A Troubadour Tramps Through the Mountains (Part 1 of 3)

This lengthy compilation remains one of my favorite research/writing projects.  It began when I discovered the account of an eccentric poet who walked across the Southern Appalachians in the spring of 1906.  Although Vachel Lindsay's literary stature has eroded with time,  the highs and lows of his life story, and especially his dusty hike through the mountains of Georgia and North Carolina, continue to haunt me.  I think Lindsay never found his place in the world.  But how many of us can say that we have? 

His enthusiastic declamations baffled most people, and his fervent efforts to share a philosophy of beauty met with indifference, if not hostility.  Now and then, his flamboyant performances of spoken/chanted/sung verse did attract some appreciative audiences.  The chasm was deep and wide, though, between the world as he imagined it could be and the world as it is.

When first presented in October 2010,  "Troubadour" had 18 meandering installments.  I've rolled those into three parts for re-publication here.

I

Well, now. Here’s a story worth telling, though I’ll admit I’m not sure how to tell it.

The poet Vachel Lindsay came to Jackson County (NC) in 1906. A twenty-six-year-old native of Springfield, Illinois, he was walking across the country to spread a message of hope that he called “the gospel of beauty.”


Vachel Lindsay (1879-1932)

I learned about his journey after happening upon his account of a visit to Tallulah Gorge, Georgia. From Tallulah, he walked north to Highlands, Cashiers, Asheville and on to Tennessee.

While I remembered his name, that was about all that I could recall of Vachel Lindsay from my college days. So I went back and took my old copy of American Lit, Volume Two from the shelf to get reacquainted. The editors of that text lumped him in with Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg and Edward Arlington Robinson as poets who “recreate in serious poetry the extravagant humor of the old West or the dry humor of Down East.”

Later anthologies of American literature, or at least the ones I checked, had dropped Lindsay, and I can understand why the literary establishment has forgotten him with the passage of time. Reading his words on the printed page, I was not particularly impressed.

That misses the point, though. Lindsay did not write his poems for the eye, but for the ear, and became known as “The Father of Singing Poetry” and “The Prairie Troubadour.” Vachel Lindsay would not so much read as chant his poems for an audience. Some editions of his poems even include Lindsay’s instructions on how they should be delivered:

To be chanted in deep bass, all the heavy accents very heavy.

To be read slowly and softly in the manner of insinuating music, all the -o- sounds very golden.

Vachel Lindsay had attended the Art Institute of Chicago before going to New York City where he was a self-styled troubadour, selling his poems on the streets and bartering his pamphlet, Rhymes to Be Traded for Bread, in exchange for food.

Edgar Lee  Masters, author of Spoon River Anthology, wrote a biography of Lindsay.  He describes the point at which Lindsay decided to leave New York:

Lindsay abhorred the tyranny of convention, and loved the freedom of the untrammeled life as much as Whitman, almost as much as Johnny Appleseed….

He mixed with Jesus of Nazareth a lasting reverence for Prince Siddartha and for Confucius; and his mysticism led him to Swendenborg and kept him there as long as he lived…

He was willing to starve, but not to be shackled to business, to the system which standardizes the lives of the young and uses them as it does any other raw material. These resolutions were aided by the fact that there was scarcely anything of a practical nature that he could do.

On March 8, 1906, Vachel Lindsay got off a boat on the banks of the St. John’s River in Florida and started walking. We’re doubly fortunate that the story of trip, including his time in North Carolina, is told in Lindsay’s own A Handbook for Beggars, while the same trip is detailed in Master’s book, Vachel Lindsay: A Poet in America.


Edgar Lee Masters (1869-1950)

After a quick perusal of his early works I was inclined to be dismissive of Vachel Lindsay’s poetry, but learning more him and what he was trying to accomplish, I've adopted a more generous attitude.

I’m still not sure how to tell this story, except to say it might take a while. I can already foresee rabbit trails veering off in every direction.

For now, here’s how Lindsay dedicated his book about the trip that brought him through Cashiers Valley:

THERE are one hundred new poets in the villages of the land. This Handy Guide is dedicated first of all to them.

It is also dedicated to the younger sons of the wide earth, to the runaway boys and girls getting further from home every hour, to the prodigals who are still wasting their substance in riotous living, be they gamblers or blasphemers or plain drunks; to those heretics of whatever school to whom life is a rebellion with banners; to those who are willing to accept counsel if it be mad counsel.

