His Friends Called Him Champ

 [From December 26, 2007]

        The Judge shows the Artist's Sketch-Book

…he with camp stool and dripping umbrella slung on his shoulders, with broad slouch hat crushed down over his eyes, and a variegated panorama of the road along which he had passed painted by the weather upon his back--the artist, whose hands were filled with the mystic tin box; behold him! the envied cynosure of boyish eyes.
- Edward King, describing the artist James Wells Champney, who accompanied King on an expedition through the Southern Appalachians in 1873.

Artists have been looking at these mountains for a long, long time...

A thousand years ago they created the petroglyphs on Judaculla Rock.



A couple of centuries ago, naturalists like William Bartram sketched the plant life and other sights they encountered in these hills.



In the 1850s, William Frerichs explored the Blue Ridge and the Smokies to get inspiration for his majestic oil paintings "Tamahaka Falls" in Cherokee County, NC. 



After the end of the Civil War, magazine publishers had an insatiable appetite for travel stories describing the people and scenery of the Southern Appalachians. 

More than one scholar has opined on how these articles shaped and reinforced stereotypes about mountain people. But I’ve not seen much written about the artists who supplied the illustrations that accompanied the travel stories of the late nineteenth century.

Take for instance, James Wells Champney (1843-1903). He accompanied the writer Edward King on travels throughout the South and made more than 500 sketches during their journeys.  The two traveled more than 25,000 miles together.

James Wells "Champ" Champney has been described as:

a prolific artist whose work was of high quality and broad scope. He was very successful as a oil painter of genre scenes, and later was perhaps the foremost pastelist of his day. A lecturer, illustrator, watercolorist and photographer, he was also one of the first Americans to grasp and utilize the spirit of impressionism.

Born in Boston, the artist studied drawing at Lowell Institute and took courses in anatomy from Oliver Wendell Holmes. Champney had already visited Europe for further studies and exhibited at the Paris Salon before he was commissioned by Scribner’s to illustrate the Edward King articles. 

Afterwards, he returned to Europe and provided figure drawings of American life for the French magazine, D’Illustration. By 1876, he settled in Deerfield, Massachusetts where he taught art at Smith College.



J. Wells Champney married Elizabeth Williams (1850-1922) in May 1873, just prior to his visit to Western North Carolina. Elizabeth Champney herself began to publish short sketches, poems, books on art, and romantic travel stories, some of which were illustrated by her husband.



After Mr. Champney opened a studio in New York City in 1879, the couple divided their time between Deerfield and New York, and made frequent visits to Europe. Further, we read:

He was an early and avid amateur photographer, and also used the camera as an aid to his work. He was fond of books and the theatre, was a member of a dozen clubs and artists’ societies, and with Mrs. Champney entertained generously at their Fifth Avenue home and at Deerfield. "When they arrived, and Mr. Champney was seen on the street, the old town always seemed to come alive," wrote one villager.



Champney was in great demand as a lecturer, as suggested in December 18, 1894. New York Times article:

The members of Sorosis had a pleasant gathering in the parlors of Sherry’s yesterday afternoon, when J. Wells Champney told them many interesting things about pastels… The bright and luminous tints of the pastel, Mr. Champney said, are due to the fact that ‘the integrity of the molecule is intact,’ and that there is not ‘gumming together,’ as with paints… He humorously recommended the pastel as a valuable health thermometer, to be kept by every family, for if the pastel showed signs of succumbing to its one great enemy – dampness – the welfare of the household should be looked after.

An 1899 story described Champney’s presentation at the Carlisle Indian School:

On Tuesday evening, J. Wells Champney, the famous pastel artist of New York City, delivered a lecture before the Literary Societies and a large audience from town in Assembly Hall. The lecture was replete with wit and interesting anecdote. From the beginning lines of a straight-edged pig the artist with chalk and crayon led up to the graceful curves of a child's face, and on to the picturesque in landscape, giving scientific reasons for changes of lines, in a most attractive manner which could never tire the listener.



On May 1, 1903, Champney fell to his death. Champney had gone to the Camera Club of New York to make some photographic prints. As Champney got on the elevator, a piece of walnut furniture was too large to be carried in the car, so the operator had placed it on top, where it shifted and jammed the elevator between floors.

The headline of the New York Times article stated "His Death Was Due to His Hurry and Disregard of Warning." As reported by the Times:

Against the protests of the elevator boy, he attempted to swing himself to the floor below. He lost his hold on the car floor and fell down the shaft….

Mrs. Champney was notified by the police of her bereavement, and showed great fortitude after learning of her husband’s death. "We were very happy together," she said. "He was one of the most beautiful characters in the world and was always lovable. His life was just like his work."

So here’s to Champ, and his summer in the mountains 134 years ago, when he looked around Waynesville and Webster, Cullasaja Falls and Whiteside Mountain, and drew the world he saw.
---
Illustrations (From top)
1. From The Great South, "The Judge", a member of the travel party, shows Champney’s sketch book to a group of mountain folks, illustration by James Wells Champney.
2. Judaculla Rock by firelight
3. Morning Glory, by William Bartram
4. Falls of Tamahaka, oil on canvas, William Frerichs
5. James Wells Champney and daughter, Maria, ca. 1874
6. Elizabeth Champney
7. Feeding Chickens, oil on canvas, James Wells Champney
8. The Poppy Garden, James Wells Champney
9. Mount Pisgah from The Great South, illustration by James Wells Champney



239 of Champney’s sketches from The Great South trip are housed at the Lilly Library Manuscript Collection, Indiana University.

