Point, and I have to rely upon my own oath.<br />
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Sworn to and subscribed the day and year aforesaid. Jeremiah Graves, C.S.C., Starling Gunn....<br />
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We Richard Mastin, a clergyman residing in the County of Caswell and State of North Carolina, and James Rainey, residing in the same County and State, hereby certify that we are well acquainted with Starling Gunn, who has subscribed and sworn to the above declaration, that we believe him to be sixty-eight years of age, that he is reputed and believed in the neighborhood where he resides to have been a soldier of the Revolution, and that we concur in that opinion. Sworn to and subscribed the day and year aforesaid. Richard Mastin, James Rainey, Jeremiah Graves, C.S.C.... And the Court do hereby declare their opinion after the investigation of the matter and after putting the interrogation prescribed by the War Department, that the above named applicant was a Revolutionary Soldier and served as he states. And the Court further certifies that it appears to them that Richard Mastin, who has signed the preceding certificate is a clergyman residing in the County of Caswell and State of North Carolina, and that James Rainey, who has also signed the same, is a resident of the said County of Caswell and State aforesaid, and is a credible person and that their statement is entitled to credit...<br />
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I, Jeremiah Graves, Clerk of the Superior Court of Law of the County and State aforesaid, to-wit: County of Caswell and State of North Carolina, do hereby certify that the foregoing contains the original proceedings in the matter of the application of Starling Gunn for a pension. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal of office this 6th day of November A. Dom., 1832. Jeremiah Graves, C.S.C.<br />
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After the war ended, Starling Gunn got married. He married Mary Elizabeth Hooper in Brunswick Co., VA, October 5, 1785.31 Starling was listed on the 1787 VA Tax List in Lunenburg Co., VA. On March 31, 1791, Starling purchased 100 acres on Rattlesnake Creek in Caswell Co., NC. The deed was witnessed by Daniel and Jerusha Gunn. It was likely Starling who enticed his father to move to Caswell Co., NC from Virginia. On September 7, 1791, Starling purchased 300 more acres on Rattlesnake Creek. The deed was witnessed by Daniel Gunn. On October 3, 1797, he purchased 50 more acres on Rattlesnake Creek. The deed was witnessed by Jas. Burton. On January 31, 1799, Starling purchased 200 more acres on Rattlesnake Creek. The deed was witnessed by Jas. Burton. Mary Hooper was born in VA April 15, 1768.<sup>32</sup> MARY was the daughter of Zachariah Hooper and Susannah Walker. Mary died March 3, 1843 in Caswell Co., NC, at 74 years of age.33 Her tombstone reads as follows: "Sacred to memory of Mary, wife of Starling Gunn, a consistent member of the M. E. Church, who died Mar. 13, 1843, A.E. 74 y's 10 m's + 16 d's." Starling Gunn was eulogized by an anonymous person. This poignant eulogy can be found in the Caswell Co., NC Courthouse and reads as follows:<br />
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Died, in Caswell on the 13th of Aug., Sterling (Starling) Gunn. Mr. Gunn was born in Notaway County, Va., the 9th of May, 1764, and at an early age joined the American Army, and rendered the services of a true and brave soldier until peace was declared. He was under command of Marquis Lafayette at the surrender of Cornwallis, and assisted in placing (and) firing the first gun upon the British at Yorktown. For his good services and conduct he was rewarded by a command in his company. Having passed some of his best years as a soldier, in striving to obtain the unmeasured blessings of freedom, he seemed to feel that it was a high obligation upon him to exercise all the privileges and perform all the duties of a citizen. He rarely if ever failed to go to the polls to express his choice of views by vote; and though of such advanced age yet at our last election his venerable person was to be seen at the ballot-box, exercising that right which is as powerful in the preservation of liberty as the cartridge-box was in securing it. Kind in his manner, and playful in his disposition, all who approached him felt their attachment deepened and their reverences heightened for the gray-haired patriot and patriarch. For fifty years he was a pious and exemplary member of the Methodist Church; and his whole life was in harmony with his holy profession; so was his death a perfect manifestation of the Divine feelings that dwelt within him. He saw the shadow of the wing of death falling upon him, yet it produced no alarm; no fear as to consequences. On the contrary, he seemed to feel no sting in the pains of death, that the triumph of the grave was no victory.<br />
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The venerable authors of our liberty are fast passing away! But one other remains in our midst, and the unchangeable laws of life and death show to us that in all probability the gates of the grave will soon open to receive him! As they drop one by one into the tomb, we all might well pause from busy life and drop a tear to their memories as a token of gratitude for the rich valor, as preserved for us by their prudence.<br />
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Starling Gunn was listed as the head of a family on the 1800 Census in Caswell Co., NC.<sup>34</sup> His pension application stated that he had lived for four years in Lunenburg Co., VA after the war immediately preceding his move to Caswell Co., NC. On January 27, 1801, Starling purchased 39 acres adjoining his own land from Daniel Gunn. On March 13, 1801, he purchased 37 more acres on Rattlesnake Creek. Noel Burton witnessed the deed. Starling Gunn appeared in the 1810 U.S. Census for Caswell Co., NC. On February 23, 1810, Starling purchased 148 acres on Rattlesnake Creek. On August 10, 1811, Starling purchased 10 acres on Moon's Creek from Griffin Gunn and James Burton, the executors of Thomas Gunn, deceased. On September 23, 1811, Starling sold 10 acres on Moon's Creek to James Burton. On March 16, 1812, Starling purchased 179 acres on Rattlesnake Creek from Thomas Gunn, Sen. adjoining the land of Susannah Hooper. On July 25, 1814, Susannah Hooper of Caswell Co., NC deeded several slaves "for love and affection to her son-in-law, Starling Gunn." The deed was witnessed by Griffin Gunn. Per When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County, North Carolina; 1777-1977: "Itinerant ministers were welcomed in homes along the way and they often stayed for extended periods of time when they found a warm welcome and an attentive congregation. It was recalled at a later time that Revolutionary veteran Starling Gunn reserved a special room in his modest home as the 'Preacher's Room.' It was described as being comfortably furnished and often used. Tradition relates that it was Gunn who constructed a building that came to be known as Piney Grove Methodist Church.<br />
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From hewn logs he and his neighbors erected a 40 by 24 foot building for the use of any minister who passed; a partition three feet high across the back of the building marked off an area for any slaves who wished to attend." Starling and his wife were apparently buried near the old log church but were re-interred in the Yanceyville Methodist Church cemetery in 1950. Starling also was listed as the head of the family in the 1820, 1840, and 1850 U.S. Censuses in Caswell Co., NC. On the 1850 U.S Census Slave Schedules he owned 24 slaves. Starling's home in Caswell Co., NC is still standing. The house is located about a mile and a half north of Yanceyville off of Murray Road. It is located on the Dan River Work Farm.<br />
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3. Daniel Gunn was born in VA March 20, 1766.35 He lived for a time in Robertson Co., TN. DANIEL died January 15, 1832 in Putnam Co., IL, at 65 years of age.36 On May 17, 1852, Graves Gunn issued Power of Attorney to James M. Gunn of Robertson Co., TN to collect any moneys due him from the estate of Allen Gunn, deceased. Graves Gunn did so "through my father, Daniel Gunn, deceased, late of the County of Putnam, State of Illinois, who was full brother to the said Allen Gunn, deceased." On April 5, 1852, Daniel Gunn's daughters, Ann Gunn Denton, Susannah Gunn Rice, and Lucretia Gunn Parsons filed same, giving Power of Attorney to James M. Gunn. Daniel Gunn married twice. Daniel Gunn married JERUSHA WINN in Lunenburg Co., VA, November 16, 1786.37 Surety was Philip Snead. Daniel Gunn, or possibly his cousin of the same name, was listed as "not tithable" on the 1787 VA Tax List for Amelia Co., VA. On March 31, 1791, Daniel Gunn and Jerusha Gunn witnessed a deed for Starling Gunn, who purchased land on Rattlesnake Creek in Caswell Co., NC. On September 7, 1791, Daniel witnessed another deed for Starling Gunn. On January 6, 1795, Daniel Gunn of Caswell Co., NC purchased 100 acres on Rattlesnake Creek adjacent to Gunn's line and Jacob Miles. The deed was witnessed by Jacob Miles, Sr. Land was granted to Daniel Gunn on the waters of Country Line Creek in Caswell Co., NC on December 20, 1799, with the grant being issued on November 30, 1801. It is possible that this was his cousin, also named Daniel Gunn, but that is unlikely because the cousin seems to have been in neighboring Person Co., NC at that time.<br />
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On November 22, 1799, Daniel purchased 157 acres on Country Line Creek. The deed was witnessed by Thomas Gunn, Jun. On January 29, 1800, Daniel purchased 56 acres on Country Line Creek in Caswell Co., NC. On May 16, 1800, Daniel sold 300 acres on Rattlesnake Creek adjoining the lands of Starling Gunn and Jacob Miles. On February 16, 1804, Daniel purchased 4 acres on Country Line Creek. The deed was witnessed by James Gunn. Daniel sold three slaves in Caswell Co., NC on January 15, 1805 for the sum of 228 lbs. Daniel sold 248 acres on Country Line Creek on November 1, 1805. On October 21, 1809, Daniel sold to Allen Gunn all his interests in 247 acres on Moon's Creek, adjoining James Burton. Said land being one-third part of tract of Thomas Gunn, deceased, and laid off for Eleanor Gunn (now Quine), widow of said deceased for life. JERUSHA WINN was born in VA June 18, 1769.38 She is also referred to in records as Jemima. Her father, John Winn, is found on the 1782 VA Tax Lists in Mecklenburg Co., VA, as was Thomas Gunn, Daniel Gunn's father. JERUSHA was the daughter of JOHN WINN and ANN STONE.<br />
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Daniel Gunn married secondly Nancy Burton in Caswell Co., NC, October 19, 1818.<sup>39</sup> Griffin Gunn was bondsman. Daniel was listed as the head of a family in 1820 in Robertson Co., TN. He and his wife were both listed as being born before 1775. They lived near Thomas Gunn, also born before 1775, and Graves Gunn, age 26-45. Daniel apparently settled in Illinois in about 1829. Daniel was listed as the head of a family in Ten Mile, Tazewell Co., IL in 1830. He was listed as being age 60-70, with no female older than 15-20, thus Nancy apparently died before 1830. NANCY BURTON was born before 1775.<sup>40</sup><br />
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Nancy died circa 1820-1830 in Robertson Co., TN or IL.<br />
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4. Mary Gunn was born in VA December 27, 1767.41 MARY died July 4, 1796 at 28 years<br />
of age.<sup>42</sup> One source records that she died October 29, 1849 in Putnam Co., IL, but this is at odds with the Rev. Thomas Gunn Family Bible and the fact that her husband, not her, was a named beneficiary under her father's will in 1800. She married ELLIS EVANS in Amelia Co., VA, December 14, 1785.43 Ellis Evans was born circa 1765-1769. The will of his father, William Evans, was proven in Amelia Co., VA on October 26, 1780. One unverified source states that his father was Thomas Evans. Ellis, like his brother-in-laws, Thomas and James Gunn, was a Methodist Minister (see Rev. Thomas Gunn’s biography for further information). Ellis Evans was listed on the 1785 Tax List for Amelia Co., VA. He was listed as a head of a family on the 1810 U.S. Census for Caswell Co., NC. Ellis was the son of William Evans. After Mary’s death, Ellis Evans married secondly Polly Martin in Caswell Co., NC, April 27, 1797.44 On January 29, 1795, Ellis purchased 175 acres on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC. On October 29, 1795, he purchased an additional 166 acres on Moon's Creek. The land adjoined that of Daniel Gunn. The deed was witnessed by Wm. Gunn and Jas. Burton. On April 25, 1797, Ellis Evans and William Gunn witnessed a deed for Griffin Gunn on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC. On February 18, 1799, Ellis Evans of Caswell Co., NC sold 175 acres on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC. The deed was witnessed by Thomas Gunn, Jun. Ellis Evans died circa 1820. His widow was awarded a widow's allowance on January 28, 1820.<br />
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5. Reverend Thomas Gunn, M.E. was born April 10, 1770.45<br />
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6. Reverend James Gunn, M.E. was born August 16, 1772.46<br />
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7. Griffin Gunn was born in VA March 11, 1775.47 On April 25, 1797, Griffin purchased<br />
78 acres on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC. The deed was witnessed by William Gunn<br />
and Ellis Evans. On June 21, 1798, Griffin sold 28 acres on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC. In 1801, he was appointed as Executor to his father's estate in Caswell Co., NC. From 1801 until 1805, Griffin served as guardian for his minor brother, Allen Gunn, pursuant to order of the Caswell Co., NC Court. On January 6, 1807, Griffin purchased 228 3/4 acres on Rattlesnake Creek in Caswell Co., NC. The land adjoined that of Starling Gunn. On January 7, 1807, he purchased 163 1/2 acres on Moon's Creek from Jacob Quine. The land was adjacent to Allen Gunn's. Griffin Gunn was a merchant and served as a county trustee.<br />
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Griffin Gunn died March 23, 1826 in Caswell Co., NC, at 51 years of age.48 His estate<br />
was inventoried in Caswell Co., NC on October 17-18, 1826. He married Dorothy Mimms Mitchell in Petersburg, Prince George Co., VA, May 28, 1807. On October 20, 1807, Griffin Gunn of Caswell Co., NC purchased 100 acres on Rattlesnake Creek in Caswell Co., NC. On December 31, 1808, he purchased more land on Rattlesnake Creek and a lot adjoining the Caswell County, NC Courthouse in Yanceyville. DOROTHY MITCHELL was born circa 1790-1791.49 After Griffin Gunn’s death, she married JOHN C. HARVEY in Caswell Co., NC, March 21, 1827.50 The bondsman was Dr. Stairling H. Gunn (sic) and the witness was Paul A. Haralson. It is possible that the Dorothy Gunn who married here was not the widow of Griffin Gunn, but the dates seem to match up very well.<br />
John C. Harvey appeared as the head of a household in 1830 and 1840 in Caswell Co., NC.<br />
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Griffin Gunn was listed as the head of a family on the 1810 Census in Caswell Co.,<br />
NC.51 On February 16, 1810, Griffin sold 163 1/2 acres on Moon's Creek adjacent Allen<br />
Gunn to Allen Gunn. Griffin had acquired same from Jacob Quine. On July 13, 1811,<br />
Griffin sold 100 acres on Rattlesnake Creek. On September 1, 1814, he purchased 287<br />
more acres on Rattlesnake Creek. The land seems to have adjoined the Caswell County<br />
Courthouse. On August 26, 1816, Griffin Gunn and Dorothy M. Gunn witnessed a deed for<br />
Allen Gunn in Caswell Co., NC. Griffin also appeared in Caswell Co., NC in the 1820 U.S. Census.<br />
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8. William Gunn was born in VA May 9, 1777.52 On October 29, 1795, Wm. Gunn and<br />
Jas. Burton witnessed a deed for Ellis Evans on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC. The<br />
land adjoined that of Daniel Gunn. On April 25, 1797, William Gunn and Ellis Evans<br />
witnessed a deed for Griffin Gunn for land on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC. On<br />
September 20, 1797, William and Griffin Gunn witnessed a deed for Joseph Waters in<br />
Caswell Co., NC. Most sources state that William died before his father's will was written in 1800, since he was not named in the will.<br />
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Thomas Gunn, Jr., and Sarah Davenport (questionable) had the following children:<br />
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9. John Gunn was born in VA February 25, 1780.53 John Gunn died September 22,<br />
1863 in Caswell Co., NC, at 83 years of age.54 A John Gunn served in the War of 1812 in the 5th NC Regiment, Caswell Co., NC. It was likely this John Gunn. John’s brother, Allen Gunn, served as well, possibly in the same unit. John executed a will on September 22, 1862. The will was proven in the Caswell Co., NC Court in April, 1863. The will mentions his wife, Huldah Gunn and declares that his gravestone should read, "Here lies an honest farmer, a poor man's friend and a rich man's patron." He married HULDAH WARE in Caswell Co., NC, January 28, 1807.55 Elijah Graves was bondsman. On August 21, 1811, John Gunn purchased 81 3/4 acres on Moon's Creek, adjacent to Allen Gunn's land. The deed was witnessed by Allen Gunn and James Burton. On April 5, 1815, John Gunn sold 81 3/4 acres on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC to Allen Gunn. John was listed as the head of a family on the 1830, 1840, 1850, and 1860 U.S. Censuses in Caswell Co., NC. The 1860 Census lists that his real estate was valued at $7,000.00 with his personal property (slaves) worth $27,600.00. John was listed on the 1850 and 1860 U.S Census Slave Schedules for Caswell Co., NC owning 27 and 28 slaves respectively.<br />
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Huldah Ware was born in NC circa 1784.56 Her name was also spelled Haldy. Huldah was the daughter of Thomas Ware. Huldah died circa 1863-1865 in Caswell Co., NC.57 Her<br />