This book is also dedicated to those budding philosophers who realize that every creature is a beggar in the presence of the beneficent sun, to those righteous ones who know that all righteousness is as filthy rags.

Moreover, as an act of contrition, reenlistment and fellowship this book is dedicated to all the children of Don Quixote who see giants where most folks see windmills, those Galahads dear to Christ and those virgin sisters of Joan of Arc who serve the lepers on their knees and march in shabby armor against the proud, who look into the lightning with the eyes of the mountain cat. They do more soldierly things every day than this book records, yet they are mine own people, my nobler kin to whom I have been recreant, and so I finally dedicate this book to them.

– These are the rules of the road:
(1) Keep away from the Cities;
(2) Keep away from the railroads;
(3) Have nothing to do with money and carry no baggage;
(4) Ask for dinner about quarter after eleven;
(5) Ask for supper, lodging and breakfast about quarter of five;
(6) Travel alone;
(7) Be neat, deliberate, chaste and civil;
(8) Preach the Gospel of Beauty.
And without further parley, let us proceed to inculcate these, by illustration, precept and dogma.

II

“Sing for your supper.”

Essentially, that was Vachel Lindsay’s strategy for his long-distance walk through the Southeast in the spring of 1906. He would recite his poems and draw his pictures in exchange for a meal and a bed.

Vachel Lindsay in 1912

Demonstrating his resolve, he began his hike in Florida by spending his last nickel on a bag of peanuts. His avowed mission was "sharing the lives of and bringing hope to the common people in the depths.”

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Somehow, Lindsay managed to get by. In Atlanta, he pocketed some cash from giving lectures and reading poems. He also enjoyed the hospitality of the local Salvation Army, which might have inspired his best-known poem, General William Booth Enters into Heaven.

I’ve had to remind myself that the people of 1906 couldn’t switch on a radio or television. They weren’t clicking their mice or thumbing their smartphones. So, folks starved for entertainment might welcome an itinerant troubadour.

Or not.

Despite his relative financial success in Atlanta, Lindsay's income in the mountains was nil. He didn’t even try to draw an audience in Highlands after he saw that it was a quiet summer resort town for wealthy northerners.

Edgar Lee Masters tells how the poet misjudged one audience in Tennessee:

In the hills he attended a Hardshell Baptist church, and stayed with some pious, rough people. He started to read “The Tree of the Laughing Bells” to them. In the midst of the performance the young woman and the old woman left the room unceremoniously. They returned and Lindsay, not sufficiently persuaded that they did not want to hear the poem, but that they should be converted willy-nilly to beauty, prevailed upon them to listen again.

The old lady grew angry now, and told Lindsay that she no use for such lies. She wanted something with the gospel of Jesus Christ in it, the Old Book was enough for her. The result was that she would not accept the poem as pay for his entertainment, and Lindsay was compelled to leave owing for it….

The fledgling poet counted on one work in particular to be his meal ticket and that was The Tree of the Laughing Bells. I have to remind myself that Lindsay’s energetic vocal stylings enlivened what otherwise might have been interminably tedious…but you be the judge:

The Tree of Laughing Bells, or The Wings of the Morning
[A Poem for Aviators]

How the Wings Were Made

From many morning-glories
That in an hour will fade,
From many pansy buds
Gathered in the shade,
From lily of the valley
And dandelion buds,
From fiery poppy-buds
Are the Wings of the Morning made.

The Indian Girl Who Made Them

These, the Wings of the Morning,
An Indian Maiden wove,
Intertwining subtilely
Wands from a willow grove
Beside the Sangamon --
Rude stream of Dreamland Town.
She bound them to my shoulders
With fingers golden-brown.
The wings were part of me;
The willow-wands were hot.
Pulses from my heart
Healed each bruise and spot
Of the morning-glory buds,
Beginning to unfold
Beneath her burning song of suns untold.

Ah, the ubiquitous “Lovely Indian Maiden!”