Finally, a passage from The Great South, in which Edward King describes their mode of travel:

It is sometimes said that Western North Carolina is shaped like a bow, of which the Blue Ridge would form the arc, and the Smoky mountains the string. Within this semicircle our little party, now and then increased by the advent of citizens of the various counties, who came to journey with us from point to point, traveled about 600 miles on horse-back, now sleeping at night in the lowly cabins, and sharing the rough fare of the mountaineers, now entering the towns and finding the mansions of the wealthier classes freely opened to us. Up at dawn, and away over hill and dale; now clambering miles among the forests to look at some new mine; now spurring our horses to reach shelter long after night had shrouded the roadways, we met with unvarying courtesy and unbounded welcome.

Addendum

If I ever write a book entitled "The Most Interesting People I Never Met," James Wells Champney will definitely merit a chapter.

His superb artistry is evident in several more of my favorite illustrations from The Great South, (and especially his depiction of Dry Falls, on the Cullasaja River):

On This Date: Prophets and Patriots

Prophets

From the Springplace Diaries. at the time of the Cherokee Ghost Dance Movement. Springplace Mission was located in northwest Georgia in the Cherokee Nation:

 February 23, 1812 . . . toward evening the wife of Mr. Charles Hicks [prominent Cherokee leader Charles R. Hicks, 1767-1827] ...brought us a very pleasing letter from him in which he wrote among other things: "The present is a very strange point in time. May God in his great mercy prepare us for the life to come. The people in my neighborhood are deeply disturbed because of the earthquakes, and I believe that fear and terror have spread through the whole Nation. How else could it be? Do not these belong to the signs which are to come to pass before the [last] great day? . . . "

Mr. [David] McNair [a white man living in Tennessee, married to a Cherokee] came in the evening and spent the night here. Again we heard much about dreams and false prophets. May God have mercy. There is at the present time a real tumult in the Nation and a dark, heavy feeling. . . . It is unbelievable to what kind of foolish fables the blinded heathen will give hearing.

During these days the residents of one town fled into the hills and tried to crawl into hiding in the holes of the rocks in order to escape the danger of the hail stones the size of half bushels, which were to fall on a certain day. As the stated terrible day passed without hail, they came back to their dwelling places, ready and willing to believe every new deceiver.

Patriots

During the Civil War, Lieutenant W. B. Ferguson served in Company E, 29th Regiment whose members were from Haywood County, NC and were serving in east Tennessee at the time of the letter. From Davis, Civil War Letters and Memories from the Great Smoky Mountains.:

February 23, 1863

Dear Father and Mother,

I can inform you that I am in reasonable health, for which I feel very thankful to the "great perserver." I am very desirous to hear from you. I have not had a letter from home for these two months. I’d think you might write to me oftener than you have done. 

Wrote you by Capt. Teague and have received no answer. The Capt. has not yet returned. It seems that when any of our men or officers get off home, that they take care not to return. 

Neither do as the law and general orders direct, consequently I have had to drop twenty enlisted men from our company, from the roll in disgrace and I am ordered to have these names published as deserters, how mortifing this is to me.

I hear that brother Robert has deserted his command. If he but knew how little every true patriot think of such conduct, he would return immediately and try and reprieve his character by future mysterious conduct for his country’s sake for his own and for heavens sake and for the sake of his friends. 

Have him return at once.

No one is more ancious to visit him and friends than I. But before I would dishonor myself and family and kin by deserting my colors, comrades and country’s cause, I would suffer even death before dishonor. How acceptable due leave of absence from camp would be, that I might visit you my kind and bereft parents. 

My great desire is and has been to live and see the present national difficulties over and peace and prosperity prevail throughout the whole land, so I can enjoy home and friends no one to disturb my quietetude.

God has been merciful to our family. But how great the wickedness of soldiers. How sinful I have been due to my soldier life. It mortifies me to think of my profanity and wickedness, such as the evils and temptations that I do wrong, while conscience thunderous remorse. Oh how I crave the congenial influence of home and friends that nurture a better feeling than that which naturally prevades the soldier’s heart. There is nothing in the profession of arms but what is revolting to the noble heart and mind.

But they would have it so. The North has forced this war upon us. Now we drink the bitter drugs of revelation, starving for National peace, may it soon be won. May the time hasten when we strike our tents, deposit our arms and return home to enjoy the book of liberty.

- W.B. Ferguson

Old Names for the French Broad

 [From February 18, 2009]

I like lists and, recently, I discovered an intriguing list from the U. S. Board on Geographic Names. According to this most official of official sources, these are the variant names for the French Broad River:

Agiqua

Broad River
John Frenchs Broad River

Poe-li-co
Satica
Tah-Kee-os-Kee
Tah-kee-os-kee

Tah-kee-os-tee
Tokeeostee
Tokeostee
Zillicoah

Charles Skinner, in Myths and Legends of our Own Land (1896) refers to the river by another of its old names, the Tselica:

Among the rocks east of Asheville, North Carolina, lives the Lorelei of the French Broad River. This stream—the Tselica of the Indians—contains in its upper reaches many pools where the rapid water whirls and deepens, and where the traveller likes to pause in the heats of afternoon and drink and bathe. Here, from the time when the Cherokees occupied the country, has lived the siren, and if one who is weary and downcast sits beside the stream or utters a wish to rest in it, he becomes conscious of a soft and exquisite music blending with the plash of the wave.