estate was probated in Caswell Co., NC in 1865.<br />
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10. Sarah (Sally) Gunn was born in Virginia April 9, 1782.58 SALLY died circa April, 1857 in Caswell Co., NC, at approximately 75 years of age.59 On the 1850 U.S. Census, Sarah Burton was listed as living in the household of one of her children in Caswell Co., NC. She was listed as age 65 and born in VA. On August 8, 1850, Sarah Burton of Caswell Co., NC, gave power of attorney to "my brother, John Gunn, Senr." to collect any monies owed her "from the estate of my brother, Allen Gunn, deceased." Sarah executed her will on June 22, 1855 and same was proven in the Caswell Co., NC Court in April, 1857. Sarah married JAMES BURTON in Caswell Co., NC, January 19, 1800.60 Elijah Graves was bondsman. James Burton was the uncle of Noel Burton, who married Sarah's sister, Priscilla Gunn. There were two James Burtons listed as the heads of families in the 1790 U.S. Census for Caswell Co., NC. On October 29, 1795, Jas. Burton and Wm. Gunn witnessed a deed for Ellis Evans on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC. The land adjoined that of Daniel Gunn.<br />
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There were again two James Burtons listed as the heads of families on the 1800 U.S.<br />
Census for Caswell Co., NC. On December 8, 1801, James Burton purchased 185 3/4 acres<br />
on Hogan's Creek in Caswell Co., NC. The deed was witnessed by John Gunn. In 1801,<br />
James was appointed as Executor to his father-in-law, Thomas Gunn's, estate. In April, 1801, James was apparently appointed guardian in Caswell Co., NC "for his wife's halfsister, Priscilla Gunn," who was still a minor. He still was her guardian in 1804 per court records. On July 26, 1803, James Burton purchased 137 more acres on Hogan's Creek in Caswell Co., NC. The deed was witnessed by Griffin Gunn and John Payne. On September 23, 1811, James purchased 10 acres on Moon's Creek from Starling Gunn. On October 2, 1811, James sold 124 acres on Moon's Creek. The deed was witnessed by Starling Gunn.<br />
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On February 7, 1812, James Burton and Sarah Burton witnessed a deed for Elisha Alverson in Caswell Co., NC. James was listed as the head of a household on the 1830 U.S. Census in Caswell Co., NC. JAMES BURTON was born in Goochland Co., VA circa 1762.61 James was an Assistant County Sheriff for Caswell Co., NC in 1794 and was Caswell County's Representative for the North Carolina General Assembly from 1806-1808. JAMES was the son of NOEL BURTON. JAMES died December 17, 1838 in Caswell Co., NC, at 76 years of age.62 He died intestate and his estate was probated in Caswell Co., NC.<br />
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Thomas Gunn, Jr. and Ann Worsham (questionable) had the following children:<br />
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11. Priscilla Gunn was born in Caswell Co., NC November 10, 1786.<sup>63</sup> Priscilla died May 12, 1869 in Robertson Co., TN, at 82 years of age.64 Her obituary in the July, 17, 1869 edition of The Nashville Christian Advocate reads as follows: "PRISCILLA BURTON. Priscilla Burton was born in Caswell County, North Carolina, November 10, 1786. She professed religion and joined the Methodist Church when about 20 years of age and lived a consistent member 60 years or more. She was the daughter of Thomas Gunn, Sr., and sister to Thomas and James Gunn, local preachers in Robertson County. She was married twice.<br />
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After her second marriage, which was to Noel Burton, she removed with husband to Robertson County in 1832, where she remained till her death, May 12, 1869. Her husband died about 5 years before. Since her husband's death, she has resided most of the time in the family of John H. Dunn, whose wife is a relative." She married first JOHN PAYNE in Caswell Co., NC, September, 1802.65 Thomas Harrison was bondsman. In April, 1801, James Burton was listed in Caswell Co., NC records as the guardian of "Priscilla Gunn, orphan of Thomas Gunn, deceased." On April 23, 1802, James Burton and Priscilla Gunn witnessed a deed for John Ware in Caswell Co., NC. In 1804, James Burton was still listed as the guardian of the "wife of John Payne," per Caswell Co., NC guardian account records. JOHN PAYNE was born circa 1776 and died before 1822. Priscilla next married NOEL BURTON in Caswell Co., NC, April 8, 1822.66 Noel Burton was the nephew of James Burton, who married Priscilla's sister, Sarah Gunn. In 1835, Noel and his brother-in-law, Thomas Gunn, witnessed a deed for Joseph Gunn in Robertson Co., TN. Noel was listed as the head of a family in the 1840 U.S. Census in Robertson Co., TN. He and his wife were listed as being age 50-60. They lived near Thomas Gunn and James Gunn. Noel was again listed as a head of a family in the 1850 U.S Census in Robertson Co., TN. He and Priscilla lived next to James M. Gunn in the 5th District. On February 13, 1851, Noel and Priscilla Burton, of Robertson Co., TN, gave power of attorney to collect any monies due Priscilla Burton from the estate of Allen Gunn, deceased, with "the said Priscilla Burton being a daughter of Thomas Gunn, deceased, and sister of Allen Gunn, deceased, both of the County of Caswell and State of North Carolina." On March 21, 1860, Priscilla Burton and husband Noel Burton, gave power of attorney to James Garner to receive her share from the Allen Gunn estate settlement in Caswell Co., NC, Allen Gunn being Priscilla Burton's full brother.<br />
<br />
Noel Burton was born in NC circa 1789.67 There was a Noel Burton listed in the same<br />
NC unit as Allen Gunn in the War of 1812. There was also a Noel Burton listed as a Corporal in the 5th Regiment (Atkinson's) of the NC Militia, in which a John Gunn also served. However, Noel Burton had a cousin by the same name, who was born in 1793. It is unclear whether one, or whether both served. NOEL was the son of ROBERT BURTON and MARY HARRISON. NOEL BURTON died May, 1864 in Robertson Co., TN.68<br />
<br />
12. Allen Gunn was born in Caswell Co., NC December 3, 1788.69 From 1801 until 1805, Allen's older brother, Griffin Gunn, served as his guardian pursuant to order of the Caswell County Court. On April 7, 1806, Allen purchased from the other heirs of his father, Thomas Gunn, deceased, their right's in 247 acres on Moon's Creek adjacent to James Burton. Said land being one-third part of the tract of Thomas Gunn, deceased, and laid off for Eleanor Gunn (now Quine) widow of said deceased for life. On February 16, 1810, Allen purchased 163 1/2 acres on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC from Griffin Gunn, who had acquired same from Jacob Quine. Allen served in the War of 1812 as a soldier for 11th Company, detached from the Caswell Co., NC Regiment. Some unverified sources state that he also served with his brother, John Gunn, in the 5th NC Regiment. On April 5, 1815, Allen purchased 81 3/4 acres on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC from John Gunn. On August 26, 1816, Allen Gunn purchased 50 acres on Moon's Creek in Caswell Co., NC. The deed was witnessed by Griffin and Dorothy M. Gunn. On February 28, 1817, he sold 50 acres on Moon's Creek to James Davis.<br />
<br />
On March 21, 1817, he purchased 243 acres on Moon's Creek from James and Eleanor Davis, Eleanor Davis being the widow of Thomas Gunn, deceased. The land was adjacent to that of James Burton. Allen was listed as the head of a family on the 1830 U.S. Census for Caswell Co., NC. He lived near John Gunn. Allen Gunn was apparently a physician. In 1834, he helped build a female academy in Yanceyville, Caswell Co., NC, in order "to promote and encourage female education." ALLEN GUNN died June, 1848 in Caswell Co., NC, at 59 years of age.70 In the 1840 U.S. Census, Allen was living alone in Caswell Co., NC. Allen never married and had no children. Accordingly, his large estate was divided among his brothers and sisters, and among the children of those brothers and sisters who had predeceased him. The voluminous court record paper trail has helped further prove the relationships of the extended Gunn family. Allen's wealth apparently was at least partially created from slave trading, as it appears that he and partners were so involved.<br />
<br />
Thomas Gunn, Jr. and Elenor Alverson had the following children:<br />
<br />
13. Anderson Gunn was born in Caswell Co., NC August 20, 1798.71 In 1804, his mother's new husband, Jacob Quine, was listed in Caswell Co., NC Guardian Accounts as being Anderson's guardian. ANDERSON GUNN died October 8, 1837 in Robertson Co., TN, at 39 years of age.72 His estate was probated in Robertson Co., TN in 1837. Estate records show the estate sale took place on July 1, 1837. James M. Gunn was Administrator. Buyers included: Thomas Gunn, Starling Gunn, J.M. Gunn, Alex'dr Gunn, Martha Gunn, John Gunn, John A. Gunn, and his unnamed widow. The following is excerpted from Goodspeed's History of Tennessee; Robertson County: "J.A. Gunn, one of the prominent farmers....of Robertson County, was born.....(of) the fruits of the union of Anderson Gunn and Martha Robinson (sic). The father was of Scotch descent, and was born in Virginia in 1800. His early life was spent in the avocation of a saddler, but he was a farmer the major part of his life. He died in Robertson County in 1838. The mother spent her entire life-time in Robertson County, where she was born in 1804, and departed this life in 1862."<br />
<br />
On October 14, 1851, George R. Gunn, of Robertson Co., TN, issued a power of attorney to receive any monies due him and his minor siblings from the estate of Allen Gunn, deceased, of Caswell Co., NC. George R. Gunn "being a son of Anderson Gunn, deceased, the said Anderson Gunn being a half brother of Allen Gunn, deceased." On November 1, 1851, Jackson Gunn, of Robertson Co., TN also issued a power of attorney to receive his inheritance from the Allen Gunn estate. It stated, Jackson Gunn "being a son of Anderson Gunn, deceased, the said Anderson Gunn being a half brother of Allen Gunn, deceased." Anderson Gunn married MARTHA ROBERTSON in Robertson Co., TN, April 8, 1821.73<br />
<br />
Anderson was listed as the head of a family in the 1830 U.S. Census in Logan Co., KY. Logan Co., KY borders Robertson Co., TN. He lived near Benjamin Townsend. They also apparently lived in Todd Co., KY about this time. On March 5, 1836, he sold his interest in his uncle, Allen Gunn's, estate in North Carolina to his half-brother, Allen Gunn.<br />
<br />
Martha Robertson was born in Robertson Co., TN in 1801.74 Some records spell her<br />
name Robinson. Martha was the daughter of Joseph Robertson and Nancy Sugg. Martha died in 1861 in Robertson Co., TN.75 She was buried at Hart Cemetery about six miles north of Springfield on Highway 431 in Robertson Co., TN.<br />
<br />
14. Pinckney Gunn was born in Caswell Co., NC March 31, 1800.76 His father was approximately 62 years old when Pinckney was born. In 1804, his mother's new husband, Jacob Quine, was listed in Caswell Co., NC Guardian Accounts as being Pinckney's guardian. On March 5, 1836, Pinckney and his brother Anderson, sold their interests in their uncle, Allen Gunn's, estate in North Carolina to their half-brother, Allen Gunn. Some unverified records state that Pinckney was a physician and married a woman named Elizabeth.<br />
<br />
A Pinckney Gunn graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1834. That man may have been his cousin, William Pinckney Gunn born 1813, the son of Griffin Gunn. PINCKNEY GUNN died November 18, 1836 in Sumter Co., FL, at 36 years of age.77 He was killed in action in the Second Seminole War. His estate was probated in Robertson Co., TN in 1837. Estate records show that the estate sale took place on February 18, 1837. Mentioned as buyers or debtors to the estate were, among others: Jno. A. Gunn, Anderson Gunn, W.B. Gorham, and J.W. Gorham. Also noted was, "March, 1837 - cash rec. from Treasury Department for 5 months & 2 days pay serv. Mounted Vol. - $331.68."<br />
<br />
The following is excerpted from Goodspeed's History of Tennessee, Robertson County, at pages 854, 855:<br />
<br />
In 1836 a company was organized under a call from Gen. Gaines for service on the frontier of Louisiana against the Mexicans. The captain of the company was L.J. Henry ..... Among the privates and noncommissioned officers were .... John W. Gorham, ... and Pinckney Gunn. Gunn was afterward made first lieutenant. On July 4, 1836, the company reached Fayetteville, Tenn., when it was placed in the Second Regiment Tennessee Infantry, commanded by Col. Trousdale. The regiment served about seven months in Alabama and Florida, experiencing the hardships incident to Indian wars. Pinckney Gunn was killed and Wesley Walker and Iredel McIntosh were wounded. According to service records held in the Tennessee State Archives, Pinckney was a 2nd Lieutenant in the Company of Captain L.J. Henry in the 2nd TN Regiment commanded by Col. William Trousdale. He was in a brigade of Mounted Volunteers. He enlisted June 25, 1836 in Springfield, Robertson Co., TN, and was killed in action on November 18, 1836.<br />
<br />
His unit was called out in 1836 to protect the Sabine Frontier. He was killed in the approach to the Battle of Wahoo Swamp which occurred on November 21, 1836 in Sumter County, FL. During that battle, an army of 2,500, consisting of militiamen, Tennessee volunteers, Creek mercenaries, and U.S. Regulars, were led by Florida Governor Richard K. Call. They encountered Seminole forces led by Osuchee and Yaholooche at Wahoo Swamp, Sumter Co., FL. The U.S forces drove the Seminoles into retreat and the battle was considered a U.S. victory. The following is excerpted from a letter written by Mary Gunn Webb: "A half-brother, Pinckney, was killed by Indians in Florida during the Seminole War. His nephew, John Gorham, carried his uncle Pinckney's body before him on a horse to a place of safety and buried it. He later interred it among his own people." [See the newspaper articles found elsewhere in this book for further information and context regarding Pinckney Gunn's military service].<br />
________________________<br />
<br />
<sup>18</sup> Virginia Colonial Militia, page 201; Brunswick Co., VA Deed Book 6, page 720 (John Stevens, Jr. to Robert Hicks, witnessed by Thomas Gunn, deed recorded July 27, 1761).; Mecklenburg Co., VA Deed Book 5, page 184 (Francis Bressie of Lunenburg Co., VA to Thomas Gunn of Amelia Co., VA, 300 acres on the north side of the Roanoke River, dated Apr. 3, 1758, recorded Apr. 4, 1758).; and Lunenburg Co., VA Tithes, (1764, Thomas Gun, 2 tithables, Cumberland Parish, Lunenburg Co., VA).<br />
<br />
<sup>19</sup> Rev. Thomas Gunn Family Bible (Thomas Gunn departed this life October 28, 1800). (hereafter cited as Rev. Thomas Gunn Family Bible); DAR Patriot Index, Part II, page 1255 (Thomas Gunn, b. 1738 VA, d. p. 11-13-1800 NC, md. (1) Susanna Burnett (2) Sarah Davenport (3) X (4) Eleanor ----, PS VA); and Caswell Co., NC Will Book D, 1801, page 21 (Will of Thomas Gunn).<br />
<br />
<sup>20</sup> Virginia Marriages to 1800 (Online Database) (Thomas Gunn to Sarah Davenport - Dec. 01, 1778 in Amelia Co., VA); Amelia Co., VA Deed Book 16, page 50; Abercrombie and Slatten, Virginia Publick Claims; Amelia County (Iberian Publishing Co.), pages 15, 36, 41, 57 and 60 (hereafter cited as Virginia Publick Claims); and Kathleen Booth Williams, Marriages of Amelia County, Virginia; 1735-1815 (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. (1992)), page 49 (Thomas Gunn married to Sarah<br />
Davenport on Dec. 1, 1778, surety was John Tucker, of Amelia Co., VA, page G-1) (hereafter cited as Marriages of Amelia Co., VA).<br />
<br />
<sup>21</sup> Virginia Marriages to 1800 (Online Database) (Thomas Gunn to Ann Worsham - Jan. 11, 1782 in Amelia Co., VA); 1787 Virginia Census, Vol. 1, page 357 (Thomas Gunn, Amelia Co., VA tithable list); Marriages of Amelia Co., VA, page 49 (Thomas Gunn married Ann Worsham Jan. 11, 1782, surety was William Osborne, page G-1); and Original Amelia Co., VA Marriage Bond, Marriage Book 2 (Thomas Gunn to Ann Worsham dated Jan. 11, 1782).<br />
<br />
<sup>22</sup> Rev. Thomas Gunn Family Bible, (Susannah Gunn died December 27, 1796).<br />
<br />
<sup>23</sup> Caswell Co., NC Marriage Bond #15644 (Thomas Gunn to Nelly Alverson, bond dated Oct. 24, 1797).<br />
<br />
<sup>24</sup> 1800 U.S. Census, Caswell Co., NC (Thomas Gunn household, oldest female in house is age 26-44).<br />
<br />
<sup>25</sup> Caswell Co., NC Marriage Bond #17636 (Jacob Quine to Elinor Gunn, bond dated Nov. 9, 1801); and Katherine Kerr Kendall, Caswell County, North Carolina Deed books; 1777-1817 (Southern Historical Press, Inc.), page 299 (Deed Bk. Q, pages 80-81, 84-85) (hereafter cited as Caswell Co., NC Deed Books; 1777-1817).<br />
<br />
<sup>26</sup> North Carolina Marriage Bonds, 1741-1868 (Online Database) (James Davis to Nelly Quine, bond dated Oct. 23, 1816, Caswell Co., NC, bondsman was Thomas Hooper, Azariah Graves was witness); and Caswell Co., NC Deed Books; 1777- 1817, page 365 (Deed Bk. R, pages 348-349).<br />
<br />
<sup>27</sup> Caswell Co., NC Deed Book G, page 226-227 (Abraham Miles to Thomas Gunn "of Nottoway Co., VA," deed executed on 26 Oct. 1791); and Caswell Co., NC Deed Books; 1777-1817, pages 129, 197, 200, 222, 276, 365 (Deed Bk. G, pages 226- 227; Bk. L, pages 54-55, 111; Bk. M, page 130; Bk. P, pages 4-6; Bk. R, pages 438-439).<br />
<br />
<sup>28</sup> Rev. James Gunn Family Bible (Elisha Gunn - July 11, 1761). (hereafter cited as Rev. James Gunn Family Bible).<br />
<br />
<sup>29</sup> Rev. James Gunn Family Bible, (Starling Gunn - May 9, 1764).<br />
<br />
<sup>30</sup> Caswell Co., NC Will Book Q, page 562 (Estate of Starling Gunn); DAR Patriot Index, Part II, page 1255 (Starling Gunn, b. 5- 9-1764 VA, d. 8-13-1852 NC, md. Mary Elizabeth Hooper, Pvt. VA PNSR); Application for a Pension based upon Revolutionary War Service, U.S. National Archives (Starling Gunn, 1832); The Pension Roll of 1835, page 408 (Starling Gunn of Caswell Co., NC awarded pension of 30.00 annually for service in the NC Militia, placed on pension rolls on Jan. 5, 1833, pension commenced Mar. 4, 1831, age 70); and Roster of Soldiers From North Carolina in the American Revolution (The North Carolina Daughters of the American Revolution (1932)), page 424 (Starling Gunn of Caswell Co., NC awarded pension commencing March 4, 1831 for service as a Private in the NC Militia, age 70) (hereafter cited as Roster of NC Revolutionary Soldiers).<br />