The poem continues for stanza after stanza, building dramatically before reaching a climax involving said Indian maiden:

I panted in the grassy wood;
I kissed the Indian Maid
As she took my wings from me:
With all the grace I could
I gave two throbbing bells to her
From the foot of the Laughing Tree.
And one she pressed to her golden breast
And one, gave back to me.
From Lilies of the valley --
See them fade.
From poppy-blooms all frayed,
From dandelions gray with care,
From pansy-faces, worn and torn,
From morning-glories --
See them fade --
From all things fragile, faint and fair
Are the Wings of the Morning made!

Later, in a letter to a friend, Vachel Lindsay recounted the 1906 hike:

I had had very little response anywhere and very little understanding. No one cared for my pictures, no one cared for my verse, and I turned beggar in sheer desperation. Many people try to gloss this over now and make out it was a merry little spring excursion and I didn't really mean it. They are dead wrong. It was a life and death struggle, nothing less. I was entirely prepared to die for my work, if necessary, by the side of the road, and was almost at the point of it at times. . . . [My parents] were certainly at this time intensely hostile to everything I did, said, wrote, thought, or drew. Things were in a state where it was infinitely easier to beg from door to door than to go home, or even die by the ditch on the highway.

I will never forget the easy, dreaming Kentucky and the droning bees in the blue grass, and the walks with Cousin Eudora and Aunt Eudora, and the queer feeling of being the family disgrace somewhat straightened out when I stood up to read 'The Tree of Laughing Bells' to the school. As far as I know, I read it in my beggar's raiment. I am sure I felt that way, and it was the kind hearts around me in that particular spot that made me want to live.

III

I don’t know much about the life of Vachel Lindsay, but I do know that his most cherished hopes met with disappointment. He has my admiration for walking hundreds of miles along the dusty back roads of America, and for why he did it.

Lindsay tried to take poetry back to its spoken roots. I should say he took poetry back to its spoken roots, an achievement I intend to make clear eventually.


George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, (1866-1949)

Around the same time I took an interest in the adventures of Vachel Lindsay, I heard a story from Meetings with Remarkable Men, by G. I. Gurdjieff. The scene described by Gurdjieff must have been exactly what Lindsay hoped to find, or cultivate, among “the common folk of the American countryside.”

Maybe Vachel should have tried Armenia.

From Meetings with Remarkable Men:

MY FATHER WAS WIDELY KNOWN, during the final decades of the last century and the beginning of this one, as an ashokh, that is, a poet and narrator, under the nickname of' Adash, and although he was not a professional ashokh but only an amateur, he was in his day very popular among the inhabitants of many countries of Transcaucasia and Asia Minor.

Ashokh was the name given everywhere in Asia and the Balkan peninsula to the local bards, who composed, recited or sang poems, songs, legends, folk-tales, and all sorts of stories.

In spite of the fact that these people of the past who devoted themselves to such a career were in most cases illiterate, having not even been to an elementary school in their childhood, they possessed such a memory and such alertness of mind as would now be considered remarkable and even phenomenal.

They not only knew by heart innumerable and often very lengthy narratives and poems, and sang from memory all their various melodies, but when improvising in their own, so to say, subjective way, they hit upon the appropriate rhymes and changes of rhythm for their verses with astounding rapidity.

At the present time men with such abilities are no longer to be found anywhere.

Even when I was very young, it was being said that they were becoming scarcer and scarcer.

I personally saw a number of these ashokhs who were considered famous in those days, and their faces were strongly impressed on my memory.

I happened to see them because my father used to take me as a child to the contests where these poet ashokhs, coming from various countries, such as Persia, Turkey, the Caucasus and even parts of Turkestan, competed before a great throng of people in improvising and singing.

This usually proceeded in the following way:

One of the participants in the contest, chosen by lot, would begin, in singing an improvised melody, to put to his partner some question on a religious or philosophical theme, or on the meaning and origin of some well-known legend, tradition or belief, and the other would reply, also in song, and in his own improvised subjective melody; and these improvised subjective melodies, moreover, had always to correspond in their tonality to the previously produced consonances as well as to what is called by real musical science the 'ansapalnianly flowing echo.

All this was sung in verse, chiefly in Turko-Tartar, which was then the accepted common language of the peoples of these localities, who spoke different dialects.

These contests would last weeks and sometimes even months, and would conclude with the award of prizes and presents- provided by the audience and usually consisting of cattle, rugs and so on-to those singers who, according to the general verdict, had most distinguished themselves.