Looking down in surprise he sees—at first faintly, then with distinctness—the form of a beautiful woman, with hair streaming like moss and dark eyes looking into his, luring him with a power he cannot resist. His breath grows short, his gaze is fixed, mechanically he rises, steps to the brink, and lurches forward into the river. The arms that catch him are slimy and cold as serpents; the face that stares into his is a grinning skull. A loud, chattering laugh rings through the wilderness, and all is still again.

On This Date: Shoeboot and Big Bear

From the Springplace Diaries. Springplace was a Moravian mission located in Cherokee territory just west of the present day town of Chatsworth, GA. The New Madrid Earthquake of December 1811 was felt in this region, and interpreted by some Native Americans as a message from God.

February 17, 1812: The Shoeboot [Chulioa], confessed his perplexity in regard to the unusual earthquakes here in the land and said in a very emphatic way that many Indians believe that the white people were responsible because they had already taken possession of so much of the Indian land and wanted still more. 

God was angry because of that and He wanted to put an end to it through the earthquakes. This much was believed by all the Indians that God was causing the earthquakes. We then let our understanding be told and asked them to pray very diligently the publican’s prayer, "God be merciful to me, a sinner."

In reply, the other one, called Big Bear, said, "I should also like to tell something as I should like to know what you think about it. Soon after the earth had trembled so for the first time, an Indian was sitting in his house in deep thought, and his children were lying sick in front of the fire.

 At that point a tall man, clothed entirely in the foliage of the trees, with a wreath of the same foliage on his head, who was carrying a small child in his arm and had a larger child by the hand, said to him, ‘The small child on his [my] arm is God. 

I am not able to tell you now whether God will soon destroy the earth or not. But God is not pleased that the Indians have sold so much land to the white people. Tugalo, which is now possessed by white people, is the first place which God created. There in a hill he placed the first fire, for all fire comes from God.

Now the white people have built a house on that hill. They should abandon the place; on that hill there should be grass growing, only then will there be peace. And the Indians no longer thank God before they enjoy first fruits of the land. They are no longer organizing, as was formerly the custom, dances in his honor before they eat the first pumpkins, etc. 

Furthermore,’ the messenger said to the Indian, ‘You are sad because you think your children are ill; they are really not ill, but have only taken in a little dust.’ 

Thereupon he gave him two small pieces of bark from a certain tree, which he also named, and told him to cook them and to give the drink to his children, and from that they became well right then. He then also told him about other remedies for use during illnesses and at the end he said he would now take God back home."

During this silly narration, the Indian looked so solemn as if he were really proclaiming God’s will and word. 

We told him that we are no judges of such visions nor do we get involved in such things. We adhere to God’s word and in that his will is clear. It is good to thank God for his gifts, but we wish with all our hearts that the poor Indians might really learn to know Him in his great love and might honor and love Him truly. 

"That is well said," said Big Bear. "Yes," said Shoeboot, "The white people know God from the Book and we, from other things." 

He said further, "I love you; I have never heard anything bad about you. But there are also very bad white people." 

In which we agreed with him.

Illustrating the Mountains (Part 4 of 4)

 [From March 3, 2009]

It overlooks a country of peaks and projections, of frightful precipices, often of naked rock, but generally fringed with delicate foliage; a country dotted with fertile clearings set down in the midst of forests; of valleys inaccessible save by narrow passes; of curious caves and tangled trails; of buttes and knobs, reached only by dangerous passes, where one finds the bluff's base thousands of feet down in some nook, and as he looks up sees the wall towering far above him.
-Edward King, 1875



I opened up the Heart of the Alleghenies and saw this mountain with the curious name, "UNAKA-KANOOS."

The authors (Zeigler and Grosscup) of the 1883 book on Western North Carolina explained:

… we came out before the massive front of a peculiar mountain. Whiteside, or in literal translation of the Cherokee title, Unaka-kanoos, White-mountain, is the largest exposure of perpendicular, bare rock east of the Rockies. It is connected, without deeply-marked intervening gaps, with its neighboring peaks of the Blue Ridge; but from some points of observation it appears isolated—a majestic, solitary, dome-shaped monument, differing from all other mountains of the Alleghanies in its aspect and form.




I don't know much about the artists who created these illustrations of Whiteside Mountain. James Wells Champney did much of the art for The Great South (1875), where the pictures of Devil’s Courthouse and the edge of the abyss appeared. The page with two views of the mountain was from the Harper’s article, By-paths in the Mountains, by Rebecca Harding Davis (1880).





In The Great South, Edward King shares a story told while he was atop Whiteside Mountain:

"One day," said the Surveyor, seating himself with admirable carelessness on the dreadful slope of a rock overhanging the awful depths, "I was taking some levels below, and at last thought I would climb Whiteside. While I was coming up a storm passed over the mountains, and when I reached the top everything was hidden in such a dense mist, fog, or cloud, that one could hardly see his hand before his face. I strolled on until I reached a spot which I thought I recognized, and sat down, stretching my feet carelessly.