<br />
<sup>31</sup> Tombstone Record of Mary Gunn.; Caswell Co., NC Deed Books; 1777-1817, pages 129, 131, 180, 197 (Deed Bk. G, pages 232-233, 265-266; Bk. K, page 131; Bk. L, pages 59-60); and 1787 Virginia Census, Vol. 2, page 1239 (Starling Gun, Lunenburg Co., VA, one slave).<br />
<br />
<sup>32</sup> Tombstone Record of Mary Gunn.<br />
<br />
<sup>33</sup> Tombstone Record of Mary Gunn.<br />
<br />
<sup>34</sup> Caswell Co., NC Deed Books; 1777-1817, pages 212, 215, 299, 313, 318, 342 (Deed Bk. L, page 342; Bk. M, pages 11-12; Bk. Q, pages 72, 315, 319, 405; Bk. R, page 168); and William S. Powell, When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County, North Carolina; 1777-1977 (1977) page 440. (hereafter cited as History of Caswell Co., NC).<br />
<br />
<sup>35</sup> Rev. James Gunn Family Bible, (Daniel Gunn - March 20th 1766).<br />
<br />
<sup>36</sup> Putnam Co., IL Coroner's Inquest of Daniel Gunn, report dated June 20, 1832 mentions date of death as being January 15, 1832 and place of death being his home in Putnam Co., IL).<br />
<br />
<sup>37</sup> Dorothy Wulfeck, Marriages of Some Virginia Residents; 1607-1800 (hereafter cited as Marriages of Some VA Residents); Marriages of Lunenburg Co., VA, page 54 (Marriage bond of Daniel Gunn, Jr. of Lunenburg to Jerusha Winn, 9 November, 1786. Surety was Philip Snead. Married 16 November, 1786 by Thomas Crymes, referring to page 7 of original records); U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Alabama Pre-1908 Homestead & Cash Entry Patent and Survey Plat Index (hereafter cited as Alabama Pre-1908 Land Records); Caswell Co., NC Deed Books; 1777-1817, pages 129, 131, 160, 209, 255, 257, 299, 302 (Deed Bk. G, pages 232-233, 265-266, Bk. J, page 73; Bk. L, pages 276, 284-285; Bk. O, pages 8, 32; Bk. Q, pages 80-81, 136); and 1787 Virginia Census, Vol. 1, page 357 (Daniel Gunn, Amelia Co., VA, one male age 16-21, three slaves, he is not tithable).<br />
<br />
<sup>38</sup> Lunenburg Co., VA Will Book (Will of John Winn, names child, Jerusha Gunn).<br />
<br />
<sup>39</sup> Caswell Co., NC Marriage Bond #15633 (Daniel Gunn to Nancy Burton, bond dated Oct. 19, 1818).<br />
<br />
<sup>40</sup> 1820 U.S. Census, Robertson Co., TN (Daniel Gunn and oldest female in house were both older than age 45).<br />
<br />
<sup>41</sup> Rev. James Gunn Family Bible, (Mary Gunn - Decr. 27, 1767).<br />
<br />
<sup>42</sup> Rev. Thomas Gunn Family Bible, (Mary Evans departed this life December 27, 1796).<br />
<br />
<sup>43</sup> Virginia Marriages to 1800 (Online Database) (Ellis Evans to Mary Gunn, 14 Dec., 1785, Amelia Co., VA).; and Marriages of Amelia Co., VA, page 39 (Ellis Evans married to Mary Gunn, daughter of Thomas Gunn, who consents. Surety was John Evans, married by Simeon Walton, page E-1).<br />
<br />
<sup>44</sup> Marriage Bond #15177, Caswell Co., NC (Ellis Evans to Polly Martin); and Caswell Co., NC Deed Books; 1777-1817, pages 163, 179, 197 (Deed Bk. J, pages 135-136, 139-140; Bk. K, page 108; Bk. L, pages 56-57).<br />
<br />
<sup>45</sup> Jean M. Durrett, et al. (1987), Robertson County, Tennessee Cemetery Records page 41 (Rev. Thomas Gunn born Apr. 10, 1770) (hereafter cited as Robertson Co., TN Cem. Records); Rev. Thomas Gunn Family Bible, (Thomas Gunn was born April 10, 1770); and Rev. James Gunn Family Bible, (Thos. Gunn - April 10th 1770).<br />
<br />
<sup>46</sup> Rev. James Gunn Family Bible, (James Gunn - Augt. 16th 1772); and Robertson Co., TN Cem. Records, page 80 (Rev. James Gunn born Aug. 16, 1772).<br />
<br />
<sup>47</sup> Rev. James Gunn Family Bible, (Griffin Gunn - March 11th 1775); and Caswell Co., NC Deed Books; 1777-1817, pages 179, 189, 276, 277, 283, 291, 341 (Deed Bk. K, pages 108, 279; Bk. P, pages 9-10, 39, 162, 316-317; Bk. R, pages 155-156).<br />
<br />
<sup>48</sup> Caswell Co., NC Will Book L, page 77 (Estate of Griffin Gunn).<br />
<br />
<sup>49</sup> 1810 U.S Census, Caswell Co., NC (Griffin Gunn, oldest female in household was aged 16-26; in the 1820 Census she was aged 26-45), 1830 U.S. Census, Caswell Co., NC (John C. Harvey and oldest female in house both age 30-40), (I also have assumed that she didn't marry Griffin Gunn until at least age 16).<br />
<br />
<sup>50</sup> Caswell Co., NC Marriage Bond #000015809 (John C. Harvey to Dorothy M. Gunn, bond issued Mar. 21, 1827).<br />
<br />
<sup>51</sup> Caswell Co., NC Deed Books; 1777-1817, page 299, 322, 341 (Deed Bk. Q, pages 84-85, 475; Bk. R, pages 155-156, 358).<br />
<br />
<sup>52</sup> Rev. James Gunn Family Bible, (Wm. Gunn - May 9th 1777); and Caswell Co., NC Deed Books; 1777-1817, pages 163, 179 (Deed Bk. J, pages 135-136; Bk. K, page 108).<br />
<br />
<sup>53</sup> Rev. James Gunn Family Bible, (John Gunn - Feby. 25th 1780); and 1860 U.S. Census, Caswell Co., NC (John Gunn born ca. 1780 in VA)<span><!--more--></span><span><!--more--></span></div>CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-31215374911912505692022-01-07T11:01:00.000-08:002022-01-07T11:01:00.557-08:00Hanging of Sneed and Henry: Dr. James Freeman Eppes Hardy, M.D. (1802-1882)At Asheville [May 1835]<br />
<br />
In the following excerpt, Allen Turner Davidson<sup>1</sup> describes the events surrounding his trip as a sixteen-year-old to see the hanging in Asheville of James Sneed and James Henry. [footnotes and paragraph breaks added.]<br />
<br />
"But when we got on the top of the hill west of the French Broad river, and looked down and saw the splendid river and the long narrow bridge, then known as Smith's bridge,<sup>2 </sup>I was carried away completely. It was the largest river and the longest bridge I had seen. The bridge was kept by William Irwin<sup>3</sup>, I think. He lived at the same old house which stood there till recently on the west side of the river. We came straight up the hill to the top, where Melke's<sup>4</sup> house stands, and where the old log Baptist church used to stand.<br />
<br />
"I then began to see signs of 'town' by that time, and my eyes began to shine. I remember distinctly to have seen the fields about the present station of the railroad. Branan Patton<sup>5</sup> lived there then. Aunt Mary Smith<sup>6</sup>, Dan'l's wife<sup>7</sup>, lived above on the river, whose house we could not see from that point, but we could see the curling smoke of the evening meal ascending from the habitation. These were pointed out to me by Paxton Cumming<sup>8</sup>, who had ridden this circuit and knew all the points of interest round about.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
"We came on Haywood 'Road,' not 'Street,' and entered Main street passing by the Villa, just north of Patton avenue. The Haywood road came into Main street opposite the front office of the old Buck Hotel, about where West College street not enters it. There was a large sign in front of the hotel of a big buck with a heavy head of horns on it. I remember it distinctly<sup>9</sup>.<br />
<br />
"Here our company parted. All but Mr. Cumming and myself, who put up at the 'Buck,' went down to South Main street to Stanifer Rhodes'<sup>10</sup>, whose house stood near where Church street now enters South Main. He had married Peter Shook's<sup>11</sup> wife's sister, well known as Celia Rhodes, a remarkable and strong woman.<sup>12</sup><br />
<br />
"Not many people now living know what the old stable bell was like. One of them was attached to the sign post of the Buck, and I remember it well. It was the first I had seen of its class. It was an ordinary bell, but it was attached to one end of a curved steel strip, which when shaken would cause the bell to ring and vibrate for some time after the shake had been given to the strip. I had not been long in the hotel before I was attracted by the ringing of this bell, and the old darky who answered it, coming out to take the horses of the travelers who were constantly arriving to witness the show of the morrow. That darky's name was, I think, Moses, and he was a strong, broad-backed negro who was apparently well fitted for the duties of hostler. It seemed to me that the people would never stop coming, and where they were stored away in that old hotel I cannot now conceive. But no one was turned away.<br />
<br />
The Hanging Rehearsed<br />
<br />
"The store of James M. Smith<sup>13</sup> was just opposite the old Buck, near where Frank O'Donnell's now stands. Its side was on North Main street and its front on Haywood road, now West College street. It was known as the 'Freeze Out' from the fact that 'Old Jimmie' was afraid to allow any fire in the store where the clerks had to sleep at night. I went through that store with eyes as big as saucers. Where in the world did all the money come from to buy all those goods? If only I could get behind the counter and run my hands into the sugar barrels and get my stomach full of the sweet stuff just once in my life, I thought I should be happy ever afterwards.<br />
<br />
"Then I went to the jail before it became too dark. It stood about where the present entrance of the Palmetto building now is. The court house was on a knob about twenty feet higher than the present site of the Vance monument. There were many people around the jail. Wiley Jones<sup>14</sup> was around looking after things generally. I did not see the prisoners. It was too dark. I still continued my peregrinations about town and went down to John W. Osborn<sup>15</sup>, who kept the leading merchant tailor shop of the town at the bend of South Main street, where Mrs. Hillard now lives. He was from Haywood, and I was bound to see everyone from that county. I spent about an hour there, and afterwards came up the street and got into a store, which I do not now remember, where I saw a rehearsal of the hanging on a small scale in the tests that were being given to the rope with which the prisoners were to be hanged. The noose was made, the rope thrown over a beam, it was given a sharp jerk by several men hanging to one end of it, and if I am not mistaken Dr. Hardy<sup>16</sup> pronounced it sufficient for its purpose.<br />
<br />
"I got into the attic of the Buck with Jesse Smith<sup>17</sup>, a small son of J. M., and slept with him on a pallet on the floor. Mr. Cumming, being a man of distinction, got a better bed. I did not go to sleep before I became convinced that Asheville was a big place--the hub of the universe, in fact--and I have not changed my mind since. It was always a big place for the surrounding country. It was always so far ahead fo anything within sixty miles of it that there was absolutely no comparison. There was always something worth seeing here. It was a funnel through which everything had to pass if it passed the mountains, and everything had to pass the mountains in those days, for the west was being settled. It is so yet, and the railroads all have to come to Asheville.<br />
<br />
The Day of the Hanging.<br />
<br />
"The next morning, before good light, that stable bell began to ring again, and I woke up. I wasted no time in making my simple toilet, but immediately struck for the street. The whole front and public square were covered with people. It was only just about daylight then. The people had not slept much the previous night. The excitement was intense. People must have been coming in all during the night. The crowd was a mixed one. There were several thoughtful and sober people, but there were also toughs rushing about, drunken men, women and children in their country finery, and a general holiday air everywhere. I saw the Asheville company of militia formed in a hollow square about the jail, on command of Col. Enoch Cunningham<sup>18</sup>, to keep back the crowd from the jail. The militia had guns only, but the officers wore uniforms. There had been a rumor that there would be an effort from Tennessee friends to rescue the prisoners, hence the militia turnout. No effort was made in that direction however.<br />
<br />
"I remember distinctly to have seen the evening before in the parlor of the Buck hotel Gov. David L. Swain<sup>19</sup>, who was then governor, and who had been pressed to respite the prisoners to look further into the justice of the execution or for a pardon outright, but the governor left in the stage before day that morning and was not present at the hanging. I heard of a petition being circulated by Mrs. Perkins<sup>20</sup>, a sister of James W. Patton<sup>22</sup>, for the pardon of the prisoners, and there was one expression in it which I have remembered ever since. It was to the effect that no son of a woman should suffer the death penalty for the foal of an ass. Gov. Swain was censured for leaving when he did by those who wanted a pardon or respite.<br />
<br />
"I may have got breakfast but I don't remember it. It was impossible to get near the jail to see the prisoners because of the crowd and the guard. There was noting like a program for the information of the public, hence all that could be done was to listen to the conjectures of the multitude and take care of yourself. The interminable ring of that stable bell for Moses I shall never forget. It rang all day. Moses had to be reinforced; the work was too heavy for one may. I should say without fear of being extravagant that five hundred horses were carried to the stable from that bell during the morning. The crowd was estimated by men of judgment at from 5000 to 8000 people. It must be remembered that there were few wheels in the country then, and most people came on foot or on horseback. Many came from long distances. Though I believe that the prophecy of Zebulon Baird<sup>23</sup> had come to pass that the mails should be carried into Asheville on four horse coaches. But there were not many wheeled vehicles and the roads were execrable. It was decidedly the biggest day that Asheville had ever seen, and I don't believe that Bryan day equaled it--certainly not in my young eyes.<br />
<br />
Off for the Gallows Field.<br />
<br />
"Incredible as it may seem to some, I was timid and bashful then, not at all sure that I might not be run over by some 'critter,' as the horses were then called, and by no means sure that the militia might not conclude to fire on me for fun. So a boy and I went to see the gallows field. We went down North Main street by the old Sam Chunn tanyard<sup>24</sup> about where Merrimon avenue<sup>25</sup> now comes into North Main street, near where the Woodfin<sup>26</sup> stables used to be. The old road then ran directly over the hill to the branch. Then we went down the branch 200 or 300 yards, and turned to the right in the gorge, and there stood the gallows, grim and forbidding. The beam from which the ropes were to dangle was in place and the trap doors were there too, and the steps leading to the platform. There was a double grave half finished on the hill near by. It had not been finished. But only the lowest vaulted place remained to be dug, and this was how it was explained to me that it had not been completed by the time we reached there: Some negroes had been employed to dig it the evening before, and while deep in the excavation, they were suddenly confronted on the brink of the grave by what they took to be the devil himself, who sternly demanded to know what they meant by digging the graves of men who were still alive? The negroes ran and could not be induced to return. The devil was really George Owen<sup>27</sup>, a harmless and inoffensive old with and joker from Haywood county who had tarred his hair and beard and disfigured himself as much as possible for the purpose of having his fun with the grave diggers.<br />
<br />
"We examined everything, and then went back to the Buck, where we got something to eat. The crowd had not left the square. But at about 2 o'clock it started, but I had again gone ahead of it and was advantageously stationed on the slope of the hill about sixty paces from the gallows. Here they came, thousands of eager and excited people and the prisoners seated on their coffins in a wagon surrounded by the military. They drew up at the foot of the gallows, and several people mounted the scaffold with the prisoners. There were two long sermons, one by Rev. Joseph Haskew<sup>28</sup>, then a young man, and the other by Rev. Thomas Stradley<sup>.29</sup> There was praying and excitement of the most intense character.<br />
<br />
Spoke From the Scaffold.<br />
<br />
"The prisoners were then given an opportunity to make any remarks they desired, and Sneed spoke first. He was a bright-faced, clean shaven fine looking young man, with a clear distinct voice which could be heard at a distance without effort. He said in substance that he had been a wild, wicked young man, and was an adventurer, making money by every turn and was not show to use his profession in tricks at cards to procure money from the ignorant and unsuspecting, but that he had done nothing to deserve death. He said he felt this. He had never taken human life and had never taken any man's property by force. He said it in a clear and ringing voice and attracted general sympathy.<br />
<br />
"Henry came on the scene, and was a heavy-bearded thick shouldered strong man. He impressed me by his general look and demeanor as a man capable of committing any crime. He had a heavy down look, and at my distance I could not hear distinctly what he said. I am informed by Pleas Israel, who was one of the guard and near the scaffold, that Henry called for Holcombe the prosecuting witness against him, and that Holcombe came to the stand, and Henry made a statement in his presence as to how he obtained the horse, and asked Holcombe if that was not the way of it? This Holcombe denied, and walked off sulkily without stating how it was. I do not remember seeing anything of the kind. I did not see Holcombe to know him. The general impression was then and has been since that Holcombe was called for but would not fact the men.<br />
<br />
Hanged.<br />
<br />
