Moltz Lumber

In early 1916 Jerome Moltz and his sons began purchasing property in upper Transylvania County with the intention of building a lumber operation and large band saw mill.  After the Lake Toxaway dam failed in August 1916 Moltz acquired property from the Toxaway Company as well.  They had survey work done for logging rail lines from Lake Toxaway into Jackson County. 

Portable cabins for a Moltz Lumber crew at Cold Mountain.

By 1918 the Moltz Lumber Company had 7000 acres and 15 miles of logging railroad (Moltz leased additional rail from Southern Railway) north and west of Lake Toxaway.  The saw mill was built within ¾ of a mile of the Southern Railway Line in Lake Toxaway.  The mill cut 50,000 feet of hemlock and 30,000 feet of hardwood a day.  They harvested timber around Cold Mountain, Big Green Mountain, Greenland Creek and Panthertown Creek.  They also had a rail line heading northeast to the North Fork of the French Broad River then back into Jackson County to the Tuckaseegee River.

Moltz Lumber Engineer Grant “Dutchman” Bruner 

leans on front truck of a Shay Engine delivering logs

 to the mill at Lake Toxaway. 

Moltz’s success was in making hemlock harvesting profitable.  They hired contractors to cut the hemlocks.  The contractors would measure, grade and sort the logs, then stack them near the rail lines.  Only the top quality logs were sold for lumber.  Lower quality logs were sold to Champion Fiber in Canton for pulpwood.  Moltz kept their overhead low and earned a reputation for uniform grade timber.

Moltz Lumber Company operated for until September 1929.  The saw mill was dismantled in 1941 and the limber rights were sold to Carr Lumber Company in January 1942.

Jerome Moltz was a lumber manufacturer from Williamsport, Pennsylvania.  He had six sons and one daughter.  At least four of his sons were also involved in the lumber industry.  Carl Moltz, born in 1893, was the fourth son of Jerome and May Moltz.  In 1930 Carl Moltz married Lucy Camp Armstrong.

Carl and Lucy Moltz lived in her home, known as Hillmont.  The house had been built on the shore of Lake Toxaway in 1915.  The Swiss mountain style house had six levels, plus a separate library, stables and a swimming pool.  They lived there until Carl’s death in 1961 when Lucy moved to a smaller house nearby.  Lucy Armstrong Moltz lived to see the Lake Toxaway dam rebuilt and the lake restored.  Today Hillmont is known as the Greystone Inn.

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.

Tourist Left Lake Toxaway After Dam Burst

When the Toxaway Inn opened in August 1903 tourism brochures boasted that it was, “one of the best equipped and most modern resort hotels to be found in the South, having elevators, steam heat, electric lights, more than one hundred rooms en suite with private baths, pool and billiard rooms, bowling alleys, tennis courts and large, spacious verandas”. The menu had a wide variety of items including prime rib, roast lamb, baked red snapper, escalloped oysters as well as many vegetables and elegant desserts.

On August 13, 1916 the Toxaway Dam burst following heavy rains over several weeks.  The 540 acre lake sent a wall of water through the gorge and flooded miles of lower land in South Carolina.  Although the Inn survived, the wealthy visitors left and the grand hotel stood empty.  It was torn down in 1947.

But long before the Toxaway Inn was built there were families living on small farms throughout the Hogback Township.  The Hogback Township, as it was first known, covers the southwestern part of Transylvania County.  It includes the area all around Lake Toxaway, west along Hwy 64 to the county line and south along Hwy 281 to the state line.

The Branson’s North Carolina Business Directory for 1890 lists the population for Hogback Valley as 50, in 1896 Hogback had a population 60.  This community was located between present day Lake Toxaway and Sapphire.  The post office name was changed to Oakland in 1911.

Lake Toxaway lakebed after the dam broke.

And after the glory days of the Toxaway Inn, although the tourists left the local families continued farming, worked in the logging camps and operated their own small businesses around the communities of Lake Toxaway, Oakland and Sapphire. 

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.

Veteran's Day

VETERAN'S DAY

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson first proclaimed Armistice Day for November 11, 1919.  The United States Congress passed a resolution on June 4, 1926 requesting that President Calvin Coolidge issue another proclamation to observe November 11 with appropriate ceremonies.  On May 13, 1938 a Congressional Act made the 11th of November each year a legal holiday.

