Monday, March 31, 2014

Buck Forest Hotel Preceded DuPont In Cedar Mountain

Old Buck Forest Hotel
In her 1876 novel, The Land of the Sky, Christian Reid promotes the mountains of western North Carolina for adventure travelers.  Reid is speaking of the French Broad and Little River valleys when she says, “Then we have our first glimpse of the magic beauty which will some day make Transylvania famous!” 

Her adventurers continue on to spend time at the Buck Forest Hotel, exploring the surrounding forests and waterfalls by day and joining in with the evening entertainment and dances.

The hotel was described as a large two-story building, with a long piazza in front and shade-trees drooping all around.  It could accommodate “several score persons” and had a big hall for dances.

Around 1830 Micajah Smith Thomas began buying property along the Little River including Bridal Veil Falls, High Falls, Triple Falls and miles of good fishing streams.  He had several thousand acres that offered excellent hunting as well.  Thomas and his wife, Anna Caroline Hightower Thomas, opened the Cedar Mountain Hotel in the early 1850s.

The 1854-55 General Assembly of the State of North Carolina authorized Thomas, along with Leander S. Gash, David Shuford, Perry Orr and Charles Slagle to lay out a turnpike road through the Little River valley passed Shuford’s bridge on the French Broad River and Thomas’ cedar mountain house.  This provided access from the valley through the mountains to Jones Gap Road and Caesar’s Head.

The first Cedar Mountain post office was located in the hotel.  The Thomas’s son, Franklin L.D. Thomas was the first postmaster from 1856 to about 1865.  After the Civil War the post office relocated four miles to the south and took the name of Cedar Mountain with it.  The area surrounding the Thomas’ hotel then became known as Buck Forest.  Buck Forest had a post office from 1889-1901.

During the Civil War Micajah Thomas was attacked at the hotel by members of Kirk’s Raiders.  Kirk’s Raiders was a mounted infantry regiment for the Union made up of mostly North Carolina and Tennessee volunteers who were notorious for their violent raids.  As a result of the attack Micajah was blind for the remainder of his life.  Soon after this Micajah and Anna went to live with one of their sons. 

Around 1870 they sold the hotel and property to Joe McD “Uncle Joe” Carson who operated it as the Buck Forest Hotel for many years.  By the early 1900s changes had left the hotel off the beaten path and it had fallen into ruin and was partially collapsed. 

Carson sold the property to Col. Frank Coxe of Asheville.   After Coxe’s death his descendents added to the property for a total of 5000-6000 acres.  In 1941 Frank Coxe, grandson of Col. Frank Coxe, organized the Buck Forest Club.  It was an exclusive club permitting hunting and fishing on the property to its members.  Paul F. Roberts built a lodge for the club near High Falls around 1940.  It was torn down in the 1970s. 

The club leased the property from the Coxe estate until April 1956. In September 1956 E. I. DuPont purchased the Coxe property, plus 5411 in Henderson County known as the Guion Farm to build the first silicon plant in the United States.

The property, including the Thomas family cemetery is now part of the DuPont State Forest.


Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library.  Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs.  For more information, comments or suggestions contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-3151 X242.

Monday, March 24, 2014

Caleb Murphy Is Correctly Identified

The 1995 "Heritage of Transylvania County" identifies this photograph as Houston Moore. However Frances Reese, who wrote several articles for the book and has compiled a Moore family collection, recently learned that this is incorrect. The man in the photograph is actually Caleb Murphy.

Caleb Murphy was born April 4, 1862 in Transylvania County. He was married to Levina "Vinnie" Whitmire and they had four children. Carrie, born Dec. 28, 1888, married Isaac "Ike" Knox and they had three children, Bluford, Nora and Emma. The marriage did not last though and Carrie and the children changed their surname to Murphy. Caleb and Vinnie's other children were Almond, who never married; Lizzie, who died as a child; and Norman, who married Sarah Jane Morgan. 
Caleb Murphy

Vinnie died Feb. 11, 1922. For many years Caleb Murphy worked for Toxaway Tanning in Rosman. He died Aug. 10, 1946 in Morganton. Caleb and Vinnie are buried in the Whitmire Cemetery on Flat Creek Valley Road.
Claud Murphy, who remembers his great-grandfather well, identified him in the photograph. Corrections are an important piece of historical and genealogical research and this information is greatly appreciated.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library. Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs. For more information, comments or suggestions, contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or (828) 884-3151 ext. 242.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Girl Scouts Have A Long County History

The Girl Scouts began with Juliette Gordon Low's dream to provide girls a chance to grow and learn through activities that explored their community, nature and the larger world around them. She formed the first all-girl club in Savannah, Ga. in March 1912.
By 1923 there were Girl Scout branches in all 50 states. The earliest evidence of a Girl Scout troop in Brevard comes from newspaper announcements for activities and outings planned for the group in 1925. Their leaders were Miss Elizabeth Zachary and Miss Bertie Ballard.