"Then the end came. The black caps were drawn over the faces of the two men, the sheriff and his deputy bade the men goodby, and retired from the trap. The signal was given and then happened a thing, just for an instant only, light a flash of light, that I have never forgotten. The trap, which consisted of two doors meeting in the middle, and working from the sides on hinges, fell at first with a great crash, as the trigger was knocked out. But they did not fall clear down, but only part of the way, so that it was possible for a very short space of time, for the men to touch them with their shoes. This they did repeatedly, trying to regain a foothold, but the doors were entirely beyond their reach, and they were fairly suspended. But I can still hear those poor feet in their blind effort to cling a little longer to earth.<br />
<br />
"When the trap finally fell clear it was with a loud noise, and it was then that George Owen, who was near me, said with a distinct and bass voice, 'G-o-n-e!'<br />
<br />
"Then began the death struggle. They spun round and round. There was a drawing up of the shoulders and of the arms, and both died by strangulation, no doubt, the fall having been broken by the failure of the trap to fall clear. Sneed died first. The tremor of the bodies, the rush of blood to the hands tied behind them. swelling them to abnormal size and making them puffed and red. But at last the bodies were still, and I left before they were cut down.<br />
<br />
"And so the scene closed,<br />
<br />
'The day is long past, and the scene is afar,<br />
Yet when my head rests on its pillow<br />
Will memory sometime rekindle the star<br />
That blazed on the breast of the billow.'<br />
<br />
A. T. Davidson.<br />
Asheville, N. C., Feb 17, 1898.<br />
_______________<br />
<br />
<sup>1</sup>Allen Turner Davidson was born 19 May 1819 in Johathan's Creek, Haywood County, North Carolina, and died 24 January 1905 in Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina. For a biography and Davidson family information see <a href="http://caswellcountync.org/genealogy/getperson.php?personID=I1367&tree=tree1" target="_blank">Davidson Family</a>.<br />
<br />
<sup>2</sup> Smith's Bridge was located where the modern replacement bridge, of the same name, carries Craven Street across the French Broad River. James McConnell Smith built this bridge in the early 1830s. According to Dr. Richard W. Iobst's <i>The Smith-McDowell House: A History</i>,
it was a simple wooden bridge with wooden railings and a plank floor
resting on stone pilings. Smith charged tolls ranging from 50 cents for a
loaded four-horse wagon to one cent for a hog. (Remember that these are
1830s dollars!)<br />
<br />
<sup>3</sup> William Irwin has not been identified. However, James McConnell Smith owned the bridge. Perhaps Irwin was paid as "keeper" of the bridge (to, for example, collect tolls).<br />
<br />
<sup>4</sup> Melke has not been identified.<br />
<br />
<sup>29</sup> Reverend Thomas Stradley (1798-1891), Baptist clergyman, was born in Woolwich, England, the sixth child of John, a junior constructor of carriages at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, and Sarah Wheeler Stradley. At age fourteen he was apprenticed to a blacksmith in the Royal Arsenal. He married Mary Frances Diblin in 1819. With his wife and five children, Thomas left England for the United States, arriving in Charleston, S.C., in 1828. He settled in Asheville, N.C., where his brother Peter had located in 1823, and established a blacksmith's shop near the later site of the Battery Park Hotel. In 1829 Thomas joined Peter and eleven others in the constitution of a Baptist church. After the new church was admitted to the twenty-three-year-old French Broad Association in 1830, Thomas was ordained to the ministry and immediately became active in the association. He later played a prominent role in the Salem Association, formed in 1838, until his retirement in 1875.<br />
<br />
Stradley was the first mountain minister to attend the newly established North Carolina Baptist Convention when that body held its third annual session in 1833. He was one of the original agents of the Biblical Recorder, the journal of the Baptist Convention, and continued that association for several decades. When the convention divided the state into missionary districts, he was entrusted with the Eleventh District, one of two covering western North Carolina. He also was one of forty members of the board of trustees named in the charter of 1833 granted to Wake Forest Institute. Stradley remained on the board-the sole representative of mountain Baptists-until July 1835, when his resignation was announced. When difficulty of travel resulted in the organization of the Western North Carolina Baptist Convention in 1845 as an auxiliary of the state convention, Stradley began to play a vital role in that convention. In 1857 he was elected president and served three terms. During his presidency the Western North Carolina Convention became an independent body, voted to establish a Baptist Female College, and took charge of the Taylorsville Institute. In 1859 he was named to the board of trustees of the Female College. From 1852 until at least 1871, after which there is a gap in the records, he was one of six men who seemed preeminent in the life of the Western North Carolina Convention.<br />
<br />
From 1829 to 1875 Stradley was pastor of the First Baptist Church of Asheville. He built a new church, seating 450, and to pay for it mortgaged his own property and traveled to New York and Boston after the Civil War to raise funds. Throughout his ministry he was a stout champion of education, temperance, Sunday schools, and missions. He also served temporarily as pastor of numerous other churches and traveled widely in behalf of Baptist causes.<br />
<br />
Stradley was the father of thirteen children, one of whom, the Reverend J. A. Stradley, became a well-known Baptist minister. He was buried in the Beaverdam Baptist Church cemetery, Buncombe County.<br />
<br />
Source: <a href="http://ncpedia.org/biography/stradley-thomas">NCPedia</a>.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
_______________<br />
<br />
This is a great story, with several interesting people mentioned. One is Dr. Hardy:<br />
<br />
"Davidson mingled in the crowds, stopped in dry goods and clothing stores, peeked into the jail, and ended up, he said in an 1898 recollection, in a store where he saw 'a rehearsal of the hanging . . . [A] noose was made, the rope thrown over a beam, it was given a sharp jerk by several men hanging to one end of it . . . [and] Dr. Hardy pronounced it sufficient for its purpose.'”<br />
<br />
This most likely is much-loved Dr. James Freeman Eppes Hardy, M.D. (1802-1882), who at one time lived in a fine house at the southwest corner of South Main Street (now Biltmore Avenue) and Eagle Street, along with several others in 1841was an incorporator/commissioner of the Town of Asheville, was an officer of Asheville's first bank, was one of the first physicians to advertise Asheville as a health resort. owned part of a Georgia gold mine, owned a hotel at Warm Sulphur Springs, had a Catawba grape named for him, had a mountain peak named for him, and knew Calhoun, Clay, Jackson, and Webster. And there is much more. Wow!<br />
<br />
He married, as his first wife, Jane Patton (1804-1838), daughter of James Patton and Hannah Anne Reynolds. This is the James Patton who built the Eagle Hotel in Asheville. Patton Avenue in Asheville is named for a son of James Patton, James Washington Patton (1803-1861).<br />
<br />
The story of Dr. Hardy's South Carolina family (Tyger River Hardys), its plantation, and its fine plantation house is chronicled in:<br />
<br />
James Everett Kibler. <i>Our Fathers' Fields: A Southern Story</i> (University of South Carolina Press: Columbia, 1998).<br />
_______________<br />
<br />
When traveler, scholar, and poet James Everett Kibler purchased a dilapidated South Carolina plantation in 1989, he had no idea that the rehabilitation of the property would include the unearthing of a remarkable American saga about Southern land and the people who lived on it. Part epic, part history, part memoir, this superb tale of the Hardy family is richly detailed, providing the reader with a glimpse of agrarian life as it was for two hundred years along the hilly, fertile lands of the Tyger River. Recounting his own efforts to restore the plantation to its former glory, Kibler concludes that only by knowing a place truly well can we guard against its abuse. Our Fathers' Fields is an especially vivid portrayal seen from the inside of the antebellum South, the Civil War, and life after the war. It contains a compelling collection of Civil War letters. While Kibler strengthens his own ties with the county of his birth, the Hardy family becomes his family, as they may well prove to be the reader's, with an ending that is yet to be.<br />
_______________<br />
<br />
References<br />
<br />
James Everett Kibler. <i>Our Fathers' Fields: A Southern Story</i> (University of South Carolina Press: Columbia, 1998).<br />
<br />
Asheville and Buncombe County, F. A. Sondley; <i>Genesis of Buncombe County</i>, Theodore F. Davidson (1922) at 153-154, and 162-163.<br />
<br />
And it was Dr. James F. E. Hardy who attended to James McConnell Smith during his final illness.<br />
<br />
<i>The Smith-McDowell House: A History</i>, Dr. Richard W. Iobst (1998) at 22.<br />
<br />
<i>A History of Buncombe County, North Carolina (Two Volumes in One)</i>, F. A. Sondley (1930) at 724.<br />
<br />
Tennent, Gaillard S., M.D. "Medicine in Buncombe County Down to 1885; Historical and Biographical Sketches." <i>The Charlotte Medical</i>: Charlotte, N.C. (May 1906).CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-34339977999927202262022-01-07T10:54:00.000-08:002022-01-07T10:54:17.764-08:00Smith's Bridge (Asheville, North Carolina)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-e0_pk7-BMlk/TqHO8RLOiSI/AAAAAAAAEdg/51rg3oHYvsY/s1600/smithbridgefrenchbroadriver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-e0_pk7-BMlk/TqHO8RLOiSI/AAAAAAAAEdg/51rg3oHYvsY/s320/smithbridgefrenchbroadriver.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
"A Tale of Two Bridges: How the Smith-McDowell House is Tied to Spans of the French Broad River" by John Turk<br />
<br />
<u>Smith's Bridge</u><br />
<br />
How did the builder of the Smith-McDowell House make his money? The old-fashioned way: he earned it. At first his fortune was based upon real estate; in 1826, he bought the land on which he would later build the house. But this was just the beginning. While he eventually built an empire based on earnings from his hotel, general store, and other enterprises, his first real moneymaker was a bridge.<br />
<br />
In the 1820s, the Buncombe Turnpike was constructed to replace and organize myriad trails used to herd livestock from Tennessee and North Carolina to railroad connections in South Carolina. In Buncombe County, a good deal of this turnpike ran along the east bank of the French Broad River. Smith immediately identified a problem: How do the thousands of small farmers on the west side of the river get their livestock across the river so they can hook up with the turnpike? His solution: build a bridge.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Smith's Bridge was constructed in the early 1830s. According to Dr. Richard W. Iobst's <i>The Smith-McDowell House: A History</i>, it was a simple wooden bridge with wooden railings and a plank floor resting on stone pilings. Smith charged tolls ranging from 50 cents for a loaded four-horse wagon to one cent for a hog. (Remember that these are 1830s dollars!)<br />
<br />
Eventually there would be competition from other bridges, but for at least ten years Smith's bridge was the only way across. Smith maintained his bridge until the mid-1850s, when he sold it to Buncombe County. After the Civil War, Smith's bridge experienced periods of gradual deterioration and temporary repairs. In 1881 it was removed and replaced by an iron structure. That bridge was washed away in the flood of 1916 and was replaced with a seven-span concrete arch bridge in 1917. This last bridge was closed to traffic in 1978 and replaced with the present I-240 bridge.<br />
<br />
<u>The West Asheville Bridge</u><br />
<br />
In February of 1898, Robert Garrett's daughter Mary was wed in the Smith-McDowell House. The groom was Robert Pulliam Johnston, who was bon in 1870 in Burnsville and moved to Asheville in 1881. After graduating from West Point in 1891, he was assigned to the Engineers Corps and served in the Spanish-American War and then Stateside. Eventually, disillusioned by the realities of military life, he resigned from the army and returned to Asheville.<br />
<br />
When it became obvious that Smith's bridge was not sufficient to handling the increasing flow of traffic across the French Broad River, Johnston was commissioned to design and construct a second one: the West Asheville Bridge, completed in 1911. Its soaring concrete arches and extended entry ramps crossed the river in the vicinity of Haywood and Clingman roads--less than half a mile south of Smith's Bridge.<br />
<br />
Johnston's was the only bridge to survive the massive flood of 1916, but in 1972 it was dynamited to make room for the New West Asheville Bridge.<br />
<br />
Source: <i>WNCHA News: Newsletter of the Western North Carolina Historical Association</i>, September/October 2009, Pages 2-3.CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-62091665537642013452021-01-06T14:26:00.003-08:002021-01-06T14:26:23.120-08:00Samuel Davidson Place, Bee Tree, 1828<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi2PgQOniF-Rq2IIJzvn9THX81vvBoUeYuVUJV4XzYM6yb_clegUljEmQmw2jQGygtjMMuuYP6rTbGEsoQEAMKBHtRoyA11krVu9KTK-OvPW2_I61ZoXrVMuq8NbyNebwyX3WWZu4uRyr9/s745/Samuel+Davidson+Place%252C+Bee+Tree%252C+1828cprtgs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="745" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi2PgQOniF-Rq2IIJzvn9THX81vvBoUeYuVUJV4XzYM6yb_clegUljEmQmw2jQGygtjMMuuYP6rTbGEsoQEAMKBHtRoyA11krVu9KTK-OvPW2_I61ZoXrVMuq8NbyNebwyX3WWZu4uRyr9/w400-h231/Samuel+Davidson+Place%252C+Bee+Tree%252C+1828cprtgs.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click to See Larger Image</td></tr></tbody></table>Samuel Davidson Place, Bee Tree, 1828<div><br /></div><div>"In 1928, WNC Left Dr. William Blanding in Awe" by Rob Neufeld (Ashville Citizen-Times, 4 January 2021).</div>CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-89012283572417446462020-10-13T11:14:00.005-07:002020-10-13T11:36:16.802-07:00Buncombe Turnpike<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirSqbt8e5ijZZ3d4rwGlzVvilUz0RWDf-la30w1AJxQsw8htJFtbX12xzPA_W5mWMWzBfo7Z2mjmSvv3QphuxTMbbs9ZNyfkuiFKCE-Rt60dLHOuHvNvwCdGSM8h-JHNjxaeejqx9TAyeO/s812/Buncombe+Turnpike.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="812" data-original-width="484" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirSqbt8e5ijZZ3d4rwGlzVvilUz0RWDf-la30w1AJxQsw8htJFtbX12xzPA_W5mWMWzBfo7Z2mjmSvv3QphuxTMbbs9ZNyfkuiFKCE-Rt60dLHOuHvNvwCdGSM8h-JHNjxaeejqx9TAyeO/s320/Buncombe+Turnpike.jpg" /></a></div><br /> The Buncombe Turnpike, the big commercial enterprise of antebellum Western North Carolina, arrives at a resort in Hickory Nut Gap, as depicted in the mural at the McClure-Ager home in Fairview.<p></p><p><br /></p><p>Source: <i>Asheville Citizen Times</i> (Asheville, NC), 12 October 2020.</p><p>See: <a href="https://ashevilleandbuncombecounty.blogspot.com/2010/02/early-settlement-of-buncombe-county-and.html" target="_blank">Drovers' Road</a></p><p><br /></p>CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-17003919602290184392020-07-01T16:03:00.002-07:002020-07-01T16:09:23.083-07:00Zebulon Baird Vance Monument (Asheville, NC)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipxSoFc3-fR6IE6xYfeGcTV1-z3Lq70GdeZ3Qw__uYFKGI1C0M9GMdguYyF4u4-cvC4JpyOakgb3a34x7eXdW1-0Y5aoRj3V-eSVN8SW6eKltSx1M9VHk-3GMmZnaFQSoZ2ce9NSxWdmqR/s1600/Pack+Square+1909.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="368" data-original-width="590" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipxSoFc3-fR6IE6xYfeGcTV1-z3Lq70GdeZ3Qw__uYFKGI1C0M9GMdguYyF4u4-cvC4JpyOakgb3a34x7eXdW1-0Y5aoRj3V-eSVN8SW6eKltSx1M9VHk-3GMmZnaFQSoZ2ce9NSxWdmqR/s320/Pack+Square+1909.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The Vance Monument in Asheville, NC, is a tribute to a white supremacist, the leader of a political party that destroyed the promise of Reconstruction and imposed segregation upon North Carolina. The monument is a towering insult to African-Americans, an affront to American ideals and an embarrassment to the city of Asheville.<br />
<br />
Zebulon Baird Vance (1830-1894)<br />
<br />
1. Slave owner. Son of a slave owner.<br />
<br />
2. Opposed secession until Fort Sumter was fired on/Lincoln asked North Carolina for troops. By the time North Carolina seceeded Vance was a captain commanding a company known as the "Rough and Ready Guards." Later he was elected colonel of the 26th North Carolina Troops, which he ably led in battle at New Bern in March 1862 and shortly afterwards in the Seven Days fighting before Richmond. Thus, Vance fought for the Confederacy.<br />
<br />
3. Vance was elected North Carolina governor in 1862. While he had disputes with the "central" Confederate government in Richmond, Virginia, he never waivered in his support of the Confederate cause.<br />
<br />
4. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Zebulon Vance owned six slaves. After the war he stated the following about "perfect negro equality":
"There are indications that the radical abolitionists … intend to force perfect negro equality upon us. Should this be done, and there is nothing to prevent it, it will revive an already half formed determination in me to leave the U.S. forever."<br />
<br />
5. Later, in 1870, Vance stated:
"[T]he African negro, the descendants of barbarian tribes who for 4,000 years have contributed nothing to, though in close contact with, civilization."<br />
<br />
6. Having a North Carolina county named for him, Vance County, Zebulon Vance referred to it as "Zeb's Black Baby."<br />
<br />
7. Vance attempted to make a distinction between civil rights and social rights in 1874, stating the following with respect to a bill introduced in the US House of Representatives:
"There is no railway car in all the South which the colored man cannot ride in. That is his civil right. This bill proposes that he should have the opportunity or the right to go into a first-class car and sit with white gentlemen and white ladies. I submit if that is not a social right. There is a distinction between the two.”