Local soldiers identified in this photograph include:  Coy Surrette, Tavie Hart, Jesse Scruggs, Avery Orr and Virgil Merrill.

Silversteen Community

Macedonia Baptist Church

Early settlers in the valleys and mountains in the Gloucester area of what was to become Transylvania County had to travel ten or more miles to attend church services at Cathey’s Creek Baptist Church.  On today’s roads it takes half an hour or more to travel those miles so imagine making the trip in the early 1800s.

By the 1840s there were several families interested in establishing a church closer to home.  They petitioned the Cathey’s Creek church to form their own congregation.  On July 6, 1844 they held their first service in the Gloucester school and selected the name Macedonia for their church.

The little congregation grew and soon constructed a church of split-logs.  Around 1900 the current Macedonia Baptist Church was built.  It is a typical white wooden country church with a gable roof, windows down both sides and a small belfry.

In the early 1900s Joseph Silversteen’s Gloucester Lumber Company logged thousands of acres in the area west of Rosman and north of Hwy. 64.  In 1923 he gave property to build a schoolhouse for the children in the area around Macedonia Baptist Church.  The large, three-room school was built by Jim Anders, Herbert Anders, Bill Anders and Kencie Meece.  It served the community for over 30 years until being closed in 1956.  The school and community became known as Silversteen and the name remains today.

Alligator Rock on Hwy. 215, photo courtesy of Bob Cole

Many of the men in the community worked in the Gloucester Lumber logging camps to help support their families.  Later they became independent truckers hauling logs to Canton several days a week.  In her history of the Silversteen Community Rowena McCall Ashe tells this story, “In the Gloucester community (as it was called back then) all the truck owners only had one tag for all their trucks.  When they would haul a load to Canton they always stopped on the way down 215 and got the tag from the top of Alligator Rock.  When they returned they would stop and put it back in its hiding place so the next trucker the next day could use it.  Times were hard and they all stuck together doing what they could to provide for their families.”

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.

Civil War 150 Events at the Transylvania County Library

The Transylvania County Library has been selected as a programming site for Civil War 150: Exploring the War and Its Meaning Through the Words of Those Who Lived It, a national public programming initiative designed to encourage exploration of the transformative and contested meaning of the Civil War through primary documents and firsthand accounts.  The project is presented by The Library of America in partnership with The Gilder Lehrman Institure of American History and is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Local support is provided by the Transylvania County Library Foundation and the Friends of the Library. 

The Library will host a panel display, two speakers and show three Civil War movies during November and December in conjunction with the Civil War sesquicentennial. 

Credit: Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Abraham Lincoln,

printed in San Francisco, 1864. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute)

The panel display, Emancipation and Its Legacies, will be at the library from November 10 - December 8, 2014.  The display is divided into five sections: Conflicting Visions of the Future of the United States: 1850–1860; War and Fugitive Slaves: 1861–1862; Emancipation: 1863; The Process of Emancipation: 1864–1865; and The Legacy of Emancipation: Civil War to Civil Rights, 1865–1964.  The panel display was developed by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in partnership with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and is curated by David W. Blight, Class of 1954 Professor of History at Yale University, and Susan F. Saidenberg, The Gilder Lehrman Institute.

In conjunction with the display the monthly Bag Lunch presentation on Tuesday, November 18 at noon will be "The Civil War and Aftermath: A Crisis in American Race Relations" presented by Dr. Gordon McKinney.  The program will discuss the role that African Americans played during the conflict including as runaways from slavery, as soldiers, as symbols, and as political actors.   The program will also examine the transition to freedom and the conflicts in American society brought about by these revolutionary changes.

Dr. McKinney is retired professor of history from Berea College and now lives in Asheville.  He is the author of several books about the Civil War and WNC including, The Heart of Confederate Appalachia:  Western North Carolina in the Civil War and Reconstructing Appalachia:  The Civil War’s Aftermath

Image credit: Unidentified black Private, Company I,

54th Massachusetts Infantry, ca. 1863.

(The Gilder Lehrman Institute)

On Tuesday, December 2 at noon Dr. Lucinda MacKethan will present “Slave Voices in North Carolina.”  Her program uses the personal narratives, letters, poetry, and interviews of North Carolina slaves to explore how North Carolina slaves lived, worked, worshipped and sometimes escaped bondage. 

