1799 Tennessee Boundary Survey (part 3)

From Western North Carolina: A History (1730-1913), by John Preston Arthur, published 1914, Edwards & Broughton Printing Co., North Carolina, pp. 41-43:

WAS THIS EVER "NO MAN'S LAND"? When the surveying party came to the Yellow they found that the compass had been deflected when it had been sighted from the peak just north of Watauga Falls, caused doubtless by the proximity to the Cranberry Iron mountain, of whose existence apparently they then had no knowledge. Of late years some have supposed that the "territory between the Iron mountain and the Blue Ridge, after the act of cession, was left out of any county from 1792 or 1793 till 1818 or 1822, and was without any local government till it was annexed to Burke county." L. D. Lowe, Esq., in the Watauga Democrat of July 3d, 1913, gave the following explanation: "It is quite true that there was no local government, but it was not for the reason that this part of the territory was not claimed by Burke county; but it was because the lands had been granted to a few, and there were only a limited number of people within the territory to be governed, hence there was very little attention paid to it." In previous articles in the same paper he had shown that "the reason this territory had not been settled at an earlier date" was because "the State had been paid for more than three hundred thousand acres embraced within the boundaries of six grants," but had failed to refer to the fact that "these grants or some of them had especially cxcepted certain other grants within their boundaries—for example, certain grants to Waightstill Avery, Reuben White, John Dobson and others. Within the past twenty-five years it has been clearly demonstrated that some of the Cathcart grants run with the Tennessee line for 14 miles."

HOME COMFORTS. "Mr. Hawkins and myself went down to Sugar creek to a Mr. Currey's, where we got a good supper and a bed to sleep in," continues the diary. Evidently the food in the camp had about given out, for we hear nothing more of meals "fit for a European Lord;" but, instead, of the comforts of good Mr. Currey's bed and board. Here too they "took breakfast with Mrs. Currey, got our clothes washed and went to camp, where Major Neely met us with a fresh supply of provisions. It rained all day [and] of course we are still at our camp at the head of Sugar creek."

PLEASANT BEECH FLATS. The next day they crossed "high spur of the Roan mountain to a low gap therein where we encamped at a pleasant Beech flat and good spring." Any one who has never seen one of these "pleasant beech flats" would scarcely realize what they are like. As one ascends any of the higher mountains of North Carolina, the size of all the trees perceptibly diminish, especially near the six thousand feet line, to be succeeded, generally, on the less precipitous slopes, by miniature beech trees, perfect in shape, but resembling the so-called dwarf-trees of the Japanese. They really seem to be toy trees.

JOHN STROTHER'S FLOWERS OF RHETORIC. It was here that they "spent the Sabbath day in taking observations from the high spur we crossed, in gathering the fir oil of the Balsam of Pine which is found on the mountain, in collecting a root said to be an excellent preventative against the bite of a rattlesnake, and in visioning the wonderful scene this conspicuous situation affords. There is no shrubbery grows on the tops of this mountain for several miles, say, and the wind has such a power on the top of this mountain that the ground is blowed in deep holes all over the northwest sides. The prospect from the Roan mountain is more conspicuous [extensive?] than from any other part of the Appelatchan mountains."

CLOUDLAND. A modern prospectus of the large and comfortable hostelry, called the Cloudland hotel, which has crowned this magnificent mountain for more than thirty years, the result of the ardor and enterprise of Gen. John H. Wilder of Chattanooga, Tenn., could not state the charms of this most charming resort, now become the sure refuge of hundreds of sufferers from that scourge of late summer and early autumn and known'as hay fever, more invitingly.

UNSURPASSED VIEW. Of the magnificence of this view a later chronicler has this to say: "That view from the Roan eclipses everything I have ever seen in the White, Green, Catskill and Virginia mountains." This is a statement put into the mouth of a Philadelphia lawyer in 1882 by the authors of "The Heart of the Alleghanies," p. 253.

1799 Tennessee Boundary Survey (part 2)

From Western North Carolina: A History (1730-1913), by John Preston Arthur, published 1914, Edwards & Broughton Printing Co., North Carolina, pp. 40-41:

RATTLEBUGS. On Saturday, June 1st, they came upon "a very large rattlebug," which they "attempted to kill, but it was too souple in the heels for us." On the night of May 31st they had had "severe lightning and some hard slaps of thunder."

LAUREL AND IVY. There are some who, nowadays, contend that ivy and laurel did not grow in these mountains while the Indians occupied them, and cite as proof that it is almost impossible to find a laurel log with rings indicating more than a hundred years of growth. But Bishop Spangenburg mentions having encountered laurel on what is supposed to have been the Grandfather mountain in 1752, and John Strother, in his diary of the survey between Virginia and North Carolina in 1799, repeatedly mentions it, both before and after crossing the ridge which divides the waters of Nollechucky from those of the French Broad. What are now known as the "Ivory Slicks," is a tunnel cut through the otherwise impenetrable ivy on the slope between the Hang Over and Dave Orr's cabins on Slick Rock, south of the Little Tennessee.