"No race, sir, in the world has been able to stand before the pure Caucasian. An antagonism of races will not be good for the colored man."
"It [the bill] begets hopes and raises an ambition in the minds of the colored man that can never be realized."<br />
<br />
8. As late as 1878 Vance voiced his opposition to emancipation at a meeting of African Americans celebrating Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation:
"I appear in your meeting to-day simply to acknowledge the respect you have shown me by inviting me as the Governor of the State to visit your assemblage. You cannot of course expect me to join with you in celebrating this day, the anniversary of that emancipation which I struggled so long to prevent, and which I, in common with all the people of my race in the South, regard as an act of unconstitutional violence to the one party, and as an injury to the other."
Thus, Vance regarded the Emancipation Proclamation as an act of unconstitutional violence.
CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-13759406658707910392019-12-21T10:58:00.002-08:002019-12-21T10:58:09.797-08:00Ruth Davidson (1765-1826) NSDARRuth Davidson<br />
<br />
"Ruth Davidson, a woman handsome in appearance, was remarkably bright and attractive. She and her entire family were ardent Whigs. It is said that after the defeat of the American Army at Camden, S.C., when the Brits were preparing to invade our State [North Carolina], General Green [Greene], who was in the hills of Virginia reorganizing his forces, was anxious to communicate with some detached American troops in South Carolina.<br />
<br />
"It was almost impossible to do this on account of the activities of Tarleton and Ferguson. . . . It was necessary to send a message through the sparsely settled region along the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Ruth volunteered to be the messenger and without an escort or guide succeeded in delivering the message.<br />
<br />
"Thus another brave woman was honored when a [DAR] chapter in Asheville was called the Ruth Davidson Chapter."<br />
<br />
Source: Pendleton, Hazel E. "Patriotic Women of North Carolina for Whom DAR Chapters are Named." <em>DAR Magazine</em>, 1962.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ncdar.org/RuthDavidsonChapter.html" target="_blank">Ruth Davidson Chapter NSDAR</a>CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-22461184537192541902019-12-15T12:28:00.002-08:002019-12-15T12:33:01.613-08:00Walton War<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After the Revolutionary War concluded the issue continued with respect to western lands claimed by the original states. These lands eventually were ceded to the United States to be used to pay soldiers and applied toward the national debt. This required, among other things, that the boundary line between North Carolina and South Carolina be completed:<br />
<br />
"Commissioners Appointed in 1814. Pursuant to the above provisional articles of agreement North Carolina in 1814 appointed Gen. Thomas Love, Gen. Montfort Stokes and Col. John Patton commissioners to meet other commissioners from South Carolina to run and mark the boundary line between the two States in accordance with the recommendation of the commissioners who had met and agreed, "at McKinney's on Toxaway river on the 4th of Sept. 1813."<br />
<br />
Other Early Explorers: In the case of Avery v. Walker, (8 N. C., p. 117) it appears . . . that Col. John Patton, the father of Lorenzo and Montreville Patton of Buncombe, and who owned the meadow land on the Swannanoa river which was sold to George W. Vanderbilt by Preston Patton, and the "haunted house" at the ford of that river, when the stage road left South Main street at what is now Victoria Road and crossed the Swannanoa, there, instead of at Biltmore, was then county surveyor of Buncombe, and refused to survey land on Ocona Lufty for Waightstill Avery because it was "on the frontier and the Indian boundary had not then actually been run out, and it might be dangerous to survey near the line."<br />
<br />
Source: Arthur, John Preston. Western North Carolina: A History from 1730 to 1913. Published 1914 by the Edward Buncombe Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution of Asheville. Reprint Edition: Johnson City, Tennessee: The Overmountain Press, 1996 (pages 29-30 and 77-78).<br />
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<br />
Today it seems unlikely that a tract of land lying within the present bounds of Transylvania County would have been claimed as part of the State of Georgia. But that was the case when in 1803 Georgia laid claim to the territory and named a new county for George Walton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. North Carolina led by Gov. James Turner actively defended their claim leading to confusion for the 800 or so residents of the region. The dispute was submitted to Congress, where a committee initially accepted Georgia's claim, arguing that a twelve-mile-wide strip had legitimately been ceded to that state by the federal government. Commissioners were authorized to survey a line along the 35th parallel, then accepted as the state boundary.<br />
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Meanwhile lawlessness prevailed in the area. It was difficult for Buncombe County to collect taxes from individuals viewing themselves as Georgia residents. Events came to a head late in 1804 when three citizens were assaulted by Waltonians. One of them, Constable John Havner, was struck over the left eye with the butt of a rifle and mortally wounded. Upon his death, on December 15, the colonel of the Buncombe County militia ordered out a detachment of seventy-two men and marched them into "Walton County." Ten Walton officials were taken prisoner, but escaped before they were brought to trial.<br />
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On June 15, 1807, officials of the two states met at the Buncombe County Courthouse and set out to fix the boundary. Joseph Caldwell of the University of North Carolina and Joseph Meigs of Georgia used scientific equipment to take astronomical readings and fix the 35th parallel. The first place they took a reading, they found, was twenty miles north of that line. All subsequent readings taken were also well north of the 35th parallel. The Georgia commissioners were "astonished and mortified." They relinquished claim to the territory the same year and amnesty was granted to those responsible for the violence, but confusion reigned for some time to come. The 1810 census listed residents of Walton County. In 1818 Georgia created a new county elsewhere and named it for George Walton. As recently as 1971 Georgia considered reopening a separate dispute about the boundary and the North Carolina legislature "in a jocular mood" mobilized the National Guard to protect the state from usurpers.<br />
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References:<br />
<br />
Martin Reidinger, "The Walton War and the Georgia-North Carolina Boundary Dispute," (unpublished manuscript, copy in the North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1981).<br />
<br />
Marvin L. Skaggs, North Carolina Boundary Disputes Involving Her Southern Line (1941).<br />
<br />
John Preston Arthur, Western North Carolina: A History (1914).<br />
<br />
Daniel R. Goodloe, “The North Carolina and Georgia Boundary,” North Carolina Booklet, III, no. 12 (April 1904): 5-22.<br />
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William S. Powell, North Carolina through Four Centuries (1989).CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-43182935212623103392019-09-27T10:33:00.002-07:002019-09-27T10:34:41.363-07:00Mary Connally: "Lady Mary and the Cult"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><br /></i><i>Asheville Citizen-Times</i>, 10 November 1991, Sunday, Page 35CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-15290005753010423532019-09-27T07:07:00.000-07:002019-10-28T10:05:08.641-07:00Smith-McDowell House: "Twists and Turns"<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Smith-McDowell House</td></tr>
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"Twists and Turns"<br />
<br />
In 1881, Alexander Garrett and wife Elizabeth purchased the Smith-McDowell House (purportedly then called "Buck House") from William Wallace McDowell and wife Sarah Lucinda Smith McDowell (daughter of James McConnell Smith, who built the house).<br />
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The Garretts, along with their son Robert Urey Garrett, his wife Mary Frances Tarr Garrett, and six-year-old granddaughter Alexandra, moved from St. Louis to Asheville. The family had emigrated from Ireland in 1847. Alexander Garrett had amassed a sizeable fortune as a businessman in the midwest. He retired to Asheville to enjoy the climate and to engage in land speculation. The elder Garrett sold the Buck House for $1 to his son Robert Urey Garrett (who owned the property until 1898).<br />
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The first wife of son Robert Urey Garrett, Mary Frances Tarr Garrett, died in 1884. A few years later the widower remarried (1887): Myra Adeline Gash, daughter of Leander Sams Gash and Margaret Adeline McClain. Her grandmother, Nancy Cordelia Gudger (1777-1851) is a sister of Joseph Henry Gudger (1826-1859), who married Elizabeth Adaline Smith (1829-1912), sister of Sarah Lucinda Smith (1826-1905) -- wife of William Wallace McDowell. After the death of James McConnell Smith in 1856, Joseph Henry Gudger purchased the Buck Hotel in Asheville.<br />
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Thus, a Gudger owned the Buck Hotel and a Gudger descendant owned (or at least was married to the owner of) the Buck House (now called the Smith-McDowell House).<br />
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And, it gets better, even if more confusing:<br />
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The first child of Robert Urey Garrett (by his first wife, Mary Frances Tarr Garrett), Alexandra Garrett, married Robert Pulliam Johnston (1870-1924), who apparently is referenced in the following --<br />
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"Johnston Estate is Given to Smith Heirs: Superior Court Verdict for Mrs. Miller and Others -- Construction of Ante-Bellum Will Recalls Interesting Facts of Asheville's Early History"<br />
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By virtue of the fact that the jury answered all issues in favor of the plaintiffs in Superior court yesterday morning in the case of Lula R. Miller and others against Robert P. Johnston and others, property located on Broadway, Spruce and Walnut streets valued at $100,000 is awarded to Lulu R. Miller, Jacob F. Weaver and the heirs of [Joseph] Henry Gudger. The plaintiffs in the foregoing suit are the heirs of Mrs. Elizabeth A. Smith [Gudger], daughter of James M. Smith, the construction of whose will made in 1856, was one of the chief points at issue in the case. In the course of the trial of the case, which was hotly contested by counsel on both sides and took up more than two days of the court's time, much interesting data relating to distinguished citizens of Asheville before and after the Civil war was unearthed.<br />
<br />
The property which is now the site of many of the most valuable and important businesses in the city, in 1856, the date of Mr. Smith's will, was entirely given over to the use of the Buck hotel, one of the most noted of the ante-bellum taverns and frequented as a resort by the famous and distinguished men of the Civil war period.<br />
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As the will was made before the war and the testator willed slaves to his children, the reading thereof awakened many interesting memories in the minds of the older men in the court room.<br />
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It was the contention of the plaintiffs that this famous property was __________ Elizabeth A. Smith, the daughter of James M. Smith, the jury so held.<br />
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The Johnstons came into possession of the property under the provisions of a deed made by E Sluder [possibly wealthy Asheville banker/businessman Erwin Sluder who often went by E. Sluder], who had come into the possession of it in 1860.<br />
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It is an interesting fact that one of the corners called for in the Smith will was the old law office of Senator Zebulon Vance. One of the deeds in the chain proving title in the property was executed by Henry Grady, grandfather of Henry W. Grady, the famous orator. One of the executors named in the will was David L. Swain, at one time governor of the state and for thirty years president of the university, while a witness to the instrument was Nicholas W. Woodfin, one of the most prominent lawyers of his day in Western Carolina.<br />
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The property now has located on it the residence of Mark W. Brown, which faces Spruce street; the Annandale creamery, the large boarding house formerly used by the Elks as a temporary home and the building occupied by the Shaw Motor company.<br />
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The plaintiffs in the foregoing case were represented by Jones and Williams, while Mark W. Brown, W. R. Whitson and J. Sneed Adams appeared for the defendants.<br />
<br />
. . . .<br />
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Source: The Asheville Citizen (Asheville, North Carolina), Friday, 29 October 1915.<br />
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Source: Some of the foregoing comes from the history of the Smith-McDowell House assembled by the Western North Carolina Historical Association.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buck Hotel</td></tr>
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When his father-in-law, James McConnell Smith, died in 1856, Joseph Henry Gudger purchased the Buck Hotel in Asheville (also called the Smith Hotel). Gudger acquired the hotel furniture from Smith's estate for $595.29. He quickly refitted the building and advertised it in the April 9, 1857, issue of the Asheville News (newspaper) as having "Good rooms, attentive servants, table supplied with luxury -- Sulphur and Chalybeate Water has been discovered within two or three minutes walk of the Hotel." By October, 1858, the Southern, Eastern, and Murphy stages were stopping at Gudger's Hotel, as it came to be called, and business was flourishing. Unfortunately, Gudger died at the age of 38 in October, 1859, as a result of "whiskey." The hotel soon passed out of the Smith family. However, Elizabeth Adaline Smith and her second husband, Winslow W. Smith, did operate the hotel for a time.<br />
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Source: <em>The Smith-McDowell House: A History</em>, Dr. Richard W. Iobst (1998) at 13.<br />
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CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-68436016406743872602019-09-25T18:40:00.000-07:002019-10-28T10:04:13.898-07:00Shufordville and Fort Shuford<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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HeardTell: Stories From the North Carolina Room<br />
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"Running up and down Cane Creek . . . is a wide belt of lime rock from which, for more than a century, quicklime has been manufactured in large quantities on Cane Creek by burning. . . . From this belt of lime rock Limestone Creek, once known by an objectionable designation, takes its name and Limestone Township of Buncombe County is called."<br />
<br />
A History of Buncombe County County North Carolina, F. A. Sondley, LLD<br />
<br />
"When certain varieties of quartz and limestone are strongly rubbed, they give off the odor of rotton (sic) eggs. This peculiar smell is occasioned by the evolution of sulphureted (sic) hydrogen ; and substances which possess this property are termed fetid."<br />
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"The Odors of Minerals", Scientific American 13, 18, 139 (January 1858)<br />
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Today, Limestone Township is split in half. One side abuts Avery Creek Township and the other, Fairview Township. Asheville's southern city limits run right down the middle of the township along Hendersonville Road (U.S. Route 25). Arden, Avery's Creek, the town of Biltmore Forest, Royal Pines, and Skyland are familiar communities in the township. Have you heard tell of Limestone or Shuford(s)ville?<br />
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Limestone was located in a much larger Buncombe County in 1827 prior the creation of Henderson County in 1838. A post office served Limestone community starting in 1827. Two Murrays, a Spann, and a Whitaker served as postmasters until 1837. In 1837 Jacob Shuford (from Catawba County) married Mary Smith from Asheville. Her father, James Smith, gave the couple a large tract of land in Limestone including a spring that was said to have been used by the Indians. (The spring on the land owned by Jacob Shuford is located just south of the intersection of US 25-A (Sweeten Creek Road) and US 25 according to a citation in Cabins & Castles. Mr. Shuford became the postmaster in 1837. By 1852 the name was changed from Limestone to Shuford(s)ville.<br />
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The Shufordville post office continued operation as a CSA post office during the Civil War. The cancellation during those years was handwritten.<br />
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After the Civil War the post office for Shufordville operated from 1870 until 1887 when it was moved into Henderson County and the name was changed to Fletcher which was incorporated in 1886.<br />
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Around the same time what was once Shufordville was changed to Arden (named after the Shakespearean forest) and incorporated in 1895.<br />
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At the turn of the century the following amusing tale from Limestone Township was printed in the Asheville Citizen. I just couldn't resist letting you read this particular story. I found it more amusing than the ones concerning moonshining and stills in Limestone.<br />
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By mid-twentieth century, the settlements of Limestone and Shufordville were almost forgotten. However, in 1945 The Fort Shuford Museum opened consisting of 2 buildings of hand-hewn logs: a museum and an antique shop operated by E. R. Medd and his son. The museum stood just south of the intersection of US 25A and US25, across the road from where the Shuford spring is located.<br />
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Mr. Medd and his son were lapidary artists and sold minerals as well. In the museum there were many curiosities: Japanese dolls, shoes made from human skin, some personal effects of Admiral Perry of North Pole fame along with a life-sized wax body, a real head of an Egyptian mummy, and most intriguingly life-size models of a Ubangi woman's head replete with lip plate/plug and Eng & Chang "Bunker" (1811-1874) the famous Siamese twins who settled in Wilkesboro NC when they left the circus. In an article from 1952 in the Asheville Citizen, the reporter allowed: "Some things in the museum are beautiful; some are fascinating in a horrible sort of way; but all are interesting.....It is not practical to describe (the) museum in detail."<br />
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In 1952 the Medds celebrated the 100th anniversary of Shufordville.<br />
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The museum and antique shop closed sometime in the early 1980's along about the time that Hendersonville Road was widened to its present state. If you'd like to know more about the Fort Shuford Museum in Limestone Township drop by the North Carolina Room and ask to see MS139.001D to learn more about this little known piece of Limestone Township history!<br />
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Post by Terry Taylor, Friends of the North Carolina Room board member<br />
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Source: https://packlibraryncroom.com/2019/09/10/an-objectionable-designation-limestone-52-weeks-52-communities/ [accessed 10 September 2019].CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-7086920946422777842019-07-04T09:06:00.000-07:002019-07-05T10:37:33.527-07:00Daniel Smith's "Long Tom"Visiting Our Past: More WNC artifacts in Mr. Smith's musket and a WWII poster<br />
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Daniel Smith's Musket<br />
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"Long Tom" is the name that Buncombe County pioneer Daniel Smith gave his 6-foot-long flintlock musket.<br />
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He had it during Rutherford's Campaign against The Cherokee in 1776. He used it at the Battle of Kings Mountain, the decisive defeat of the British by Revolutionary "Overmountain Men" in 1780.<br />