I witnessed three such contests, the first of which took place in Turkey in the town of Van, the second in Azerbaijan in the town of Karabakh, and the third in the small town of Subatan in the region of Kars.

In Alexandropol and Kars, the towns where my family lived during my childhood, my father was often invited to evening gatherings to which many people who knew him came in order to hear his stories and songs.

At these gatherings he would recite one of the many legends or poems he knew, according to the choice of those present, or he would render in song the dialogues between the different characters.

The whole night would sometimes not be long enough for finishing a story and the audience would meet again on the following evening...

I said there would be some rabbit trails on this journey.

IV

Stone Mountain, Georgia, ca. 1902

While Vachel Lindsay was walking from Atlanta to the mountains during the last week of April 1906, he was imagining the book that he would write:

It should contain my sermons on the new Christ, and all other things I would wish to say as a priest of art, and cannot say by word of mouth. That is my only chance to evangelize peacefully….

My book should contain the form of my gospel for each type of man I am to meet, a little sermon for each man, scholar, poet, editor, teacher. A Pilgrim’s Message would be a possible title, or I Prophecy the New Earth, or The Songs of a Dreaming Tramp, or The Passer-by, or The Dreams of a Rhyming Tramp, or A Beggar from the Fairyland….

I will do everything for the sake of being my own master….I had better be a beggar than a trader tied to the machinery of his task. In this world he finds no pity. But the beggar’s world is full of brotherly kindness.

Lindsay biographer Edgar Lee Masters called the projected book:

One of the many visions which Lindsay had without materialization….Lindsay was really afflicted with a species of megalomania, as Whitman was for that matter; but where Whitman sought to make a nation of comrades and to spread the dear love of comrades over America, Lindsay was concerned with moralizations of a lower order, so that his descent from an artist to an anti-prohibition lecturer was neither so violent nor so incongruous as one might think at first.

In any event, Vachel had more to think about than the books he would never get around to writing. From A Handy Guide for Beggars:

LET us now recall a certain adventure among the moonshiners. When I walked north from Atlanta Easter morning, on Peachtree road, orchards were flowering everywhere. Resurrection songs flew across the road from humble blunt steeples.

Kennesaw Mountain, GA

Stony Mountain, miles to the east, Kenesaw on the western edge of things, and all the rest of the rolling land made the beginning of a gradual ascent by which I was to climb the Blue Ridge. The road mounted the watershed between the Atlantic and the gulf.

An old man took me into his wagon for a mile. I asked what sort of people I would meet on the Blue Ridge. He answered, "They make blockade whisky up there. But if you don't go around hunting stills by the creeks, or in the woods away from the road, they'll be awful glad to see you. They are all moonshiners, but if they likes a man they loves him, and they're as likely to get to lovin’ you as not.”

V

In one of the more coherent, but no less ecstatic, passages from A Handy Guide for Beggars, Vachel Lindsay described his day at Tallulah Gorge.

He had just spent several days to walking from Atlanta to Tallulah on his way to the mountains in April 1906. Taking some cheese and crackers as his fare for the day by the waterfalls, he clambered over the rocks and lived to tell about it. This is lengthy, but I'm posting the whole chapter:


THE FALLS OF TALLULAH

I

THE CALL OF THE WATER

THE dust of many miles was upon me. I felt uncouth in the presence of the sun-dried stones. Here was a natural bathing-place. Who could resist it? I climbed further down the canon, holding to the bushes. The cliff along which the water rushed to the fall's foot was smooth and seemed artificially made, though it had been so hewn by the fury of the cataclysm in ages past. I took off my clothes and put my shoulders against the granite, being obliged to lean back a little to conform to its angle. I was standing with my left shoulder almost touching the perilous main column of water.

A little fall that hurried along by itself a bit nearer the bank flowed over me. It came with headway. Though it looked so innocent, I could scarcely hold up against its power. But it gave me delight to maintain myself. The touch of the stone was balm to my walk- worn body and dust-fevered feet. Like a sacerdotal robe the water flowed over my shoulders and I thought myself priest of the solitude. I stepped out into the air. With unwonted energy I was able to throw off the coldness of my wet frame. The water there at the fall's foot was like a thousand elves singing. "Joy to all creatures !" cried the birds. "Joy to all creatures! Glory, glory, glory to the wild falls!"