"Luckily enough, I didn't move; I was mighty still, for I was tired, and the fog was solemn-like; but pretty soon it blew away right smart, and dog my skin if I wasn't perched on the very outer edge of this line of rock, and about two inches between me and twelve hundred feet of sheer fall.

"I saw the trees in Cashier's valley, and the clearings, and then the sky, for I didn't look twice at the fall below me; but I flattened myself against the rock, and turned over; and I never want to come up here in a fog again."

Imagine a waterfall 2,000 feet high suddenly turned to stone, and you have the general effect of the Whiteside precipice as seen in the single, terrified, reluctant glance which you give from the top. There is the curve and the grand, dizzy bend downward; were it not for occasional clumps of foliage down the sides, the resemblance would be absolute.

The mountain itself lies rooted in the western slope of the Blue Ridge. [Silas] McDowell has compared it to the carcass of some great monster, upon whose head you climb, and along whose mammoth spine you wander, giddy with terror each time you gaze over the skeleton sides.




Edward King imagined the future of the Cashiers Valley and Whiteside Mountain:

The wealthy citizens of South Carolina have long known of the charms of this section, and many of them annually visit it. In a few years its wildness will be tamed; a summer hotel will doubtless stand on the site of "Wright's" farm-house, and the lovely forests will be penetrated by carriage roads; steps will be cut along the ribs of Whiteside; and a shelter will be erected on the very summit. A storm on the vast rock, with the lightning playing hide and seek in the crevices of the precipice, is an experience which gives one an enlarged idea of the powers of Heaven.




For good measure I’ve included a few postcards showing how the portrayal of the Unaka-kanoos has changed over time. The first color postcard of Whiteside (with the river in the foreground) was published before 1908.

Tracking Down Track Rock

[From February 8, 2011]

I try to do my homework before setting out to explore new places. Sometimes, though, that is simply not possible. While wandering the back roads of North Georgia in that enchanted triangle bounded by Clayton, Cleveland and Blairsville, I saw a sign for Trackrock Road.



I remembered a reference to Track Rock in John Muir’s account of his thousand-mile walk to the Gulf in 1867, and I knew that ethnologist James Mooney had visited the site in the 1880s. I figured the odds were in my favor that Trackrock Road would lead to the Track Rock of Muir and Mooney.

Sure enough, the parking area for the Track Rock archaeological site was easy to find, just before a gap in a long ridge. From the parking area, it was a very short walk through the woods to a cluster of boulders bearing some familiar markings. I say familiar because they looked very similar to the petroglyphs on Judaculla Rock near Cullowhee.

The Forest Service has done a nice job of interpreting the site, complete with a whole series of bronze plaques explaining the little that is known about the Georgia petroglyphs, which are estimated to be a thousand years old. More information, including technical details of the archaeological work conducted at Track Rock, is available online at the USFS site, which even mentions Judaculla:

The earliest known reference to the Track Rock petroglyphs dates back to the late eighteenth century. At a town located in a river valley somewhere in the North Carolina and Georgia region a purification ritual was being conducted in which Indians from the town prepared to be adopted by Judaculla, an invisible man who has taken a wife from one of the town’s women. Unfortunately for the townspeople, a shout by two anxious warriors interfered with the ritual and made it impossible for them to join Judaculla in his mountain top townhouse. Because Judaculla’s parents-in-law managed to properly fast and pray, they became the only two townspeople qualified to visit his mountain top townhouse. On their way to Judaculla’s abode, near Brasstown in north Georgia, the parents-in-law “made the tracks in the rocks which are to be seen there” (Haywood 1823:280). Haywood states that the “tracks in the rocks” in this instance refer to Track Rock. Judaculla, who is also known as Tsulkâlû′,or “Master of the Game”, is a giant who came from the land of the dead spirits in the west to visit the Cherokees, stayed a while as a friend and helper, and departed west again. The markings in the rock may well have served as a warning to people that they were approaching a sacred or dangerous area. Judaculla did not like people to approach his abode.

As soon as I got home from Track Rock, I consulted John Muir and discovered he had not made it to Track Rock, although he passed nearby on his southbound route to Mount Yonah. Instead, someone Muir met in Tennessee had urged him to add Track Rock to his itinerary:

Was told by my worthy entertainer of a wondrous gap in the mountains which he advised me to see. "It is called Track Gap," said he, "from the great number of tracks in the rocks — bird tracks, bar tracks, hoss tracks, men tracks, all in the solid rock as if it had been mud."

Charles Lanman did make it to Track Rock and wrote about it in the ever-enjoyable Letters From the Alleghany Mountains:

Logan's Plantation, Georgia, April, 1848.

During my stay at Dahlonega I heard a good deal said about a native wonder, called " Track Rock," which was reported to be some thirty miles off, on the northwestern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. On revolving the information in my mind, I concluded that this rock was identical with one which had been mentioned to me by Professor James Jackson, of the University of Georgia, and I also remembered that the Professor had shown me a specimen of the rock he alluded to, which contained the imprint or impression of a human foot. My curiosity was of course excited, and I resolved to visit the natural or artificial wonder. I made the pilgrimage on foot, and what I saw and heard of peculiar interest on the occasion the reader will find recorded in the present letter.