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He "was sentimentally proud of his revolutionary services, (and) frequently referred to that in conversation," his friend David Lowry Swain, state governor and then UNC president, testified in 1845 in support of the Smith children's pension application.<br />
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"Long Tom" went with Smith to Western North Carolina, where he settled in 1785, avenging the murder of his wife's uncle, settler Col. Samuel Davidson, by Indians in Swannanoa. After building a home on a hill (probably at the site of present-day Fernihurst) above what is now called Nasty Branch south of Depot Street, Smith took his rifle with him to the public square in newly created Asheville, where he was "almost daily seen," historian Foster Sondley noted in 1912, "mounted on his large white horse," acknowledged as a legendary "Indian killer."<br />
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For two generations, leading up to and after the Revolutionary War, Western North Carolinians had lived with constant violence, fighting a civil as well as a frontier war.<br />
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Smith had been assigned command of several forts that guarded the upper Catawba frontier against the attacks of the militant faction of the Cherokee. The primary fort under his command was Davidson's, located on the plantation of Samuel Davidson (at present day Old Fort, NC).<br />
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Smith "maintained a warfare, generally single-handed, against the Cherokee Indians for many years, and not less than one hundred are said to have 'bitten the dust' from the effects of his unerring rifle," J. P. Davison wrote in the "Asheville City Directory and Gazetteer of Buncombe County" that he compiled for 1883-84.<br />
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Smith's firearm was presented at the unveiling of the monument for Samuel Davidson's grave in 1913, and historian Foster Sondley described it in his speech.<br />
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"This gun," Sondley said, "is as a smooth bore, or musket, with flint lock and rifle sights, the bore being a little larger than that of an ordinary fowling piece. The length of the weapon is six feet, and that of the barrel alone is fifty-six inches; while the stock, smaller than usual at the butt, extends underneath the barrel clear to the muzzle. 'Long Tom' was capable of carrying a large ball or several shot, and was a most formidable engine of destruction."<br />
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Some say that Smith had gotten his rifle from Europe, but Steven Riess in his book, "Sports in America from Colonial Times to the 21st century," states, “In the early 1720s, German and Swiss gunsmiths in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, began to manufacture flintlock rifles, a model that became popular by the 1740s, especially among market hunters and Indian fighters, because of its long range accuracy."<br />
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The rifle, which got the names "long," "Pennsylvania," and "Kentucky," was accurate to 200 yards.<br />
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The rifle hangs in a case on a wall at the Smith-McDowell House and Museum, originally built by Smith's son, James McConnell Smith, in 1840. It is operated by the Western North Carolina Historical Association (wnchistory.org, 828-253-9231). Find good information about Daniel Smith at caswellcountync.org/genealogy.<br />
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Rob Neufeld writes the weekly “Visiting Our Past” column for the Citizen-Times. He is the author of books on history and literature, and manages the WNC book and heritage website The Read on WNC. Follow him on Twitter @WNC_chronicler; email him at RNeufeld@charter.net; call 828-505-1973.<br />
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Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville, North Carolina), 22 October 2018.CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-71744595273470973622019-07-01T16:36:00.000-07:002019-07-01T16:36:31.723-07:00Zeb Vance found his value in Reems Creek<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXU3P1X_islbTGdxFLj8qQKydkOW2z4xXkDzaxxhLyz4P1_W5BP5JTPXTdkq-PpnktrSfRxFoJVIEKKXR6qDrzqSkEV0ncOj4RpBkabJl9Twe2T0qleXqufBD2EJnb6Y7OZmocO-aSCLaq/s1600/C736-4-Zeb-Vance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="933" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXU3P1X_islbTGdxFLj8qQKydkOW2z4xXkDzaxxhLyz4P1_W5BP5JTPXTdkq-PpnktrSfRxFoJVIEKKXR6qDrzqSkEV0ncOj4RpBkabJl9Twe2T0qleXqufBD2EJnb6Y7OZmocO-aSCLaq/s320/C736-4-Zeb-Vance.jpg" width="186" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zebulon Baird Vance</td></tr>
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"Zeb Vance found his value in Reems Creek" by Rob Neufeld (Asheville Citizen-Times, 1 July 2019)<br />
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When David Vance, grandfather of future governor Zebulon Vance, moved to Reems Creek in the late 1780s, he was one of several settlers with Revolutionary War pasts who were looking to be part of what he considered an ideal community. That involved a large family, a working farm, a nearby church, a water powered mill, and some kind of school and slaves.<br />
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The condition of slaves lives and of the lives of freedmen, before and after Emancipation, varied greatly. The Vances perpetrated a big family model, which involved kindness and love as well as paternalism and bondage.<br />
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When David Vance was dying in 1813 he expressed in his will the desire that his two families of slaves, headed by Richard and Aggy and Jo and Leah, be given "full liberty." "Full liberty" meant, in that time and place, freedom to choose their households, to travel, and to not worry about losing their children. The State slave code required approval by a county court for emancipating the slaves. It also required that freedmen carry and present documents when they were away from their homes. The Vance's "liberated" slaves had to have tickets from their owners as permission to travel. All slaves and freedmen had to fear white men who were given license to shoot runaways.<br />
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In 1844, when Zeb was 14, his father David Vance Jr. stipulated in his will that Zeb's mammy Venus along with her child be put up for sale on the slave block. His wife, Mira, opposed her husband and maintained the family promise. She and Venus conspired to fake Venus's mental deficiency and Mira bought her for a dollar. Venus successfully pleaded to hold on to her baby.<br />
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Zeb's brother Robert recalled how Venus had conspired with Zeb in his inveterate mischievousness even as a child. One time, travelers stopped at the Vance home and asked little Zeb for a fill-up of their liquor bottle. Zeb went to "Mammy Venus and got a bottle of potliquor (liquid left behind after boiling collard greens) and gave it to the travellers," Clement Dowd quoted Robert in his 1897 biography of Zebulon Vance. "He charged them nothing, but made them promise not to open it till they got out of sight." He then trailed behind and spied on their consternation.<br />
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Wealthy vacationers at the Vance's Lapland Hotel (later Warm Springs) took pleasure in telling how young Zeb, envying the sales success of flower girls there, put on a dress and earned big tips.<br />
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Back at the homestead in Reems Creek, Zeb engaged with the farm animals. The geese learned, when Zeb was out and about, they no longer had command of the yard. Once, he frightened an old gander to death, according to Ruth Szittya in her fictionalized biography "Man to Match the Mountains: The Childhood of Zebulon Baird Vance."<br />
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Other animals had free reign. A brick in the Vance's sitting room fireplace immortalizes an embedded turkey footprint; and one in the kitchen fireplace, two cat paws. Cats caught corn-eating mice. Better than a housecat, however, was a black snake, which reached into mouse habitats more easily than a cat and which precluded the colonization of the house by a poisonous snake.<br />
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A smooth, slanted groove in a corner brick in the Vance's kitchen fireplace indicates knife sharpening and elicits an image of a turkey's fate. As winter approached, drovers took turkeys, pigs, and cattle to southeastern markets along the Buncombe Turnpike, completed just a couple of years before Zebulon Vance's birth.<br />
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A holiday dinner in the cold months at the Vance table might have included turkey with gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, cooked apples, cornbread and pie, as "The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Cookery" indicates.<br />
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Winters required defense against cold in the house despite the central fireplace. Mira's connection to distant markets via her brother's Bedent and Zebulon Baird, pioneer merchants, provided her with a top-of-the-line brass bed warmer.<br />
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Significant Artifact<br />
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Winters were much colder two centuries ago. Rivers froze. In 1835, a fourhorse wagon crossed the French Broad River on ice. Pioneer residents, in their homes, devised ways to turn survival into luxury.<br />
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A brass and wood bed warmer at the Zebulon Vance Birthplace in Reems Creek speaks of that era; and the Vance bed warmer is lucky to have survived time.<br />
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In the 1930s, a couple of decades before the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources acquired the Vance property, most of the Vance's early 19th century family possessions had been sold to an antiques dealer. Since then, only a few of those artifacts have found their way back.<br />
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A bed warmer had been a prized object in pioneer days. Not every family had one. Most wrapped a heated brick in cloth and laid it between bed covers; or fetched a stone, though not one from a creek, which might explode.<br />
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When five-year-old Zebulon went to his bedroom at night in the winter of 1835, he left the downstairs hearth and endured the chill as he anticipated the bed warming ritual.<br />
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The new warmer's brass pan would have been filled with coals and then sprinkled with salt to keep down sulfurous smells before being passed between bed sheets in a graceful arcing motion. Then Zeb jumped in bed.<br />
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More delicious than a room kept at 70 is a toasty, comfy cocoon in cold air.<br />
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The Vances provided their beds with goose down comforters and mattresses, a Scots-Irish preference. Kate Carter, program specialist at the Schiele Museum of Natural History in Gastonia, told me that it took 15 pounds of goose down to fill a mattress. Consequently, the owners of such mattresses would have refreshed the stuffing infrequently and would have suffered with bugs, which might account for the German preference for disposable straw tick mattresses.<br />
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Reading by candlelight and education were essential parts of Zebulon's childhood, given a boost by a tragic event. Zeb's uncle, Dr. Robert Vance, was killed in a duel, and young Zeb inherited his vast library of law, medicine, classics, and theology. Only one volume of that library remains at the site, "The History of Redemption" by the apocalyptic Puritan preacher, Jonathan Edwards.<br />
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Edwards warned against treasuring material things for "the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be forever, and my navigation from generation to generation."<br />
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<br />CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-35569174440956467372019-06-15T08:57:00.002-07:002019-07-13T10:54:42.789-07:00Danlel Smith Cabin Location: Asheville, North Carolina<em>Where Was the Daniel Smith House?</em>
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What Do the Records Show?</div>
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Forster A. Sondley provided the following in 1912: "His residence stood on the hillside immediately east of the railroad and directly north of the first small branch which runs into the French Broad River above the Passenger Station of the Southern Railway at Asheville, North Carolina. The site of his home is now within the corporate limits of the City of Asheville. . . ." Sondley added: "In later life Colonel Smith was almost daily seen on the streets of Asheville mounted on his large white horse."<br />
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Similarly, in 1922 Theodore Davidson wrote:
Daniel Smith "settled immediately east of the railroad at the first branch above the passenger station at Asheville, on the hill just north of the branch where his cabin stood for many years, and where he died May 17, 1824. He was buried with military honors on the hill where Fernihurst now stands; but about 1875 his body was removed to the Newton Academy graveyard where it now rests."<br />
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An April 1796 Buncombe County court record documents the purchase by Daniel Smith of 300 acres of land. Around 1795 Daniel Smith paid £4, 14 shillings, four pence, to Benjamin Yardley "in part pay for the building a house for" Daniel Smith. In April 1792 the Buncombe County court ordered that [among others] Daniel Smith be on a jury to view and lay off a road from Colonel William Davidson's on the Swannanoa River to Benjamin Davidson's Creek "the nearest and best way according to law." This was the first order in regard to roads ever made in Buncombe County. The road became known as Boilston Road.<br />
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According to Sondley, Davidson's River got its name from Benjamin Davidson, the first settler on its waters, and was originally called "Ben Davidson's Creek." This is miles southwest of Asheville and gives no indication as to the location of the Daniel Smith house. It does suggest, however, that the 300 acres purchased by Smith in 1795 ran in the general direction of Ben Davidson's Creek as the court usually included in road orders those with adjoining land.<br />
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We also know that one or more children of Daniel Smith attended school at the Newton Academy.<br />
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Tradition holds that James M. Smith, son of Daniel Smith, was born in his parents' log cabin just south of present-day Aston Park in 1787. The young Smith attended the log school house operated by Rev. George Newton just east of his homeplace around 1800.<br />
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“James McConnell Smith was born June 14, 1787, son of Daniel Smith and Mary Davidson, and historically stated to have been ‘the first white child born west of the Blue Ridge as North Carolina now is.’ (Sondley, 748). His birth took place in a two-story log house between the old Asheville Railroad Depot and Carrier’s Bridge. When the Smith House [Smith-McDowell House] was first erected on the Buncombe Turnpike, James Smith had the two-story log house in which he was born moved to the yard to be preserved. This small structure was later torn down. [1936 article] James M. Smith first received 123 acres from his father Daniel Smith on November 13, 1826 [Buncombe County Deeds, Book 14, page 343]. James McConnell Smith died May 18, 1856. He and his wife, Polly Patton, were buried on a knoll above the Smith-McDowell House.”<br />
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Source: Parris, Joyce Justus. T<i>he History of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, North Carolina</i>. Marceline (Missouri): Walsworth Publishing, 1996, pp. 7-8.<br />
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The Asheville Railroad Depot is no more, and now is used as a parking lot. Carrier’s Bridge is where Amboy Road crosses the French Broad River just south of the River Arts District and just north of the confluence of the French Broad River and the Swannanoa River. This is somewhat west of the hill on which Fernihurst was built.<br />
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Do not confuse the Southern Railway Depot at Biltmore with the "[o]ld train station site on Depot Street (original train station on the site was removed years ago). See: Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville, North Carolina), 16 November 2000, Thursday, Page 14. The Southern Railway Depot was built in 1896.
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The Western North Carolina Railroad was the first to reach Asheville. This was in 1881. Its first depot in the place was a frame building erected for the purpose where West Haywood Street crosses that railroad in the vicinity of the old Smith's Bridge place. After a year or so the present freight depot on Depot Street was built and its northern end used for a while as a passenger station-house while the remainder of the building was used for freight. Then the present passenger depot was constructed. The Asheville and Spartanburg Railroad was completed to what is now Biltmore, but then was Best, in 1886.<br />
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Source: <i>Asheville and Buncombe County</i> at 170.<br />
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"The present site of Asheville was at this time owned entirely by two men, James M. Smith and James Patton. The former was the son of Col. Daniel Smith and was the first white child born west of the Blue Ridge. The Smith home was located at the Maple spring, at the foot of the hill on French Broad, near the mouth of the Swannanoa; there James was born about the year 1786."<br />
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Source: <i>Asheville Citizen-Times</i> (Asheville, North Carolina), 28 November 1895, Thursday, Page 2.<br />
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<div style="text-decoration: underline;">
Analysis</div>
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The Asheville Railway Depot was located on Depot Street in Asheville, immediately across from the Glenn Rock Hotel. Part of the hotel building remains standing (March 2017). The site of the depot now is a parking lot.<br />
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The small branch/stream that runs near the site of the former passenger depot has gone by several names: Nasty Branch; and Town Branch. It empties into the French Broad River near the intersection of Lyman Street and Old Lyman Street having run under the many railroad tracks in the area. Town Branch apparently begins at the intersection of Coxe Avenue and Short Coxe Avenue.<br />
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The Daniel Smith cabin purportedly was on a hill, and he was first buried at Fernihurst, which definitely is on a hill. That this property was in the Smith family is evidenced by the fact that a son of Daniel Smith, James McConnell Smith, built a large house adjacent to Fernihurst. All this now is part of the A-B Tech campus, with the James McConnell Smith house, being operated as a museum by the Western North Carolina Historical Association (the Smith-McDowell House).<br />
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The Fernihurst hill definitely is south of present-day Aston Park in Asheville. However, whether it is "just" south is open to debate. However, "just" south may rule out the Fernihurst hill. Moreover, there is a stream in the area that empties into the French Broad River.<br />
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Conclusions: The Daniel Smith cabin was located within the boundaries of today's Asheville. It was east of the railroad, thus being east of the French Broad River. It was north of a small stream near the old railroad depot that runs into the French Broad River. It was on a hill. It was sufficiently near to "downtown" Asheville to allow Daniel Smith to ride his horse in the downtown area on a regular basis. It was sufficiently near Newton Academy (on Unidalla Street near Mission Hospital) to allow children of Daniel Smith to attend school there, presumably walking. It was south of today's Aston Park.