II

THE PIPING OF PAN

I was getting myself sunburned, stretched out on the warm dry rocks. Down over the steep edge, somewhere near the foot of the next descent I heard the pipes of Pan. Why should I dress and go? I made my shoes and clothes into a bundle and threw them down the cliff and climbed over, clinging to the steep by mere twigs. I seemed to hear the piping as I approached the terrace at the fall's base. Then the sound of music blended with the stream's strange voice and I turned to merge myself again with its waters. Against the leaning wall of the cliff I placed my shoulders.

The descending current srnote me, wrestling with wildwood laughter, threatening to crush me and hurl me to the base of the mountain. But just as before my feet were well set in a notch of the cliff that went across the stream, cut there a million years ago. It was a curious combination to discover, this stream-wide notch, and above it this wall with the water spread like a crystal robe over it.

In the centre of the fall a Cyclops could have stood to bathe, and on the edge was the same provision in miniature for feeble man. And it was the more curious to find this plan repeated in detail by successive cataracts of the canon, unmistakably wrought by the slow hand of geologic ages. And to see the water of the deep central stream undisturbed in midst of the fall and still crystalline, and to see it slide down the steep incline and strike each, notch at the foot with sudden music and appalling foam, was more wonderful than the simple telling can explain.

Each sheet of crystal that came over my shoulders seemed now to pour into them rather than over them. I lifted my mouth and drank as a desert bird drinks rain. My downstretched arms and extended fingers and the spreading spray seemed one. My heart with its exultant blood seemed but the curve of a cataract over the cliff of my soul.

III

PERIL, VANITY, AND ADORATION

Led by the pipes of Pan, I again descended. Once more that sound, almost overtaken, interwove itself with the water's cry, and I merged body and soul with the stream and the music. The margin of another cataract crashed upon me. In the recklessness of pleasure, one arm swung into the main current. Then the water threatened my life. To save myself, I was kneeling on one knee. I reached out blindly and found a hold at last in a slippery cleft, and later, it seemed an age, with the other hand I was able to reach one leaf. The leaf did not break. At last its bough was in my grasp and I crawled frightened into the sun. I sat long on a warm patch of grass. But the cliffs and the water were not really my enemies. They sent a wind to give me delight. Never was the taste of the air so sweet as then. The touch of it was on my lips like fruit. There was a flattery in the tree-limbs bending near my shoulders. They said, "There is brotherhood in your footfall on our roots and the touch of your hand on our boughs." The spray of the splashed foam was wine. I was the unchallenged possessor of all of nature my body and soul could lay hold upon. It was the fair season between spring and summer when no one came to this place. Like Selkirk, I was monarch of all I surveyed. In my folly I seemed to feel strange powers creeping into my veins from the sod. I forgot my near-disaster. I said in my heart, "0 Mother Earth majestical, the touch of your creatures has comforted me, and I feel the strength of the soil creeping up into my dust. From this patch of soft grass, power and courage come up into me from your bosorn, from the foundation of your continents. I feel within me the soul of iron from your iron mines, and the soul of lava from your deepest fires”

IV

THE BLOOD UNQUENCHABLE

The satyrs in the bushes were laughing at me and daring me to try the water again. I stood on the edge of the rapids where were many stones coming up out of the foam. I threw logs across. The rocks held them in place. I lay down between the logs in the liquid ice. I defied it heartily. And my brother the river had mercy upon me, and slew me not. Amid the shout of the stream the birds were singing: "Joy, joy, joy to all creatures, and happiness to the whole earth. Glory, glory, glory to the wild falls."

I struggled out from between the logs and threw my bundle over the cliff, and again descended, for I heard the pipes of Pan, just below me there, too plainly for delay. They seemed to say "Look! Here is a more exquisite place." The sun beat down upon me. I felt myself twin brother to the sun. My body was lit with an all-conquering fever. I had walked through tropical wildernesses for many a mile, gathering sunshine. And now in an afternoon I was gambling my golden heat against the icy silver of the river and winning my wager, while all the leaves were laughing on all the trees. And again I stood in a Heaven-prepared place, and the water poured in glory upon my shoulders.

Why was it so dark? Was a storm coming? I was dazed as a child in the theatre beholding the crowd go out after the sudden end of a solemn play. My clothes, it appeared, were half on. I was kneeling, looking up. I counted the falls to the top of the canon. It was night, and I had wrestled with them all. My spirit was beyond all reason happy. This was a day for which I had not planned. I felt like one crowned. My blood was glowing like the blood of the crocus, the blood of the tiger-lily.