In accomplishing the trip to " Track Rock " and back again to this place I was two days. On the first day I walked only twenty miles, having tarried occasionally to take a pencil sketch or hear the birds, as they actually filled the air with melody. My course lay over a very uneven country, which was entirely uncultivated, excepting some half dozen quiet vales, which presented a cheerful appearance. The woods were generally composed of oak and chestnut, and destitute to a considerable extent of undergrowth; the soil was composed of clay and sand, and apparently fertile; and clear sparkling brooks intersected the country, and were the first that I had seen in Georgia. I had a number of extensive mountain views, which were more beautiful than imposing; and among the birds that attracted my attention were the red-bird, mocking-bird, quail, lark, poke, woodpecker, jay, king-bird, crow, bluebird, and dove, together with a large black-bird, having a red head, (apparently of the woodpecker genus,) and another smaller bird, whose back was of a rich black, breast a bright brown, with an occasional white feather in its wing, which I fancied to be a species of robin. Since these were my companions, it may be readily imagined that" pleasantly the hours of Thalaba went by."

I spent the night at a place called " Tesantee Gap," in the cabin of a poor farmer, where I was most hospitably entertained. My host had a family of nine sons and three daughters, not one of whom had ever been out of the wilderness region of Georgia. Though the father was a very intelligent man by nature, he told me that he had received no education, and could hardly read a chapter in the Bible. He informed me, too, that his children were but little better informed, and seemed deeply to regret his inability to give them the schooling which he felt they needed. " I have always desired," said he, "that I could live on some public road, so that my girls might occasionally see a civilized man, since it is fated that they will, never meet with them in society." I felt sorry for the worthy man, and endeavored to direct his attention from himself to the surrounding country. He told me the mountains were susceptible of cultivation even to their summits, and that the principal productions of his farm were corn, wheat, rye, and potatoes; also, that the country abounded in game, such as deer, turkeys, and bears, and an occasional panther. Some of the mountains, he said, were covered with hickory, and a peculiar kind of oak, and that on said mountains gray squirrels were very abundant. The streams, he informed me, were well supplied with large minnows, by which I afterwards ascertained he meant the brook trout.

While conversing with my old friend, an hour or so before sunset, we were startled by the baying of his hounds, and on looking up the narrow road running by his home, we saw a fine-looking doe coming towards us on the run. In its terror the poor creature made a sudden turn, and scaling a garden fence was overtaken by the dogs on a spot near which the wife of my host was planting seeds, when she immediately seized a bean-pole, and by a single blow deprived the doe of life. In a very few moments her husband was on the ground, and, having put his knife to the throat of the animal, the twain re-entered their dwelling, as if nothing had happened out of the common order of events. This was the first deer that I ever knew to be killed by a woman. When I took occasion to compliment the dogs of my old friend, he said that one of them was a " powerful runner; for he had known him to follow a deer for three days and three nights." Having in view my future rambles among the mountains, I questioned my companion about the snakes of this region, and, after remarking that :hey were " very plenty," he continued as follows : " But of all the snake stories you ever heard tell of, I do not believe you ever heard of a snake fight. I saw one, Monday was a week, between a black-racer and a rattlesnake. It was in the road, about a mile from here, and when I saw them the racer had the other by the back of the head, and was coiling his body all around him, as if to squeeze him to death. The scuffle was pretty severe, but the racer soon killed the fellow with rattles, and I killed the racer. It was a queer scrape, and I reckon you do not often see the like in your country."

I should have obtained some more mites of information from my host had not a broken tooth commenced aching, and hurried me off to bed.

I left the habitation of my mountain friend immediately after breakfast the following morning, and " ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more."

On the following day I passed through the Blue Ridge, and visited the Mecca of my pilgrimage, and was—disappointed. I was piloted to it by a neighboring mountaineer, who remarked, " This is Track Rock, and it's no great shakes after all." I found it occupying an unobtrusive place by the road side. It is of an irregular form and quite smooth, rises gradually from the ground to the height of perhaps three feet, and is about twenty feet long by the most liberal measurement. It is evidently covered with a great variety of tracks, including those of men, bears or dogs, and turkeys, together with indistinct impressions of a man's hand. Some of the impressions are half an inch thick, while many of them appear to be almost entirely effaced. The rock seemed to be a species of slate-colored soapstone. The conclusion to which I have arrived, after careful examination, is as follows : This rock is located on what was once an Indian trail, and, having been used by the Cherokees as a resting place, it was probably their own ingenuity which conceived and executed the characters which now puzzle the philosophy of many men. The scenery about Track Rock is not remarkable for its grandeur, though you can hardly turn the eye in any direction without beholding an agreeable mountain landscape. In returning through Tesantee Gap and the valley below, 1 met with no adventures worth recording, and will therefore conclude my present epistle with a paragraph concerning the plantation where I am now tarrying.

The proprietor is an intelligent and worthy gentleman, who is reputed to be the nabob of this region. He acquired a portion of his wealth by digging gold, but is now chiefly devoting himself to agriculture. He complains of the little advancement which the people of Northern Georgia are making in the arts of husbandry, and thinks that it would be much better for the State if the people could be persuaded to follow the plough, instead of wasting their time and money in searching for gold, which metal, he seems to think, is nearly exhausted in this section of country. Among the curious things which I have seen under his roof, is a small but choice collection of minerals, fossil remains, and Indian relics, belonging to his eldest son. Among the latter may be mentioned a heavy stone pipe, made in imitation of a duck, which was found in Macon county, North Carolina, fifteen feet below the surface; and also a small cup, similar to a crucible, and made of an unknown earthy material, which was found in this county about nine feet below the surface, and directly under a large tree. But the mail boy's horn is blowing and I must close.