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The main train station in Asheville, built circa 1905, was this white stucco palace on Depot Street, across from the Glen Rock Hotel. It survived the flood of 1916 and was razed after the final run of the Greensboro-to-Asheville "Carolina Special" on Dec. 5, 1968. From Asheville, passenger service also went to New York, Cincinnati and Murphy. The building's architect was Frank Milburn, who designed ornate depots in Charlotte, Knoxville, Salisbury and other cities, Jim Cox notes in his book, "Rails across Dixie." The "Asheville Special" made its last passenger run out of the Biltmore station on Aug. 8, 1975, according to Tom Murray in his book, "Southern Railway." Waiting at this station, Thomas Wolfe wrote in "Of Time and the River," Eugene Gant watched a train approach, feeling "an empty hollowness of fear, delight, and sorrow." From the "sensual terror ... all things before, around, about the boy came to instant life ... It was his train and it had come to take him to the strange and secret heart of the great North."<br />
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Source: Neufeld, Bob. "Portrait of the past: Southern Railway passenger station," <i>Asheville Citizen-Times</i> (Asheville, North Carolina), 5 February 2015 (https://www.citizen-times.com/story/life/2015/02/05/portrait-past-southern-railway-passenger-station/22925973/; accessed 15 June 2019].<br />
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The Asheville Depot was demolished in 1968. Source: "Asheville Special," American Rails [<a href="https://www.american-rails.com/asheville-special.html">https://www.american-rails.com/asheville-special.html</a>; accessed 15 June 2019].<br />
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The following is from <em>Asheville and Buncombe County</em>, Forster Alexander Sondley (1922) at 88:<br />
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Col. John Patton was born April 4, 1765, and was one of Buncombe's first settlers. He removed to that county while it was yet Burke and Rutherford and settled first where Fernihust now stands. From here he removed to the Whitson place, on Swannanoa above the old water works. After residing here for some while he returned to the vicinity of his former home, and bought and fixed his residence upon the Col. Wm. Davidson place, where the first County Court was held. At this place he continued to reside until his death on March 17, 1831. It was he who formally opened on April 16, 1792, the first County Court. On the minutes of that court, immediately after the justices were sworn and took their seats, appears this entry:<br />
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Silence being commanded and proclamation being made the court was opened in due and solemn form of law by John Patton specialy (sic) appointed for that purpose.<br />
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At that term, on the same day, he was duly elected to the then very important office of county surveyor. Near his new residence he built, many years ago, a bridge across the Swannanoa River, which remained until about the beginning of the war against the Southern States. His house was for many years famous as a stopping place, being upon the Buncombe Turnpike road, and he raised here a large family of children....The late residence of Col. John Patton stood on the southern side of the Swannanoa at the ford about half a mile above its mouth, until within the last thirty years, when after bearing for some time the name of the Haunted House, it was removed as being no longer tenantable. His wife...Miss Ann Mallory, a Virginian, was born Feb. 12, 1768 and died on Aug. 31, 1855. She, with her husband are buried at Newton Academy graveyard.<br />
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Note: A daughter of Colonel John Patton, Mary Patton, married James McConnell Smith.<br />
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Reference has several times been made to James M. Smith. He was the first white child born west of the Blue Ridge in North Carolina His father Col. Daniel Smith, a native of New Jersey, after considerable experience in the Indian wars, and as a soldier on the American side the the Revolutionary war, removed to Buncombe, the Burke, and settled immediately east of the railroad at the first branch above the passenger station at Asheville, on the hill just north of the branch, where the remains of his cabin may still be seen, and where he died May 17, 1824. He was buried with military honors on the hill were Fernihurst now stands, but about 1875 his body was removed to the Newton Academy graveyard where it now rests. . . .<br />
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Source: <i>Asheville Citizen-Times</i> (Asheville, North Carolina), 5 February 1898, Saturday, Page 6.<br />
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CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-43877777378623746352019-06-14T05:35:00.001-07:002019-06-14T05:35:48.861-07:00Portrait of the Past: Aston Park Hospital operating room, circa 1940<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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Aston Park Health Care Center grew out of Aston Park Hospital, located in Asheville on the northwest corner of what had been Aston Street and South French Broad Avenue. The hospital had opened in 1927 as the French Broad Hospital. The name change to Aston occurred in the 1940s when the street the hospital was on, Willow Street., was renamed in honor of Edward Aston, historic Asheville booster and mayor. The 1940s was also when the Asheville Colored Hospital was opened, leading Dr. John Walker to leave Aston Park, where he’d served as the only African-American physician in a local hospital. One of his specialties was administering anesthesia, which he did for operations in the room pictured in this 1927 photo by Ewart M. Ball.<br />
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Aston Park had 45 beds in the 1940s, whereas Mission Hospital had 134; St Joseph’s, 95; Biltmore Hospital, 50; Norburn Hospital, 120; and the Asheville Colored Hospital, 35 beds. The French Broad Hospital had itself gone through an expansion because the newspaper reported cases related to it before ground breaking took place in August. For instance, in March, a young woman was trying to recover at the hospital from peritonitis after Ralph Riddle had seduced her and then poisoned her to abort the fetus. In 1967, Aston Park Hospital began making the shift to nursing home care as Memorial Mission Hospital assumed acute care responsibility. Photo courtesy Ramsey Library Special Collections, UNC Asheville.
--Rob Neufeld, RNeufeld@charter.net, @WNC_chronicler<br />
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Source: Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville, North Carolina), 11 June 2019.CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-89052602411073078672018-09-09T19:03:00.003-07:002018-09-09T19:04:50.283-07:00Ripley-Shepherd Building<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq-nV4r5PZiIraaHB9GO4K7M2C0Tm42GNkhXPIhd6M8WuZZH7SqzKVThclXHLcxE_IgLNQhtLcQrI-xzueiQTf57-ppRtqG6B7FbT5ty6f4ufEl8ua2T2HSQhaF28R0KaYC13skZGfwkqm/s1600/Ripley-Shepherd+Building.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="716" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq-nV4r5PZiIraaHB9GO4K7M2C0Tm42GNkhXPIhd6M8WuZZH7SqzKVThclXHLcxE_IgLNQhtLcQrI-xzueiQTf57-ppRtqG6B7FbT5ty6f4ufEl8ua2T2HSQhaF28R0KaYC13skZGfwkqm/s400/Ripley-Shepherd+Building.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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Ripley-Shepherd Building<br />
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The Ripley family enjoyed early prominence in Hendersonville, especially the colonel himself. According to Lila Ripley Barnwell (the daughter of Col. Valentine Ripley) in an article that appeared in the Times News on August 29, 1938, "Colonel Valentine Ripley, a native of Rockbridge County, Virginia, came to this section in the (eighteen) thirties, settling first in Asheville, where he married Miss Ruth Smith, daughter of James Smith, who was the first white child born west of the Blue Ridge in North Carolina. Shortly afterward Henderson County was cut off from Buncombe, and because of interest in the mail route, Colonel Ripley came here to live. He had large land interests, owning thousands of acres in the county.<br />
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No citizen was ever more interested in the progress and development of this section. After the War Between the States, Colonel Ripley formed a partnership with Captain M. C. Toms in the mercantile business. He was too much a lover of the out of doors and fine horses to like the confinement of that life, and while he carefully attended to the business the practical management was left largely in the capable hands of Captain Toms. One of the greatest ambitions of his life was a railroad for Hendersonville and for years he spent time and money for this accomplishment, living to see his dream realized about four months before his death in 1879."<br />
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Source: Hendersonville Historic Preservation Commission.CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-49165096961426566402018-08-23T17:31:00.002-07:002018-08-23T17:31:25.466-07:00Harry David Blomberg Family<a href="http://ncccha.org/pdf/blomberg/patton_marilyn_blomberg_transcript.pdf">Marilyn Blomberg Patton Interview<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FedhXlRyieM/W39RxYXPkoI/AAAAAAAAHcI/QyBx8kLHNVA5sG7HeMKbO75zZTHZv22-ACLcBGAs/s1600/Harry%2BBlomberg%2B%25232.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="529" data-original-width="369" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FedhXlRyieM/W39RxYXPkoI/AAAAAAAAHcI/QyBx8kLHNVA5sG7HeMKbO75zZTHZv22-ACLcBGAs/s320/Harry%2BBlomberg%2B%25232.jpg" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
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</a>CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-69973545133401688012018-07-14T13:13:00.003-07:002018-07-14T13:13:50.421-07:00Flood of 1916<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3s64LL_ZlR_8LO1Z4r0qZlb-HtLuQOXHlZA50-6Np7NwQ9TJDgnMmnLbJS4drpodgxVZ2NCe2_rhL0YwY2iEZOcggefzLnJOi0drXzy70oyb86jWLMiDUBVR97l5tm-F9X0hdrEPB3DWp/s1600/asheville-rr-yard-1916-flood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="286" data-original-width="450" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3s64LL_ZlR_8LO1Z4r0qZlb-HtLuQOXHlZA50-6Np7NwQ9TJDgnMmnLbJS4drpodgxVZ2NCe2_rhL0YwY2iEZOcggefzLnJOi0drXzy70oyb86jWLMiDUBVR97l5tm-F9X0hdrEPB3DWp/s320/asheville-rr-yard-1916-flood.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Asheville Railroad Yard Flooded 1916</td></tr>
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On July 14, 1916, the worst flood in western North Carolina’s history occurred after six days of torrential rain. In one 24-hour period the region saw more than half of a normal year’s total rainfall. The 22 inches of rain that fell that day set the record for the most rainfall in a single day in the United States.<br />
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Because the ground was saturated, most of the water immediately filled streams and rivers, causing them to reach flood stage in just a few hours. Eighty people lost their lives and the property damage surpassed $22 million, $1 million of that in Asheville alone.
Asheville and Hendersonville were completely cut off from the outside for weeks. Railroad tracks that were not destroyed had their supports washed out from under them, leaving tracks eerily suspended over mud-covered ravines—895 miles of track were rendered useless.<br />
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Everyone was taken by surprise at the speed with which the water rose. People were stranded in trees when their cars or homes were overwhelmed and they had nowhere else to go. Industrial plants along the rivers were swept away and landslides engulfed homes.
For most of western North Carolina this flood remains the benchmark for disasters.
CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-51770494372319087752018-07-14T11:00:00.001-07:002018-07-14T11:00:53.364-07:00Silas McDowell (1795-1879)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLq4bJ-ulmMRWX3xx_K8D1Zj4zH6wZ0r302c4NOLTxkhgkSO_Jh9uTeBDmOxDcCnNiNDrAlBqi1AOGBYvfoqcFUnOz0aShSivzQ5nr6F65gOLZWX-uGl_WwVmY2I9r78wWPkyQTh6DsBd/s1600/Silas+McDowell+%25281795-1879%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="367" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLq4bJ-ulmMRWX3xx_K8D1Zj4zH6wZ0r302c4NOLTxkhgkSO_Jh9uTeBDmOxDcCnNiNDrAlBqi1AOGBYvfoqcFUnOz0aShSivzQ5nr6F65gOLZWX-uGl_WwVmY2I9r78wWPkyQTh6DsBd/s320/Silas+McDowell+%25281795-1879%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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On July 14, 1879, Silas McDowell, prolific self-taught scientist and originator of the concept of the thermal belt, died.<br />
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Originally from York, South Carolina, McDowell attended school at Asheville's Newton Academy and then began work as a tailor in Charleston. He returned to the North Carolina mountains in 1823 and bought a farm in what's now Macon County. There, in Franklin, he began a long career of farming, viticulture and horticulture, including an extensive apple production operation that developed many new varieties.<br />
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McDowell applied science to all his endeavors, published articles on agriculture and began to develop a theory of thermal belts from his observations. In 1861, he published his best-known article, "Theory of the Thermal Zone," in which he proposed the idea of the thermal belt, a mountainside temperate zone ideal for growing crops.<br />
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McDowell also made contributions to botany, guiding a number of the day's prominent botanists in explorations of the state's mountains. His wide-ranging interests also included mineralogy, geology and zoology.<br />
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In his later years, McDowell retired from farming and turned to history, literature and poetry, penning biographies of prominent local people and accounts of historical events, and writing poetry recalling his youth and the mountain landscape.<br />
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Source: "This Day in NC History," North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural ResourcesCCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-52989744599628015842018-07-05T08:30:00.003-07:002018-07-05T08:36:01.454-07:00Vance Civil War Parole (1865)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmPvTL_eBwr4E6-pYcJJ_Jkvn9yBNy7j-IS4MO0RjhfjttWoUUL9YqPIdprz2-jI1XRKtF9WOxKy2xNRPI-7uRA-TO6llnYOahBHEAC0IrLzt2RotRLMkQHoQ5q8KOHFN94nugqT23WSrV/s1600/Vance+Parole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="478" data-original-width="834" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmPvTL_eBwr4E6-pYcJJ_Jkvn9yBNy7j-IS4MO0RjhfjttWoUUL9YqPIdprz2-jI1XRKtF9WOxKy2xNRPI-7uRA-TO6llnYOahBHEAC0IrLzt2RotRLMkQHoQ5q8KOHFN94nugqT23WSrV/s320/Vance+Parole.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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On July 5, 1865, ex-Confederate Governor Zebulon Baird Vance was paroled on his honor after imprisonment at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C.<br />
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As the end of the Civil War unfolded in North Carolina, Vance played an important role. Fleeing west in advance of General William T. Sherman’s army, Vance stopped in Greensboro and met with Confederate General Joseph Johnston. When Johnston traveled to Charlotte to meet with Confederate president Jefferson Davis, Vance followed.
However, Vance returned to Greensboro after agreeing to have no further obligations to the Confederacy.<br />
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After relinquishing his ties to the Confederacy, Vance contacted Union General John Schofield and offered to surrender himself. Schofield declined to arrest him, saying he had no orders to do so. Vance informed Schofield that he would return to his home in Statesville.
Vance’s stay in Statesville was short-lived. He on May 4 only to be arrested on the orders of General Ulysses S. Grant on May 13. By May 20, he was in Washington.<br />
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While he was imprisoned, his wife’s health, usually fragile, took a bad turn. Provisional Governor W.W. Holden sent a telegram on July 4 noting her ill health and asking for Vance’s release.<br />
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After the war, Vance practiced law in Charlotte. By terms of the Fourteenth Amendment he was prevented from taking the U.S. Senate seat to which he was elected in 1870, but he worked behind the scenes to develop the Conservative party until he was eligible for office in 1872.