Dr MacKethan is the Director of Creative Writing at NC State University.  She recently retired as Alumni Distinguished Professor of English at NC State University, where she taught courses primarily in Southern and African American literature.  She is also the author or editor of six books.

Cookies and coffee from Blue Ridge Bakery will be available at both programs and are provided by the Friends of the Library.  The public is invited to bring along a bag lunch to enjoy during the presentations. 

The Civil War movies will be shown in the Rogow Room on Thursday afternoons at 2:00 pm.  Popcorn, juice and water will be provided by the Friends of the Library.  Movie attendees are encouraged to bring their own seat cushion.  Films will be:

November 20—“Shenandoah”.  In 1863, wealthy Virginia landowner Charlie Anderson (James Stewart), a man of peace despite his autocratic behavior, steadfastly refuses to take sides in the Civil War. Bit by bit, Anderson's isolationism--and his way of living--is torn apart.

December 4—“Sommersby”.  Richard Gere stars as Jack Sommersby, a wealthy landowner who returns to his small cotton farming town of Vine Hill three years after the Civil War's end. The defeated Confederate soldier is ready to resume his past life with his young wife Laurel (Jodie Foster). Thinking her husband long dead, however, Laurel has become engaged to Orin Meecham (Bill Pullman), an arrangement she quickly calls off, enraging and embittering Orin.

December 18—Lincoln”, as the Civil War continues to rage, America's president struggles with continuing carnage on the battlefield and as he fights with many inside his own cabinet on the decision to emancipate the slaves. This film chronicles the President's time in office between 1861 and 1865 as he dealt with personal demons and politics during the Civil War.

All events are free and open to the public.  For more information contact Marcy Thompson at 884-3151 x242 or marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org.

Quebec Was a Stop Along Passenger Railroad

The Quebec community extends from Quebec Mountain, east of Silversteen Rd, to approximately Reid Road along Highway 64.  In the late 1800s the area was known as Tiptop.  The Tiptop post office operated from July 31, 1886 - December 17, 1888 and then from October 29, 1889 until it was closed and service transferred to Lake Toxaway on February 1, 1930.  The name was changed to Quebec on February 10, 1904. 

Railroad at Quebec

In 1903 when the railroad was extended through Transylvania County to Lake Toxaway a depot was located in Quebec.  This was typical small station designed for receiving and shipping freight.  It was located 4 miles from Rosman and it was an additional 6.8 miles to Lake Toxaway.

Passenger trains headed for the Toxaway Inn did not make all the stops.  The trip from Rosman (still know as Toxaway in 1903) to Lake Toxaway took about 50 minutes with a stop in Quebec, 35 minutes non-stop.  Although passengers could board or disembark the train at Quebec there were no services available.  The depot was located just passed the junction of Old Quebec Rd and Silversteen Rd. 

The early Quebec school was a one-room log cabin located on Kim Miller Rd.  It also served as the first Oak Grove Baptist Church.

In 1903 the congregation at Oak Grove Baptist built a large one room church on property donated by G.W. & Millie Henderson.   The Hendersons along with John & Martha Jackson, John Whitmire and Henry Galloway were the Charter Members of the church in 1880.  Construction on the current church began in 1939.

When the new school was built in 1907 it was located about 1 ½ miles southeast between Highway 64 and the Southern Railway tracks.  It was a modern multi-room school.  The Quebec School District was the first in Transylvania County to vote for a bond to cover much needed school improvements.  Today T.C. Henderson Elementary is located near the old school site.

Visit the Local History blog at nchistoryroom.blogspot.com to see a map identifying the locations of Quebec, the Quebec School, Oak Grove Baptist and the Southern Railway line.

After the Toxaway Dam burst in August 1916 rail service from Rosman to Lake Toxaway was reduced to mainly freight.  The logging industry continued to use the track as a connection from logging camps to Silversteen’s lumber and tanning businesses in Rosman for several years.  Southern Railway officially abandoned the track in August 1953 and it was removed in March 1954.

The local story is that birds in the area make a sound of kwee-beck, kwee-beck which led to the name and pronunciation of Quebec.

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.

Quebec area--blue line is Hwy 64, red line is Southern Railway line.