James Mooney visited the site and reviewed the literature that had attempted to explain the Track Rock. From Myths of the Cherokee:

TRACK ROCK GAP: A gap about 5 miles east of Blairsville, in Union county, on the ridge separating Brasstown creek from the waters of Nottely river. The micaceous soapstone, rocks on both sides of the trail are covered with petroglyphs, from which the gap takes its name. The Cherokee call the place Datsu'nalâsgûñ'yï, "Where there are tracks," or Degayelûñ'hä, "Printed i.e. Branded place." The carvings are of many and various patterns, some of them resembling human or animal footprints, while others are squares, crosses, circles, "bird tracks," etc., disposed without any apparent order. On the authority of a Doctor Stevenson, writing in 1834, White (Historical Collections of Georgia, p. 658, 1855), and after him Jones (Antiquities of the Southern Indians, 1873), give a misleading and greatly exaggerated account of these carvings, without having taken the trouble to investigate for themselves, although the spot is easily accessible. No effort, either state or local, is made to preserve the pictographs from destruction, and many of the finest have been cut out from the rock and carried off by vandals, Stevenson himself being among the number, by his own confession. The illustration (plate xx) is from a rough sketch made by the author in 1890.



The Cherokee have various theories to account for the origin of the carvings, the more sensible Indians saying that they were made by hunters for their own amusement while resting in the gap. Another tradition is that they were made while the surface of the newly created earth was still soft by a great army of birds and animals fleeing through the gap to escape some pursuing danger from the west--some say a great "drive hunt" of the Indians. Haywood confounds them with other petroglyphs in North Carolina connected with the story of the giant Tsul`kälû'. [Judaculla]

The following florid account of the carvings and ostensible Indian tradition of their origin is from White, on the authority of Stevenson:

The number visible or defined is 136, some of them quite natural and perfect, and others rather rude imitations, and most of them from the effects of time have become more or less obliterated. They comprise human feet from those 4 inches in length to those of great warriors which measure 17½ inches in length and 7¾ in breadth across the toes. What is a little curious, all the human feet are natural except this, which has 6 toes, proving him to have been a descendant of Titan. There are 26 of these impressions, all bare except one, which has the appearance of having worn moccasins. A fine turned hand, rather delicate, occupied a place near the great warrior, and probably the impression of his wife's hand, who no doubt accompanied her husband in all his excursions, sharing his toils and soothing his cares away. Many horse tracks are to be seen. One seems to have been shod, some are very small, and one measures 12½ inches by 9½ inches. This the Cherokee say was the footprint of the great war horse which their chieftain rode. The tracks of a great many turkeys, turtles, terrapins, a large bear's paw, a snake's trail, and the footprints of two deer are to be seen. 

The tradition respecting these impressions varies. One asserts that the world was once deluged with water, and men with all animated beings were destroyed, except one family, together with various animals necessary to replenish the earth; that the Great Spirit before the floods came, commanded them to embark in a big canoe, which after long sailing was drawn to this spot by a bevy of swans and rested there, and here the whole troop of animals was disembarked, leaving the impressions as they passed over the rock, which being softened by reason of long submersion kindly received and preserved them. 

Return to the Magnificent Forest

 [From February 7, 2009]

Photograph by Margaret Morley

When you start to consider big trees, the story can go in any number of directions.

Around here, with some effort, it’s possible to find a few big trees that give an inkling (and only that) of what the forests used to be. Some of those giants, like the hemlocks up Caldwell Fork in Cataloochee are ailing and won’t be around much longer.

Today, as I consider the big trees, I think back to the 1850s. No issue dominated the newspapers of Western North Carolina as did the highly anticipated coming of the railroad. It represented Progress, a Brighter Future. Mountain farmers would find new markets for their produce. That was the hope and promise.

But in all the hype of those days, I don’t recall any predictions of northern capitalists coming to the mountains to harvest the forest giants. Of course, with the eventual arrival of the railroads in the 1880s, large-scale logging became feasible…and brought unimaginable changes to the forests.

Then, as now, people were incapable of foreseeing the toll of Progress.

So, I’m grateful for those who took the time to describe the big trees, giving us a way to return to those magical forests.

Henry Seidel Canby spent some time exploring the area around Cherokee and, in 1916, published an article in Harper’s Magazine:

Indians and white mountaineers alike have an affectionate regard for their forests that I have not found in the North. They regard with a certain melancholy the invasion of the lumbermen, who, since my first visit fourteen years ago, have hacked their way to the top of the Balsams, and peeled off great areas of spruce. Being human, they do not despise the money that comes into the country, but they deplore the slaughter of the forests. North Carolina is better forested, more beautifully forested, than any other part of the Appalachian; nevertheless, the choppers have already culled the more accessible woodlands, and have gone far upon a more ruinous destruction.

"Seems as if they jes' nat'rally t'ar up everything," was our sheep-herder's comment.