Elected governor again in 1876, Vance vacated that office with two years left in his term in 1879 to join the U.S. Senate. He would serve there until his death in 1894.<br />
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Source: North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources
CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-17813749029796632922018-05-17T11:46:00.001-07:002018-05-17T11:46:26.136-07:00Siler Family Meets Each summer For 165 Years<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvgWaXmltJd3JB-71BUtcPvMH4MnCvtakEHUv7uVczxg10otZWfhNGDf-VGdBJ2959AIR3HB6e4M2MNm4Gw3TvCUmiOt1gkXTpl-NoV_PUHtZmmTXY6BY7ZZp2v9twW_w8yD6LUZ_wLZS-/s1600/636057455416279763-Siler-Scan-fm-Library---Family-Meeting-1911012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="540" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvgWaXmltJd3JB-71BUtcPvMH4MnCvtakEHUv7uVczxg10otZWfhNGDf-VGdBJ2959AIR3HB6e4M2MNm4Gw3TvCUmiOt1gkXTpl-NoV_PUHtZmmTXY6BY7ZZp2v9twW_w8yD6LUZ_wLZS-/s320/636057455416279763-Siler-Scan-fm-Library---Family-Meeting-1911012.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Siler Family Meeting 1911</td></tr>
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Siler Family Meets Each summer For 165 Years<br />
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William Siler circled two big dates on his calendar for 2016. On June 23, he celebrated his 100th birthday at his home in Morro Bay, California. And Saturday, he hosts the 165th annual meeting of the Siler family in Macon County. "I've been a strong supporter of this family and our heritage in this part of the state ever since I was a small boy," Siler said. Siler planned to catch a flight to Atlanta where his daughter would drive him to Franklin and his old home place. "I was born seven miles west of Franklin back when there were just dirt roads. Getting to Franklin was an all-day affair and you could figure on getting stuck in the mud. Now it takes just a few minutes."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BDjCaTG7nYc/Wv3NGzaV7PI/AAAAAAAAHHU/BK86oR_pU_AMyFXaj1BCpmB4E2IQxmBPwCLcBGAs/s1600/An%2BEarly%2BSiler%2BFamily%2BMeeting%2Bat%2Bcabin%2Bof%2BAlbert-Siler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="540" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BDjCaTG7nYc/Wv3NGzaV7PI/AAAAAAAAHHU/BK86oR_pU_AMyFXaj1BCpmB4E2IQxmBPwCLcBGAs/s320/An%2BEarly%2BSiler%2BFamily%2BMeeting%2Bat%2Bcabin%2Bof%2BAlbert-Siler.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Early Family Meeting at Cabin of Albert Siler</td></tr>
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The Silers and their various descendants are spread nationwide now, but up to 200 family members return each summer in what National Geographic once called the oldest continuously held family reunion in the Appalachian region. Like Bill Siler, they mark their calendar for the first Saturday of every August to congregate at Macon County Middle School. Mind you, it's not a reunion, but a meeting, with minutes taken each and every year and a recitation of the past 12 months' tally of births and deaths, marriages and other family lore.<br />
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There is recognition for the oldest family member attending — Bill Siler has that honor sewn up for 2016 — as well as the youngest. Whoever has traveled the farthest also gets recognition. "I've probably missed just one year when I was overseas," said Richard Jones of Asheville, who serves as the Siler family president this year. "It's pretty much a command performance. With all your cousins coming from California or New Jersey or New York, you certainly better make the effort to be there, especially if you live in Asheville."<br />
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Jones remembers as a kid going down to the creek to wade and search for frogs and salamanders while the adults held their meeting. But as he grew older, he became intrigued by the family's long history.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu4YQ_SZpLmePT9qnGw4JSu6YBwGM_5qTJw9wzddNBNzWpYE-LJYDUKZmeuXx6mZgru38I0Kqj99cMSmFmKzl_KbKJwlpwC-otUVRqb3eTyRU5j7_1pj7a7CbZzn3YsADoWhOwwjr9t0zU/s1600/Siler+Family+Meeting+1893+or+1896.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="534" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu4YQ_SZpLmePT9qnGw4JSu6YBwGM_5qTJw9wzddNBNzWpYE-LJYDUKZmeuXx6mZgru38I0Kqj99cMSmFmKzl_KbKJwlpwC-otUVRqb3eTyRU5j7_1pj7a7CbZzn3YsADoWhOwwjr9t0zU/s320/Siler+Family+Meeting+1893+or+1896.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1893 or 1896 Meeting</td></tr>
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The family claims a common ancestor in Plikard Dederick Siler, who arrived in Philadelphia in September 1738 on board the ship "Two Sisters" from Rotterdam. Siler's descendants followed the Great Wagon Road across Pennsylvania down into Virginia and North Carolina and up into the lush coves and rich bottoms of the Blue Ridge mountains.<br />
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In 1853, Jacob Siler invited his three brothers, William, Jesse, and John, and their families to join him and his wife for a New Year’s celebration in Macon County. The family “partook bountifully of the good things spread before them,” according to letters. Jacob was named the chair of the meeting and speeches were made.<br />
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No official minutes were taken at that first meeting, but Jesse Siler wrote his son, Leonidas, or Leon, who was studying in Chapel Hill, about the meeting. Leon Siler became a Methodist minister and Franklin's postmaster. He served as the family secretary for years.<br />
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Even a bloody Civil War couldn't keep the family from their annual feast, which was moved to the summer. In a letter dated July 17, 1862, Leon Siler painted a portrait of war-torn times: Capt. Thaddeus P. and Lieut. Jesse W. Siler are my brothers, in the cavalry…. Thomas and Thaddeus are Sgts in the same (company). James W. was in same company. but died at Petersburg, about the 8th of April. Albert Siler is commissary to the 39th N.C. Partisan Rangers which will soon leave for the seat of war. T.P., Jesse W., and Julius T., are my brothers; the others are cousins. I am the only Siler, between the ages of 18 and 35 that is now at home. And I should have been in the war long ago; but in 1839 I lost the use of my right arm and am hence unfit for service."<br />
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That connection to family, ancestors in a distant century, still matters in America, experts say.<br />
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Edith Wagner, editor of Reunions Magazine in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, estimates there may be 200,000 family reunions held annually across the U.S, but "that's only a guess," she said. "No one really knows for sure."<br />
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Family reunions cut across rural, urban, ethnic, racial and religious lines. "People want to reconnect with their roots. The family are the people who make up the first important group for any individual. It's who you are," said Larry Basirico, a professor of sociology at Elon University.<br />
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Ross Zachary of Charlotte has been organizing the event on behalf of Bill Siller, and the descendants of Arthur Lee Siler, one of the seven brothers or branches of the family<br />
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"My mother and father were both from Franklin. My mother was a Siler and she was very dedicated to attend these meetings," Zachary recalled. He grew up in Charlotte, but his family lived in Franklin for a couple years when he was in the sixth and seventh grades.<br />
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"I was like a lot of kids, kind of forced to attend," he laughed.<br />
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Zachary recalls traveling to see some of his mother's kin in Washington State where they had migrated with the timber business. "One of my mother's brothers was a logger. I remember visiting out there and marveling at the size of the trees."<br />
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He would not attend another meeting for about 40 years, but started coming back after his retirement, reconnecting with old classmates and cousins.<br />
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"I guess there is a certain amount of pride to have that connection to the original settlers in Macon," said Nancy Siler Scott, who lives in Franklin. "Sometimes, we share an excerpt from the minutes at the meeting."<br />
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An undated photo shows the Siler clan gathering at the cabin built by The cabin was built by Albert Siler, a great grandson of Plikard, in the 1880s. The cabin was later the birthplace of Lucy Morgan, the founder of the Penland School of Crafts.<br />
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Scott recalls coming to the meeting since she was little. "I remember I was about four and all these people were saying 'You look just like your daddy' or 'you look like your mother.' I don't think I was that impressed. I'm told I said I was just going to go sit down on a rock," she laughed.<br />
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Later on she didn't want to miss the meetings where she re-engaged with teenage friends.<br />
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The first Saturday of each August is sacrosanct on her calendar. In recent years, she and her husband, Franklin Mayor Bob Scott, missed the occasion only once, for the birth of a granddaughter the day before the picnic.<br />
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And Scott's grown children are regulars, with a son and his family coming from Columbia, South Carolina, while her daughter, Joanna, is delaying her return to England for the family meeting.<br />
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The gathering comes with the usual trappings of Southern summer get-together with the usual array of meats, casseroles, deviled eggs, desserts and sweet tea. Scott remembers her father used to bring a leg of lamb and a cousin always had her lemon sponge cake at the picnic.<br />
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"Everybody brings their favorite dish," Bill Siler said. "There's plenty of food, but I always look forward to the meeting itself."<br />
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As a centenarian, Siler knows this will be the last year he can play host. But he's also certain that a family that's gathered every year for 165 years can keep up the tradition into the future. "It's an impressive record."<br />
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Source: Dale Neal, dneal@citizen-times.com Published 10:25 a.m. ET Aug. 5, 2016 | Updated 10:29 a.m. ET Aug. 5, 2016.CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-79828769840684963992018-05-17T09:59:00.001-07:002018-05-17T09:59:56.974-07:00Jesse Richardson Siler (1793-1876)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gIh0BGCZqgU/Wv20d6PD2fI/AAAAAAAAHGw/aInjOOJv7K46rArbR_3EEp8Nnus8rk4KQCLcBGAs/s1600/Jesse%2BRichardson%2Band%2BHarriet%2BDorothy%2BPatton%2BSiler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="640" height="246" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gIh0BGCZqgU/Wv20d6PD2fI/AAAAAAAAHGw/aInjOOJv7K46rArbR_3EEp8Nnus8rk4KQCLcBGAs/s400/Jesse%2BRichardson%2Band%2BHarriet%2BDorothy%2BPatton%2BSiler.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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Jesse Richardson Siler (1793-1876)<br />
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Jesse, the fourth child of Weimar and Margaret Siler, was born January 31, 1793, in Pendleton District, S.C. The following sketch of his life was written by himself:<br />
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I was brought up by affectionate, and God fearing parents, with four brothers and four sisters. My parents being religious, from my earliest recollection, I was of course restricted in my conduct. I remember very distinctly one violation of their laws. William and I were gathering grapes when little boys. He was in a tree, and I below holding a hat, which had holes in it. As he would throw the grapes in, they would fall through, which aggravated me so much, that, to my shame be it said, I used language which was a very considerable breach of the order of the family. I was aware of the crime, and of the punishment that awaited me if father found out. William availed himself of this advantage and my weakness and kept me "under his thumb" by threatening to report what I had said. So, finding I was in his power or must suffer punishment of my father, I concluded it was a bad business, consequently have never used profanity since to my recollection.<br />
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Thus passing through the scenes of childhood and school boy days, I was scarcely ever ten miles from home, until the year 1805. In the spring of that year, my father took me to spend the summer with my brother-in-law, James Lowry, the husband of my sister Esther, who was living in Buncombe county, N.C. This separation from my home, the tender caresses of my mother, and the society of my brothers, from whom I was scarcely ever absent a night in my life, was to me a great trial; but I summoned up fortitude and bore it until the winter of that year, when my father moved to Buncombe county.<br />
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In November, 1814, I commenced clerking for J. M. Smith, of Asheville. Being awkward, uncultivated and timid, and unaccustomed to confinement, I would have been much happier with my parents in the country. But having set out with the determination to succeed, I looked forward with bright hopes, and by dint of application, became tolerably expert in business. I determined not to push myself into society, but to act industriously and honestly, with the hope that I should rise by true merit to rank with those of the highest family. I still retained in a good degree, the religious impressions of my education, and, determined not to disgrace myself, or my parents by immoral conduct, I covenanted daily with my Maker, that if He would protect and direct me, and crown my efforts with success in business, I would endeavor to be useful to the church and society.<br />
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After serving four years as clerk, Mr. Smith gave me an interest in business for three years, during which time I made the acquaintance of Miss Harriet D. Patton, sister of Mrs. Smith, who became my wife June 23, 1818. At the expiration of the three years, I bought land in the Tennessee Valley, and in the fall of 1821 moved to what is now Franklin, Macon county, and commenced business on my own footing. With gratitude I acknowledge that God's blessings have been showered upon me. In 1829, I joined the Methodist church. We had no house erected for the worship of God, and remembering my promise to Him, I set to work to build a church. I proposed to give the site and build the house. The good people aided me and in 1830, it was dedicated by the Rev. John Barringer. I felt happy in being able to aid in erecting a little monument dedicated to God, where my aged parents, who had moved to Macon county, with my children and friends, could assemble together in a comfortable situation and devote a portion of their time to the worship of God; and where, in the graveyard nearby, out bodies will rest together, when time with us shall be no more.<br />
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Mrs. H. T. Sloan adds to this sketch: "My parents lived happily together nearly sixty years, and were ever faithful in their attendance at our family reunions, and while their vacant seats in our family circle cause a pang of sorrow and regret, yet we know they have gone to fairer regions, and await us in the family above."<br />
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Harriet Siler died August 19, 1877.<br />
<br />
Source: Arthur, Mrs. N. C., Siler, F. L., Jones, Paul, Johnston, T. J., Committee Members. <i>The Siler Family: Being a Compilation of Biographical and Other Historical Sketches Relating to the Descendants of Plikard and Elizabeth Siler and Read at the Jubilee Reunion of the Siler Family Held in Macon County, North Carolina August 28, 1901 (Addition August, 1926)</i>. Franklin (North Carolina): Franklin Press, 1906/1926, pp.6-7 [some paragraph breaks added].CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-46273631733369629982018-04-07T16:46:00.003-07:002018-04-07T16:54:20.863-07:00Zeb Vance's "Rough and Ready Guards" (1861)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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"Rough and Ready Guards" Members (1861)<br />
<br />
Left-to-Right<br />
<br />
1. William Gudger<br />
2. James M. Smith<br />
3. Perry Gastow<br />
4. William Garrison<br />
5. Riley Powers<br />
6. Governor Zeb B. Vance (1830-1894)<br />
7. David M. Gudger<br />
8. P. J. Pittillo<br />
9. Alfred Walton<br />
10. J. J. White<br />
11. John Step<br />
12. Jim Hughey<br />
13. Bacchus Westall<br />
14. Jesse M. Green<br />
15. Capt. James M. Gudger<br />
16. Wesley Hicks (negro bodyguard)<br />
17. Gay Williams<br />
18. Thomas Brooks<br />
19. Capt. J. B. Baird<br />
20. Merritt Stevens<br />
21. Alfred Hunter<br />
22. William Hunter<br />
<br />
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When the North Carolina ordinance of secession was passed May 1861, Vance was already a captain in Raleigh commanding the company he had raised. The company was known as the "Rough and Ready Guards" and Vance and his men soon became part of the Fourteenth Regiment. Subsequently in August he was elected colonel of the Twenty-sixth North Carolina. Colonel Vance led his men in the field for thirteen months and the Regiment distinguished themselves at New Bern in March of 1862 and at Richmond in July of that same year. Governor of North Carolina.<br />
<br />
Refusing all overtures to be a candidate for the Confederate Congress Vance raised a company of "Rough and Ready Guards" and on 4 May 1861 marched off to war with a captain's commission. By June the "Guards" had become Company F, Fourteenth North Carolina Regiment, and were on duty in Virginia. In August Vance was elected colonel of the Twenty-sixth North Carolina, which he ably led in battle at New Bern in March 1862 and shortly afterwards in the Seven Days fighting before Richmond.CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4397466713803244732.post-89295747926252554512018-04-07T14:01:00.000-07:002018-04-07T14:01:08.065-07:00Asheville Rough & Ready Club 1848<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zachary Taylor</td></tr>
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Meeting of the Rough and Ready Club of Asheville, July 22d, 1848<br />
<br />
The Club came to order by the appointment of James M. Smith, Esq., President pro tem, and Isaac B. Sawyer, Secretary.<br />
<br />
The meeting was addressed by Messrs. Jas. M. Edny, N. W. Woodfin, J. W. Woodfin, A. B. Chunn and Gen. B. M. Edney, urging the claims of Old Zack to the Presidency, and against those of "broken sword memory."<br />
<br />
When a Resolution was offered by N. W. Woodfin, Esq., and adopted, expressive of the satisfaction of the Club on learning that our patriotic Volunteers are soon to return to their homes, also tendering them a public dinner on their return.<br />
<br />
Club adjourned to meet at the Court House on next Wednesday evening.<br />
<br />
J. M. Smith, Pres. pro tem.<br />
I. B. Sawyer, Sec.<br />
<br />
<i>Asheville Messenger</i> (Asheville, North Carolina), 27 August 1848, Sunday, Page 3.<br />
_______________<br />
<br />
The presidential campaign of 1848 saw the first strong electoral challenge to the expansion of slavery in the United States; most historians consider the appearance of the Free Soil Party in that election a major turning point of the nineteenth century. The three-way race capped a decade of political turmoil that had raised the issue of slavery to unprecedented prominence on the national stage and brought about critical splits in the two major parties.<br />
<br />
In the first book in four decades devoted to the 1848 election, Joel Silbey clarifies our understanding of a pivotal moment in American history. The election of Whig Zachary Taylor, hero of the Mexican War, over Democrat Lewis Cass and Free Soiler Martin Van Buren followed a particularly bitter contest, a fierce political storm in an already tumultuous year marked by the first significant attempt by antislavery advocates to win the presidency.<br />
<br />
Silbey describes what occurred during that election and why it turned out as it did, offering a nuanced look at the interaction of the forces shaping the direction of politics in mid-nineteenth century America. He explains how the Free Soilers went about their reform movement and why they failed as they ran up against the tenacious grip that the existing two-party structure had on the political system and the behavior of the nation's voters.<br />
<br />
For Whigs and Democrats it was politics as usual as they stressed economic, cultural, and ideological issues that had divided the country for the previous twenty years. Silbey describes the new confrontation between the force of tradition and a new and different way of thinking about the political world. He shows that ultimately, when America went to the polls, northerners and southerners alike had more on their minds than slavery. Nevertheless, while Van Buren managed to attract only 10 percent of the vote, his party's presence foreshadowed a more successful challenge in the future.<br />
<br />
Emphasizing both persistent party commitments and the reformers' lack of political muscle, Silbey expertly delineates the central issues of an election framed by intense partisanship and increasing sectional anger. If 1848 did not yet mark the death rattle of traditional politics, this insightful book shows us its importance as a harbinger of change.<br />
<br />
Sibley, Joel H. <i>Party over Section: The Rough and Ready Presidential Election of 1848 (American Presidential Elections)</i>. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2009.CCHAhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15012337526625093745noreply@blogger.com0