Thursday, June 30, 2016
Moses Smith Farm Sale 1856
"Queer" Found at Old Buck Hotel 1906
Smith & Chapman
Uncle Alfred Walker
Uncle Alfred Walker. He Has Lived in or Near Asheville for 72 Years.
There walked into The Citizen office the other day a gray haired darkey who, on account of his age and past affiliations, deserves a place in the Centenary number of The Citizen. The man was Alfred Walker, who has watched the passing of 72 years, and who was reared by James M. Smith, the first white child born west of the Blue Ridge mountains. Alfred has had a varied career, having served through the war and at last become a minister of the gospel, in the Baptist faith. He lives near Emma, on the Murphy branch of the Southern, but does not come to town often, on account of his health, which is not what it used to be. Some years ago, however, he was engaged in peddling about town.
"Uncle" Alfred, when he looks upon the substantial paving of Asheville's streets, chuckles to himself over the thought that he was the pioneer in putting down pavements -- "palements," he says. He constructed a walk of cobblestones in front of the Buck hotel on North Main, carting the stones from the hill now crowned by the Battery Park hotel. Speaking of the Buck hotel--which in his young days was the only hostelry in the town, Walker says: "It's nothing but a log house, covered with planks, and it wouldn't fall down in a thousand years. And they's millions o' rats in it; not thousands, but millions."
The spot now occupied by Geo. F. Scott & Co.'s lumber yard on College street can claim the distinction of being Walker's birth place. That far back this country had not arrived at the dignity of flails for threshing purposes, but the operation of separating the wheat berry from the stalk was carried out thus, as Walker describes it: The wheat was placed on the floor of the barn, several horses were rough shod and boys put on their backs to guide them around the room until the wheat had been tramped out. Flax trousers and flax dresses were the height of fashion, and shoes were an unknown quantity except on rare occasions, so Walker says.
"There's not a darkey of my set here now," he says; "I'm the only one left of my master's 500. If times were like they were then and my old master was back here, I'd rather be with him than to be free. He raised me to be truthful and honest, and I never had a mark on my back. Ca'se why? When he tole me to do anything I went right now and done it."
Walker served through the war in the Union army, Bartley's Tennessee regiment, and was mustered out at Knoxville. He is expecting a pension any day. He says people ask him how it is that he can preach although unable to read. "Then I asks, Who teached the fust man? Jesus Christ. Well, I've got religion: I know it; it keeps a-growing, and I'm richer than Vanderbilt, if he ain't got it."
Source: Asheville Citizen (Asheville, North Carolina), Saturday, 5 February 1898.
There walked into The Citizen office the other day a gray haired darkey who, on account of his age and past affiliations, deserves a place in the Centenary number of The Citizen. The man was Alfred Walker, who has watched the passing of 72 years, and who was reared by James M. Smith, the first white child born west of the Blue Ridge mountains. Alfred has had a varied career, having served through the war and at last become a minister of the gospel, in the Baptist faith. He lives near Emma, on the Murphy branch of the Southern, but does not come to town often, on account of his health, which is not what it used to be. Some years ago, however, he was engaged in peddling about town.
The spot now occupied by Geo. F. Scott & Co.'s lumber yard on College street can claim the distinction of being Walker's birth place. That far back this country had not arrived at the dignity of flails for threshing purposes, but the operation of separating the wheat berry from the stalk was carried out thus, as Walker describes it: The wheat was placed on the floor of the barn, several horses were rough shod and boys put on their backs to guide them around the room until the wheat had been tramped out. Flax trousers and flax dresses were the height of fashion, and shoes were an unknown quantity except on rare occasions, so Walker says.
"There's not a darkey of my set here now," he says; "I'm the only one left of my master's 500. If times were like they were then and my old master was back here, I'd rather be with him than to be free. He raised me to be truthful and honest, and I never had a mark on my back. Ca'se why? When he tole me to do anything I went right now and done it."
Walker served through the war in the Union army, Bartley's Tennessee regiment, and was mustered out at Knoxville. He is expecting a pension any day. He says people ask him how it is that he can preach although unable to read. "Then I asks, Who teached the fust man? Jesus Christ. Well, I've got religion: I know it; it keeps a-growing, and I'm richer than Vanderbilt, if he ain't got it."
Source: Asheville Citizen (Asheville, North Carolina), Saturday, 5 February 1898.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Western North Carolina Oral Histories
Oral
History Collections
Special Collections' oral histories contain a wealth of local history and cultural information about Asheville and Western North Carolina. Beginning with two major oral history collections, the Southern Highlands Research Center Oral History collection and the Voices of Asheville Project, the Oral History Collections provide unique insight into a broad range of topics including city and county development issues, segregation and integration of Asheville schools, private education in the region, the diversity of religion throughout the area, changes in farming and subsistence strategies, and the histories of various families and organizations in western North Carolina.
Special Collections is the repository of over 500 Oral Histories, comprised of at least ten different oral history projects, each ranging from four or five interviews to over two hundred interviews. The Oral History Collections continue to grow, offering a continuing picture of Western North Carolina.
URL: http://toto.lib.unca.edu/collections/oralhistories.html
Special Collections & University Archives
Ramsey at UNC Asheville
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Shelton Laurel Massacreby David L. Cockrell, 2006
The Shelton Laurel Massacre, which occurred in January 1863, serves as a graphic illustration of the divided loyalties of North Carolinians during the Civil War as well as the tenuous relationship between state and Confederate military authorities. Throughout the war North Carolina's western counties suffered considerable violence and disorder. Strong Unionist sentiment ran through the Mountains, and there was intermittent fighting between residents loyal to the United States and their pro-Confederate neighbors. This situation was reminiscent of the bitter social divisions during the American Revolution. In fact, at times Unionists were referred to as "Tories" by their enemies. Further adding to the chaotic atmosphere were marauding gangs of both Confederate and Union deserters, who took advantage of undermanned local enforcement and a weak Confederate presence to practice rampant banditry and lawlessness.
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