"Soon thar'll be no more big woods," said the Cherokee at Lane Tatem's. But the valley folk cling to their forest lands. I know one who keeps fifty acres of virgin forest at his back door, because "my spring's right thar, an' a man cain't live right without a spring." When we asked of white or Indian where we might still find "big poplars," they were eager to direct us, regretful that there were so few left to find.

Our best information led us up the Oconolufta through the Cherokee nation, and on toward the main line of the Smokies, where they tower up well above six thousand feet into Mt. Guyot. We chose the Straight Fork of the river, for on it lie the twenty-five thousand acres of land sold but lately by the Indians, and still untouched by the lumberman, the finest forest, I am told, in North Carolina; if so, one of the finest in the world….

It was glorious riding, but difficult. Our road clung to one side of the narrow mountain rift where Magee and his sons had scraped a patch here and there for corn or sorghum. Beside us the Lufty shouted over its boulders. Above was a deep jade wall of rhododendron, then towering hemlocks beneath a cliff of waving hardwoods, oaks or chestnuts, until far above one saw through some cleft the faint spires of balsam near the top of Cataloochee. I remembered that I had seen such rhododendron hanging its candelabra of flowers over the mountain torrents in July, and regretted for a moment our September. But we rode through goldenrod as high as our saddles and beds of turquoise aster.

The air was crisp and cool, while beneath the hemlocks and among the rhododendron garnet maple-leaves and crimson sorrel burned in the sunlight. Perhaps there are still many groups of tulip-trees such as we found at last in Round Bottom, but I cannot learn of them. One other grove almost as fine I have seen, but now there are only stumps to show what once could be viewed there. And the tulip-tree-or yellow poplar, as it is more familiarly known-is of course no rarity like the sequoia, which among all trees that I know, at its best, it most resembles. True, like the sequoia again, it is the last of its genus; but once it was abundant everywhere in its Appalachian range; it is still common in our forests; but not at its best, not at all as it grows upon the Oconolufta.

We rode up Straight Fork through a sun-spangled grove of chestnuts, then left the trail to Cataloochee, splashed noisily across green water, burst horse and man through a screen of rhododendron, and entered the dark forest. It was an open forest beneath its high roof. The eye went freely once we were past the door of rhododendron, and at first, in intervals of guiding our scrambling horses, we looked vainly for the poplars. Hemlock shafts, oak bolls aplenty; and then on the upper slope I saw the first, a smooth tower, its head lost above the leafage, and beyond another, and below in the hemlocks a group of four, like cathedral piers beyond the pillars of a nave.

We rode to the first in view. Twenty-one feet in circumference, it rose massively for seventy feet perhaps without a branch; how much above one could not tell in that forest. For as in the redwood groves of California, so here, the eye can seldom take in a whole tree when in its forest setting, the camera never. Indeed, the habit of the great poplar is curiously like that of the giant sequoia. Like the sequoia it rises above lesser neighbors, and flings from the capital of its great trunk a crown of heavy limbs that turn and lift nobly above the forest roof. From an opposing hillside you can pick out these crowns of light-green foliage above the oaks and chestnuts, just as across a Sierra canon one sees the sequoias lift above spruce and fir. Only these two trees, in my experience, have this regal habit. And if the sequoia is vaster, it is less graceful.

As our eyes grew more accustomed to the green shade of Round Bottom, we saw that they were all about us, some springing from the rhododendron of the stream-bed until they had overtopped the hemlocks, some high up on the hillside catching the sunlight on smooth, mossy trunks. And everywhere beneath, clear, gold-lit spaces, and above, through rifts in the foliage, glimpses of great arms rising higher into the blue air above the forest.

Some day I hope to see an Eastern forest like this one not already marked for destruction. But I am not hopeful. There are few left now, and it is nearly too late to save them. Already surveyors are at work on the Oconolufta, and rails are waiting somewhere for the narrow gauge down which the last of the Indian poplars will trundle to oblivion. Surely if California can afford five forests of sequoia, we Easterners might have indulged ourselves with one such tulip cove! I have seen both, and really, if a choice between sequoia grove and tulip bottom should lie before me tomorrow, I should be torn. The one is grander; but the other is our well beloved woods of the Appalachians raised to a power which they never again will attain.

Twenty-five thousand acres, of which Round Bottom is, of course, the most valuable part, the Cherokees refused to lease to the government. The "council," a mysterious central power of varying judgment, was responsible. Then it was sold, or seized-the stories are conflicting-at seven dollars an acre!

When I heard this I lost my temper. A thousand dollars an acre scarcely represents what this tulip grove above the rhododendrons of Oconolufta might be worth – unlumbered - in pleasure and in cash to a more far-sighted generation. We splashed back through the river. At a steep cliff's edge, above a turn in the valley, we stopped our horses and looked up the verdurous canon, past the dark hemlock tops of the stream-line, past the green slopes with their giant arms uplifted, to where a mountain rose, ridge on ridge to a black wall dimly pricked with tiny pinnacles along its crest. "Hit's top o’ Smoky," said the mountaineer, and the Indian assented.

Once before and farther westward I had left the hardwoods behind, climbed through the spruce where its dense columns crowd up through rhododendron higher than horse and rider, and come out upon that distant line where Carolina meets Tennessee. I had watched the ravens sailing below, heard snowbirds in the bushes, and seen where bears had sharpened their claws upon trees by the trailside. But this time it seemed better to leave the black crest a distant goal beyond the valley.