And so I meditated, and then at last the chill of weariness began to touch me and in my heart I said, "Oh Mother Earth, for all my vanity, I know I am but a perishable flower in a cleft of the rock. I give thanks to you who have fed me the wild milk of this river, who have upheld me like a child of the gods throughout this day." Around a curve in the canon, down stream, growing each moment sweeter, I heard the pipes of Pan.

V

THE GIFT OF TALLULAH

Go, you my brothers, whose hearts are in sore need of delight, and bathe in the falls of Tallulah. That experience will be for the foot-sore a balm, for the languid a lash, for the dry-throated pedant the very cup of nature. To those crushed by the inventions of cities, wounded by evil men, it will be a washing away of tears and of blood. Yea, it will be to them all, what it was to my heart that day, the sweet, sweet blowing of the reckless pipes of Pan.

.

VI

After Vachel Lindsay’s death-defying day in Tallulah Gorge, he resumed his trip, walking the railroad tracks leading north through Clayton and Dillard in Rabun County, GA.


Mountain View from Clayton, GA

Approaching the North Carolina state line, he diverged from the railroad and spent a precious quarter to take a stagecoach for three miles on the road leading up toward Highlands. Soon, though, the weary traveler was back on foot:

The little streams I crossed scarcely afforded me a drink. Their dried borders had the footprints of swine on them.

Lameness affects one's vision. The thick woods were the dregs of the landscape, fit haunt for the acorn-grubbing sow. The road following the ridges was a monster's spine.

Those wicked brogans led me where they should not. Or maybe it was just my destiny to find what I found.

About four o'clock in the afternoon, after exploring many roads that led to futile nothing, I was on what seemed the main highway, and drugged myself into the sight of the first mortal since daybreak. He seemed like a gnome as he watched me across the furrows. And so he was, despite his red-ripe cheeks. The virginal mountain apple-tree, blossoming overhead, half covering the toad-like cabin, was out of place. It should have been some fabulous, man-devouring devil-bush from the tropics, some monstrous work of the enemies of God.

The child, just in her teens, helping the Gnome to plant sweet potatoes, had in her life planted many, and eaten few. Or so it appeared. She was a crouching lump of earth. Her father dug the furrow. She did the planting, shovelling the dirt with her hands. Her face was sodden as any in the slums of Chicago. She ran to the house a ragged girl, and came back a homespun girl, a quick change. It must not be counted against her that she did not wash her face.

The Gnome talked to me meanwhile. He had made up his mind about me. "I guess you want to stay all night ? "

"Yes."

"The next house is fifteen miles away. You are welcome if what we have is good enough for you. My wife is sick, but she will not let you be any bother."

I wanted to be noble and walk on. But I persuaded myself my feet were as sick as the woman. I accepted the Gnome's invitation.

Lindsay had arrived at Mud Creek Flats, between Dillard and Highlands. Studying an old map, I see that what he called Mud Creek Flats is near today's Sky Valley, the resort development sprawling across an especially beautiful valley to the northwest of Rabun Bald.

We were met at the door by one my host called Brother Joseph — a towering shape with an upper lip like a walrus, for it was armed with tusk-like mustaches. He was silent as King Log.

But the Gnome said, "I have saved up a month of talk since the last stranger came through." With ease, with simplicity of word, with I know not how much of guile, he gave fragments of his life : how he had lived in this log house always, how his first wife died, how her children were raised by this second wife and married off, how they now enjoyed this second family....

After the lady of the house rose from her sick-bed to cook for the whole clan, Lindsay considered her life:

Let us watch her at the table, breaking her corn-bread alone, her puffy eyelids closed, her cheek-bones seeming to cut through the skin. There is something of the eagle in her aspect because of her Roman nose, and her hands moving like talons. It is not corn-bread that she tears and devours. She is consuming her enemies, which are Weariness, Squalor, Flat and Unprofitable Memory, Spiritual Death. She is seeking to forget that the light of the hearthstone that falls on her dirty but beautiful babies is kindled in hell.