TWO WAGON ROADS ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS. Even at that early date there seem to have been two roads crossing the mountains into Tennessee, for the very next call of the statute is "thence along the ridge of said mountain between the waters of Doe river and the waters of Rock creek to the place where the road crosses the Iron mountain." Bright used to live at the Crab Orchard, long known as Avery's Quarters, about a mile above Plum Tree, and where W. W. Avery now lives. On the 5th of June Major Neely "turned off the line today and went to Doe river settlements for a fresh supply of provisions," and was to meet them at the Yellow mountain, where on that day the trees were "just creeping out of their winter garb," and where "the lightning and thunder were so severe that they were truly alarming." From "the yellow spot" on the Yellow, whither they had gone to take observations, but were prevented by the storm, "we went back and continued the line on to a low gap at the head of Roaring or Sugar creek of Towe river and a creek of Doe river at the road leading from Morganton to Jonesborough, where we encamped as wet as we could be." This fixes the main road between North Carolina and the Watauga settlement, which had been finished in 1772, and over which Andrew Jackson was to pass in the spring of 1788. Robert Henry mentions a Gideon Lewis as one of the guides from White Top mountain, and it is remarkable that a direct descendant of his and having his name is now living at Taylor's Valley, near Konarok, Va., and that several others now live near Solitude or Ashland, N.C.

Quaker Meadows & Pleasant Gardens

The McDowell House at Quaker Meadows Plantation,
built in 1812 by Captain Charles McDowell, Jr
near Morganton, Burke County, North Carolina

From History of the McDowells and Connections, by John Hugh McDowell, pub. 1918, C. B. Johnston:

"According to tradition, the Quaker Meadows farm was so-called long before the McDowells or any other whites established homes in Burke County, and derived its name from the fact that the Indians, after clearing part of the broad and fertile bottoms, had suffered the wild grasses to spring up and form a large meadow, near which a Quaker had camped before the French-Indian war and traded for furs. On the 19th of November, 1752, Bishop [August Gottlieb] Spangenburg recorded in his diary (Vol. V. Colonial Record, page 6) that he was in camp near Quaker Meadows, and that he was "in the forest fifty miles from all settlements." The Bishop described the lowlands of Johns River as the richest he had seen anywhere in Carolina. But, after surveying the large area, he abandoned the idea of taking title for it from Lord Granville, because the Indian War began in 1753, the next year, and lasted nominally seven years, though it was unsafe to venture west of the Catawba until after 1763, and few incurred the risk of doing so before 1770. 'Hunting John' McDowell first entered 'Swan Pond,' about three miles above Quaker Meadows, but sold that place without occupying it, to Colonel Waightstill Avery, and established his home where his son Joseph [of Pleasant Gardens] and grandson James [Moffett McDowell] afterwards lived, and where, still later, Adolphus Erwin [brother-in-law of James] lived for years before his death. His home is three miles north of Marion on the road leading to Bakersville and Burnsville. The name of Pleasant Gardens was afterwards applied not only to this home, but to the place where Col. John Carson* lived high up the Catawba Valley, at the mouth of Buck Creek."


*John Carson (1752-1841) first married Rachel Matilda McDowell (1756-1795), "Hunting John" McDowell's eldest daughter and older sister of Joseph McDowell (1758-1795), of Pleasant Gardens. In 1797, widower John Carson married Joseph "P.G." McDowell's widow Mary Moffett McDowell (1768-1825).

Settlers of Burke County, North Carolina

The MCDOWELLs, BOWMANs, and GREENLEEs came from Virginia to Burke County previous to the Revolution [late 1750]. JOSEPH MCDOWELL's grant on Quaker Meadows was dated 1749. They were all related by marriage or consanguinity. JOSEPH MCDOWELL, SR., was of Scotch descent, and emigrated from North Ireland to America. He was born in 1715, and emigrated with his wife at an early age, having offended his wife's relatives, the proud O'NEALs [O'Neills], the descendants of the ancient Irish kings, by his marriage with their sister, MARGARET O'NEAL. Wheeler, in his History of North Carolina writes as if they (Joseph and his wife Mary) only had two sons, Generals CHARLES and JOSEPH MCDOWELL. On the contrary, there were four: HUGH, CHARLES, JOSEPH, and JOHN MCDOWELL. Charles died the owner of Quaker Meadows; Joseph died the owner of the fine plantation on John's River, where the widow of the late Dr. JOHN MCDOWELL now lives [1894]. Dr. MCDOWELL was grandson of Major JOSEPH MCDOWELL, of Pleasant Gardens, the son of HUNTING JOHN MCDOWELL*, the brother of JOSEPH MCDOWELL, SR.
HUGH MCDOWELL was the father of MARGARET, who married Capt. JAMES MURPHY, and the only child, JOHN HUGH (MURPHY) was the offspring of this marriage. He married MARGARET STRINGER AVERY, a niece of Col. WAIGHTSTILL AVERY, SR.

(from biographical sketches written by Col. Thomas George Walton, first published in the Morganton Herald in 1894)

*"Hunting John" McDowell (b. 1724) was actually the son of Charles McDowell (b. abt 1697), brother of Joseph McDowell (b. 1715), and therefore the nephew of Joseph, Sr.