Our Southern Highlanders

by Horace Kephart

William Bartram

In 1911 I was told by Mr. H. M. Ramseur that when he laid out the route of the

railroad from Asheville to Murphy he ran a line of levels from a known datum on this road to the top of Clingman, and that the result was “four sixes” (6,666 feet above sea-level). It is probable that second place among the peaks of Appalachia may belong either to Clingman Dome or Guyot or LeConte, of the Smokies, or to Balsam Cone of the Black Mountains.

This segment of the Unakas forms the boundary between North Carolina and Tennessee from the Big Pigeon River to the McDaniel Bald.

The Tennesseeans seem afraid of the mountains, and the Cherokees of the North Carolina side equally so; for,

“Equipped with government maps, a good compass, and a little conceit, I thought I could follow the boundary-line.

One night, delayed by lack of water, we did not camp till dark, and, finding a smooth spot, lay down with a small log on each side to hold us from rolling out of bed. When daylight came we found that, had we rolled over the logs, my partner would have dropped 500 feet into Tennessee and I would have dropped as far into North Carolina, unless some friendly tree top had caught us.

In 1906 I spent the summer in a herders’ hut on top of the divide, just west of the Locust Ridge (miscalled Chestnut Ridge on the map), about six miles east of Thunderhead. This time I had a partner, and we had a glorious three months of it, nearly a mile above sea-level, and only half a day’s climb from the nearest settlement.

It was my plan to walk through to the Balsam Mountains, and so on to the Big Pigeon River. I went to Maryville, Tennessee, and there I was told that I would find a cabin every five or six miles along the summit from Thunderhead to the Balsams.”

broke in abruptly: “Whoever told you that was either an impostor or an ignoramus. There are only four of these shacks on the whole Smoky range. Two of them, the Russell cabin and the Spencer place, you have already passed without knowing it. This is called the Hall cabin. None of these three are occupied save for a week or so in the fall when the cattle are being rounded up, or

Siler’s M...

Those government maps are good and reliable to show the approaches to this wild country, but where you need them most they are good for nothing.”

Where the trail from Tennessee crosses from Thunderhead to Haw Gap he had swerved off from the divide, and he discovered his error somewhere in the neighborhood of Blockhouse.

Of animal life in the mountains I was most entertained by the raven.

sagacious

If the raven’s body be elusive his tongue assuredly is not. No other animal save man has anything like his vocal range. The raven croaks, clucks, caws, chuckles, squalls, pleads, “pooh-poohs,” grunts, barks, mimics small birds, hectors, cajoles—yes, pulls a cork, whets a scythe, files a saw—with his throat.

A stranger in these mountains will be surprised at the apparent scarcity of game animals. It is not unusual for one to hunt all day in an absolute wilderness, where he sees never a fresh track of man, and not get a shot at anything fit to eat.

still-hunting

(going withou...

W. J. Stillman,

marten

sable),

A hundred nights I have anointed myself with citronella from head to foot, and outsmelt a cheap barber-shop, to escape their plague.

In general the mornings are apt to be

lowery,

with fogs hanging low until, say, 9 o’clock, so that one cannot predict weather for the day. Heavy dews remain on the...

Undoubtedly there is vast mineral wealth hidden in the Carolina mountains. A greater variety of minerals has been found here than in any other State save Colorado.

corundum,

Kaolin

gneisses,

lodgment

clapboard

puncheon

lights of Knoxville

“She’s in the field, up yan, gittin’ roughness.” I took some pride in not being stumped by this answer. “Roughness,” in mountain lingo, is any kind of rough fodder, specifically corn fodder. “How

backwoods

warwhoop—a

akimbo—till

thoroughfare

Clearly, the woman thought that I could not help seeing how matters stood. Not for a moment did she suspect but that her yells, her belligerent attitude, and her refusal to speak, were the conventional way, this world over, of intimating that there was a

contre...

let me explain just what I am driving at. People up North, and in the lowlands of the South as well, have a notion that there is little or nothing going on in these mountains except feuds and moonshining. They think that a stranger traveling here alone is in danger of being potted by a bullet from almost any laurel thicket that he passes, on mere suspicion that he may be a revenue officer or a spy.

ary

“Of course, I ain’t so ignorant as all that—I’ve traveled about the country, been to Asheville wunst, and to Waynesville a heap o’ times—and

Luxury! where I had to live on bear-meat (tough old sow bear) for six weeks, because the only side of pork that I could find for sale was full of maggots.

“Whiskey means more to us mountain folks than hit does to folks in town, whar thar’s drug-stores and doctors.

The only medicines we-uns has is yerbs, which customarily ain’t no good ’thout a leetle grain o’ whiskey.

The nighest State dispensary, even, is sixty miles away.

pop-skull

“Now, yan’s my field o’ corn. I gather the corn, and shuck hit and grind hit my own self, and the woman she bakes us a pone o’ bread to eat—and I don’t pay no tax, do I? Then why can’t I make some o’ my corn into pure whiskey to drink, without payin’ tax? I tell you, ’taint fair, this way the Government does! But, when all’s said and done, the main reason for this ‘moonshining,’ as you-uns calls it, is bad roads.”