Lyday Family Medical Texts Reveal the Origins of the Name Penrose

 

Dr. William M. Lyday in the office he inherited along with secretary Mae Garren.
The books seen on his desk are the same volumes now housed
in the NC Room at Transylvania County Library.

Much has been documented about the Lyday family who had their beginnings in the Penrose area of Transylvania County. Land was granted to Col. Jacob Lyday for his service in the Revolutionary War, but the first true Lyday to settle in what would become Transylvania County was Dr. Andrew Jackson Lyday. A recent donation from a direct descendant has been given to the NC Room at the Library which includes eleven reference texts that belonged to A.J. Lyday and his son William, both practicing doctors. Most of them appear to belong to William. These volumes were used daily to aid in treating patients, though a couple of the volumes are non-medical texts, such as a dictionary and a geography book. What adds to the interest is the inscriptions inside, which show dates and locations of where the books were purchased. Due to the high costs of textbooks, some of them were used by multiple owners and the list of signatures in the front tell a story of legacy. Some loose materials were also found inside, such as a deed, a patent application, and a handwritten prescription on letterhead.

New pieces of history have been discovered with this donation as well. One of the texts has the author’s name of “Penrose” on the spine. This led to research that has revealed a connection between the author and the name of the Penrose area. When A.J. Lyday practiced medicine, he did so in a cottage built on family land. When his son William graduated medical school, he joined his father in practice. After A.J. passed away, William took on the practice entirely. The area where they lived was then known as Calhoun and has the approximate modern location of the intersection of Everett Road and Crab Creek Road. Property stamps inside the donated texts and letterhead confirm that the family lived and worked in Calhoun. A post office was located in Calhoun as well, operating from 1856-1904. In 1904, the post office for the area became the Penrose post office. Why the name changed, it cannot yet be determined, but it has been confirmed through a direct descendant that the Lyday family had a hand in naming the new area, presumably due to their prominence.

The property stamp inside several of the donated texts shows William Lyday
practiced in Calhoun and was a specialist in women’s medicine.

The spine of one recently donated medical text bears the name “Penrose.”

The “Penrose” on the spine of “Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence” refers to a Philadelphia judge named Clement Biddle Penrose. He was called upon to edit the manual, which was penned by Alfred Swaine Taylor, due to his position and authority in legal matters. His nephew, however, is the namesake of Penrose, NC. That nephew, Charles Bingham Penrose, was an obstetrician and gynecologist in Pennsylvania. He and his father, Richard Alexander Fullerton Penrose, founded one of the first hospitals exclusively for women. Charles Bingham Penrose was also known for inventing a flexible surgical drain that is called the Penrose Drain. Penrose was an inspiration for Dr. William M. Lyday, who was also a specialist in women’s and children’s medicine. Several of the donated books are specific to women’s and children’s health. The stamp inside several of the newly donated books states that he specializes in “diseases peculiar to females.” The donor of these texts has confirmed that William Lyday respected Dr. Penrose so much that he chose to honor him by renaming the area for him.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library. This article was written by Local History Librarian Laura Gardner. For more information, comments, or suggestions, contact NC Room staff at ncroom@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-1820.

Carl Schenck, Founder of Biltmore Forest School

 

Dr. Carl Alwin Schenck in 1951 during his visit to the former site of Biltmore Forest School

A major first that occurred in the United States that can be credited to Transylvania County is that it was the birthplace of modern forestry. The man that is responsible for that distinction is Dr. Carl Alwin Schenck. Born in 1868 in Darmstadt, Germany, Schenck earned a doctoral degree in forestry from the University of Giessen in Germany. During his studies, he became enamored with an English woman named Dolly who taught him English using a copy of Shakespeare’s Richard II. His mastery of English qualified him to host a British visitor to his university, Sir Dietrich Brandis, who was at the time the foremost forester in the world. Brandis asked Schenck to accompany him on a tour of German, French, and Swiss forests for the subsequent five summers, and the young Schenck learned the art of old-world forestry. Brandis suggested that George Vanderbilt hire Schenck when the position of Vanderbilt’s head forester was vacated by Gifford Pinchot. Schenck assisted Pinchot during a transition phase and then took on full responsibility for all Vanderbilt lands – over 100,000 acres— as the head forester in 1895.

As Schenck managed the land with an eye for sustainability, he began taking on apprentices and was allowed to dedicate a portion of the land to a forestry school. The Biltmore Forest School, opened in 1898, was the first of its kind in the U.S. Although Ivy League schools Cornell and Yale would begin forestry education programs shortly after, the Biltmore Forest School created by Schenck was given special distinction with its field work component. Schenck wrote the textbooks for his school because none existed. The one-year course was a mix of lively classroom lectures and field experience that took place on the Biltmore Estate, near the Davidson River, and in the Pink Beds area of Pisgah Forest, depending on the season. Camaraderie created by “saengerfests” – singing and drinking parties after hours – and the rigors of living in the woods away from most civilization made the experience memorable for students.

During his employment, Schenck openly feuded with Pinchot, his predecessor, as well as with Vanderbilt himself. Differences came to a head in 1909 when Schenck leased hunting and fishing rights to 80,000 acres of Vanderbilt’s land to a Chicago-based club without Vanderbilt’s permission. He was dismissed and no longer allowed to operate the Biltmore Forest School on Vanderbilt’s land. He continued for a few years with a nomadic school that split time between Germany and the Champion Paper Mill’s Sunburst Logging Camp above Bethel in Haywood County, but then discontinued the school in 1912 when he returned to Germany to serve as an officer in the infantry on the eastern front, where he was wounded in action and discharged.  When he returned to Germany, he took with him a carload of chestnut and yellow poplar which he used to construct his home in Lindenfels, Germany. He planted groves of yellow poplar in the area between Weinheim and Lindenfels, many of which still grow today.