Illustrating the Mountains (Part 3 of 4)

 [From January 13, 2009]

Toccoa Falls, Georgia was a favorite subject for writers and illustrators employed by the popular magazines of the nineteenth century and I've turned up a surprising number of engravings published during that era.






One descriptive passage on Toccoa Falls and nearby Table Rock in South Carolina appeared as early as 1816 and was reprinted in many other books during the following decades:

It is very surprising that two of the greatest natural curiosities in the world, are within the United States, and yet scarcely known to the best informed of our geographers and naturalists. The one is a beautiful water-fall, in Franklin county, Georgia; the other, a stupendous precipice in Pendleton district, South Carolina; they are both faintly mentioned in the late edition of Morse's geography, but not as they merit. The Tuccoa fall is much higher than the falls of Niagara. The column of water is propelled beautifully over a perpendicular rock, and when the stream is full, it passes down the steep without being broken. All the prismatic effect seen at Niagara, illustrates the spray of Tuccoa.

The Table mountain in Pendleton district, South Carolina, is an awful precipice of 900 feet. Many persons reside within five, seven, or ten miles of this grand spectacle, who have never had the curiosity to visit it. It is now however occasionally visited by curious travellers and sometimes by men of science. Very few persons who have once passed a glimpse into-the almost boundless abyss, can again exercise sufficient fortitude, to approach the margin of the chasm.





Almost everyone, on looking over, involuntarily falls to the ground senseless, nerveless, and helpless; and would inevitably be precipitated, and dashed to atoms, were it not for the measures of caution and security, that have always been deemed indispensable to a safe indulgence of the curiosity of the visitor or spectator. Every one on proceeding to the spot, whence it is usual to gaze over the wonderful deep, has in his imagination a limitation, graduated by a reference to distances with which his eye has been familiar.

But in a moment, eternity, as it were, is presented to his astounded senses; and he is instantly overwhelmed. His whole system is no longer subject to his volition or his reason, and he falls like a mass of lead, obedient only to the common laws of mere matter. He then revives, and in a wild delirium surveys a scene, which for a while he is unable to define by description or limitation.

How strange is it that the Tuccoa falls and Table Mountain, are not more familiar to Americans! Either of them would distinguish any state or empire in Europe

I haven't been to Table Rock, but however entertaining the scenery itself might be...watching those who are watching the scenery would be even more entertaining...people involuntarily falling to the ground in a state of wild delirium!




In the era before landscape photography gained prominence, these engravings of Toccoa Falls and Table Rock were among the first views of the Southern Appalachians for many outsiders. Writers were eager to craft their own word pictures in the florid style of the period. In her Journal of a Tour in the United States, Canada and Mexico, Winefred, Lady Howard of Glossop, recounted a four-mile carriage ride from Toccoa to the falls on the bitterly cold afternoon of December 29, 1894:

I got out to walk, or rather scramble, along a path over great boulders covered with green-gold lichens and moss, the ground one sheet of snow-ice, shadowed by solemn ilexes and pines, skirting the river, till I reached a quite open space with semicircular background of vertical cliffs, 185 feet high, pine-crowned, glistening with huge, pendent, fantastic icicles—the Falls in the centre gracefully floating rather than falling in loveliest fairy-like clouds and wreaths of misty foam down the shining ice-wall on to a dazzling snow-heap of frosted silver: then winding their way into deep emerald- green whirling pools hemmed round by green-gold velvety rocks ice-bound—the whole glittering magical scene lighted into a glory of radiance by the scarlet and gold of sunset!

The cold was intense, and at last, rapidly turning into a pillar of ice, I tore myself away, and we drove back to the Hotel Simpson, where I spent a very pleasant evening in the warm little cosy parlour with my kind and agreeable hosts…





I’ll close with some verse composed by Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch (1809-1870) and published in 1834.

LINES
WRITTEN AT TOCCOA FALLS, GEORGIA.

Hail, loveliest, purest scene!
How brightly mingling with the clear, blue sky,
Thy glancing wave arrests the upward eye,
Through thy grove's leafy screen.

Through thy transparent veil,
And wide around thee, Nature's grandest forms,
Rocks, built for ages to abide the storms,
Frown on the subject dale.

Fed by thy rapid stream,
In every crevice of that savage pile,
The living herbs in quiet beauty smile,
Lit by the sunny gleam.

And over all, that gush
Of rain-drops, sparkling to the noonday sun!
While ages round thee on their course have run,
Ceaseless thy waters rush.

I would not that the bow
With gorgeous hues should light thy virgin stream;
Better thy white and sun-lit foam should gleam
Thus, like unsullied snow.

Yes! thou hast seen the woods
Around, for centuries rise, decay, and die,
While thou hast poured thy endless current by,
To join the eternal floods.

The ages pass away,
Successive nations rise, and are forgot,
But on thy brilliant course thou pausest not,
'Mid thine unchanging spray.

When I have sunk to rest—
Thus wilt thou pass in calm sublimity,
Then be thy power to others, as to me,
On the deep soul impressed.

Here does a spirit dwell
Of gratitude, and contemplation high;
Holding deep union with eternity.-^
0 loveliest scene, farewell!