Activities included day hikes to "learn valuable lessons about wild flowers and trees, and various things in nature, besides the art of cooking in the open, and becoming more accustomed to the ways of the hiker" in preparation for a week-long camping trip to Pilot Mountain.

MacFarlane's Lake was constructed
by John Calvin Tinsley in the early 1940's
In 1953 the Pisgah Girl Scout Council purchased 133 acres in the East Fork area to develop a year-round camp for use by eight Western North Carolina counties. The property had been owned by A.S. MacFarlane and included a 3-acre lake. The purchase price was $4,300.

The only structure on the property was a small caretaker's cabin. Dever and Buford Raines were the first caretakers. Today the rustic hand-hewn Raines Brothers Cabin is popular with photographers and artists.

The first tents for campers were at Sleepy Hollow, built in 1957, and High Top, built in 1958. They were canvas tents on wooden platforms designed to sleep four. Permanent roofs were added to the Sleepy Hollow units in 2001. Today Sleepy Hollow is made up of log cabins. The High Top units were replaced with yurts in 2007.

Whippoorwill Lodge, built in 1959, was the first permanent building constructed at the camp. It has served as a kitchen, dining hall, trading post, art center and staff lodge through the years.
Other unique additions to Camp Pisgah have included Pioneer Ridge in 1964 and the Treehouses in 1977. Pioneer Ridge was originally stationary covered wagons designed to sleep four girls. These were replaced by cabins in 1994. The Treehouses are small sleeping cabins built on stilts and set among the trees.

Raines Brother Cabin at Camp Pisgah, 1991
Many of the buildings at Camp Pisgah were built or renovated by local contractor Avery Reese. Reese worked and lived at the camp for 25 years until his retirement in 2009.

Thanks to Avery Reese for providing information about Camp Pisgah and its structures and to Calvin Tinsley for photographs and information on the lake construction.

Top Photo: Girl scouts planting tree on S. Broad St.  (today the library property), circa 1925. Edna King, Ethel McMinn, Roberta Bryant, Catherine Snelson, Ruth Snelson, Martha Osborne, Edna Mason, Beulah Zachary , Nancy Macfie,  Elizabeth Shipman, unidentified, Helen Allison, Adelaide Silversteen, Annie Young, Nancy Johnson, unidentified, Margaret Miller, Annette Patton and Bertie Ballard (leader).

(Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library.
Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs.

For more information, comments or suggestions, contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or (828) 884-3151 ext. 242.)



Monday, March 3, 2014

Cascade Power Began Operation In 1909


Cascade Boat House, 1941
Around 1900 Martin Hamilton built a wooden dam with a grist mill and saw mill on the Little River downstream from Hooker Falls. He sold the property to the Pickelsimers, who planned to generate electricity there. Hamilton built the original power house. A generator was delivered to Penrose by train but had to come the remainder of the way by wagon. When the wagon got bogged down by the heavy weight, they rolled it on logs to the plant, which was a slow process.

The Cascade Power Company began operation in 1909. The main purpose was to supply electricity for the Pickelsimers' Pisgah Mills textile plant in Brevard. Using the excess power produced, the Pickelsimers started Bre-vard Light & Power. They offered free power to the city, churches and the poor. 

The old log dam was rebuilt in the 1920s using stone and concrete. Over the years it has been raised several times.

In 1929 Duke Power purchased Brevard Power and Light. They distributed the electricity generated by the Cascade Power Company through Southern Public Utilities Company.
Joe Baynard worked at the plant from 1920 to 1930. Walter Holtzclaw, who was the pastor at Little River Baptist Church, worked at the plant for several years in the early 1930s. He was also a rock mason and built many of the retaining walls around the property. Bob Merrill, Hall Gray and Carter Blythe all worked at the plant in the 1930s and 40s.

In 1946 George Hudgins took over operation of the plant. He ran it for 55 years until it closed in 2001. Hudgins and his wife, Gola, lived above the powerhouse. They said they quickly got used to the steady noise of the plant but the one downside was that George could not leave the plant unattended for more than a couple of hours at a time.

Inside the power house, 1941
Cascade Lake, which was created by the damming of the Little River, quickly became a favorite for fishermen and boaters. From the late 1930s until 1960 the property included rental cabins, an inn and a boat house. There was a restaurant, bar, and dance hall in the inn. The operation closed when the inn burned in 1960.
Today the Cascade Lake Recreation Area offers 160 campsites and lake access.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library. Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs. For more information, comments or suggestions, contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or (828) 884-3151 ext. 242.

First State Park

On this day in North Carolina History,

"At the urging of Governor Locke Craig, the legislature authorizes purchasing land for North Carolina's first state park. Mount Mitchell State Park includes not only the highest peak in eastern America but also the state's second-highest peak - which in 1947 will be named Mount Craig." (1915)

Source: Powell, L. (1996). On This Day in North Carolina History.Winston-Salem, North Carolina: John F. Blair, Publisher.