He lived quietly in retirement in Germany, though he often was asked to be a guest lecturer for forest education programs in the U.S. The photo above depicts Schenck during one of his last visits to the U.S. In May 1951, the American Forestry Association sent Carl Schenck on national tour. On the east coast, he was welcomed in New York; Philadelphia; Staunton, VA; Aiken, SC; and Pisgah National Forest, NC at the former location of the forestry school he founded. On the west coast, he was honored in Oregon and California, and was touched by the dedication of a 40-acre grove of redwoods that was purchased by a conservationist group in his honor. During his visit to the Pisgah National Forest, he viewed a plaque that had been erected in his honor at a Biltmore Forest School reunion the previous year. His tour also included social events with alumni and tours of modern forestry operations. Dr. Carl A. Schenck died just a few years later in 1955 and, according to his request, was cremated and had his ashes dispersed in the forests of North Carolina.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library. This article was written by Local History Librarian Laura Gardner. For more information, comments, or suggestions, contact NC Room staff at ncroom@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-1820.

Mary Jane McCrary – Transylvania Historian

 

Mary Jane King was born in 1896 in Brevard.  A lifelong resident of Transylvania County, she became an enthusiast for local history at a very young age due to stories she heard from her parents, Alexander Henry King and Hessie Rebecca Clayton King, and her grandfather, Ephraim Clayton. She was also a descendant of Nancy Brevard, the family for which the city is named.

She graduated from Tift College in 1918 with a bachelor's degree in music arts. She later earned an honorary degree from Furman University. In 1920 she married Hugh Raven Walker and they had two children: John and Jane. Between the births of these two children, she became the first public school music teacher in Brevard and was a founding member of the Brevard Music Lovers’ Club, serving as secretary. In 1926 she started her own business, the General Insurance Agency, which she operated until 1957. This overlapped with the work she is most known for, being a real estate agent, which she did from 1939-1984. In 1927 she published her first book, a family history of the Claytons. Her husband Hugh died in 1929 and she remarried in 1931 to Carl Caleb McCrary. The had two children, Thomas and Martha. When he died in 1967, she did not remarry.

She became more and more well known as a historian in Transylvania County and was part of several organizations; she was a charter member of the Brevard chapter of the American Business and Professional Women, the chair and founder of the Transylvania Historical Association, and a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. A family story states that her knowledge of the Cherokee people and culture were called upon to name the streets in the Connestee Falls development.

McCrary’s published works are still foundational for researchers today. She wrote a history of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, A Goodly Heritage, published in 1959, but is best known for her book Transylvania Beginnings: A History, published in 1984. She donated her collection of research and historical items to the county’s Historic Preservation Commission, which is now housed in the Library’s North Carolina Room. She died in 1987, just three years after the publication of her magnus opus book, and is buried in St. Paul’s-In-The-Valley Cemetery.

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library. This article was written by Local History Librarian Laura Gardner. For more information, comments, or suggestions, contact NC Room staff at ncroom@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-1820.

Fisher Family Women

Mary Sue "Mamie" Fisher Galloway, Rhoda Emmaline Walker Fisher Neal, and Rosa Fisher Durham

The three women pictured all come from the Fisher line, one family that traces its roots back to the beginnings of Transylvania County. The Fishers in Transylvania County originate with James Washington Fisher (1753-1832), a Revolutionary War soldier. He had two sons from his first wife Mary. She passed away and he remarried in 1804 to Nancy Evans and had four daughters with her. He and his family settled in what is known as “The Dark Corner” of South Carolina, between Tryon NC and Landrum SC. Around 1830, they moved to what is now Transylvania County in the area between the Bear Wallow and Toxaway rivers. 

His son, James Washington Fisher Jr. (1795-1862) was a “long hunter” – a professional hunter who would take a party out for six months at a time and return with preserved meat and skins to sell. He was also a talented fiddler and storyteller. His tall tales became the foundation for a series of stories written by Charleston author William Gilmore Simms. He had ten children.

One of his sons, John Thomas Fisher (1825-1864), is the connection between the ladies in this photograph. John Thomas had eight sons and two daughters. His son Andrew Jackson Fisher (1852-1895) was the father of Rosa (1887-1984), right. His son LeRoy Reid Fisher (1856-1940) was the father of Mary Sue “Mamie” (1891-1988), left. His son William Clarke Fisher (1861-1903) married Rhoda (1867-1934), center. Another connection is that Rhoda’s sister was also Mamie’s mother.  

Rhoda has an interesting life story. After her husband, a physician everyone called “Dr. Bill,” died from complications after successfully performing an appendectomy on himself, she sold their hotel in Rosman and moved into their country home in Lake Toxaway. She used life insurance money to build a large hotel/boarding house in the Toxaway area and managed it successfully until the Lake Toxaway dam burst in 1916, destroying the tourist industry for that area for many years. She eventually remarried and moved to Houston, Texas, where she lived out her days. Many descendants from the Fisher line live in Transylvania County today and are known for holding one of the longest-lived annual family reunions in the county. 

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library. This article was written by Local History Librarian Laura Gardner. For more information, comments, or suggestions, contact NC Room staff at ncroom@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-1820.