Sky Valley, Georgia

For decades, magazine writers had been exploiting a freakish caricature of the rustic mountaineer. I can’t decide if that’s what Lindsay was doing here at Mud Creek Flats. He had an active imagination, for sure:

Next morning was Sunday, a week since Easter. Only when a man has sadly mangled feet, and blood heated by many weeks of adventure, can he find luxury such as I found in the icy stream next morning. The divine rivulet on the far side of the field had been misnamed "Mud Creek." It was clear as a diamond….

After breakfast the wife helped the Walrus to drag the cot out of doors. When she was alone on the porch I told her how sorry I was she had been obliged to cook for me. I thanked her for her toil. But she hurried away, without a pause or a glance. She kissed one of those miry faced babies. She walked into the house, leaving me smirking at the hills. She growled something at the host. He came forth. He pointed out the road, over the mountains and far away. He broke off a blossoming applesprig and whittled it.

"So you've been to Atlanta?" he asked.

"Yes."

" I was there once. What hotel did you use ? "

"The Salvation Army."

"I was in the United States Hotel."

Still I was stupid. He continued:

"I was there two years."

He put on his glasses. He threw down the apple-sprig, and, looking over the glasses, he made unhappy each blossom in his own peculiar way. He continued: " I was in the United States Hotel, for making blockade whisky. I don't make it any more." He spat again. "I don't even go fishin' on Sunday unless —"

He had made up his mind that I was a customer, not a detective.

"Unless what?"

"Unless a visitor wants a mess of fish."

But I did not want a mess of fish. Repeatedly I offered money for my night's lodging. This he declined with real pride. He maintained his one virtue intact. And so I thought of him, just as I left, as a man who kept his code.

As he left Mud Creek Flats to walk the rest of the way to Highlands, Vachel Lindsay had plenty to think about:

I thought of the Gnome a long time. I thought of the wife, and wondered at her as a unique illustration of the tragic mysteries of the human race. If she screams when seven devils enter into the Gnome, no one outside the house will hear but the apple-tree. If she weeps, only the wind in the chimney will understand. If she seeks justice and the law, King Log, the Walrus, is her uncertain refuge. If she desires mercy, the emperor of that valley, the king above King Log, is a venomous serpent, even the Worm of the Still.

But now the road unwound in glory. I walked away from those serpent-bitten dominions for that time. I was one with the air of the sweet heavens, the light of the ever-enduring sun, the abounding stillness of the forest, and the inscrutable Majesty, brooding on the mountains, the Majesty whom ignorantly we worship.

.

Ice Balls and Sundogs

 [From January 31, 2007]

Driving up Speedwell after work lately I've been seeing sundogs - parhelia - luminous halos near the sun. 

For the science and art of sundogs, rainbows, glories, coronas and other celestial events, you need to link to this beautiful site: Atmospheric Optics. (Be sure to click "High Atmosphere" on homepage.) Very nice indeed.

We don't have much wilderness to be afraid of anymore. But just to keep our adrenalin flowing, the sky provides plenty to worry about. If it's not flying raptors or radioactive fallout, then it's ultraviolet radiation and ice balls.

Last Sunday morning a hundred pound chunk of ice fell from the sky and crushed a Ford Mustang in Hillsborough County, Florida. OK, first thing you think is airlines, but the airlines say "no, wasn't ours...we dye our water blue...ice wasn't blue."

Maybe the airlines can duck out this time,. After all, it might have been a megacryometeor. Think hail on steroids.

The weather guessers are calling for "wintry mix" tomorrow. Wonder what the odds are for parhelia and megacryometeors.

Our Common Good

From the Tuckasegee Democrat [Sylva, NC], January 29, 1889:

Our townsman, Mr. O. B. Coward has shown us a pair of Berkshire pigs brought from Columbia, S.C. by Mr. T. B. Coward...

We enjoyed the pleasure this week of a visit to our sister town of Dillsboro. The trade in locust pins and railroad crossties has assumed quite large proportions, and Dillsboro may justly claim to be headquarters for crossties...

We learned from some of the leading citizens that the Democrat had failed to receive as hearty a support as we could wish because of the existence of a real or imaginary feeling of rivalry between their town and ours. If any feeling, looking to the advancement of Sylva's interest by pulling down those of Dillsboro, exists among our people we are not aware of it and must protest that the Democrat does not share it. Our efforts are now and will continue to be directed to the upbuilding of the whole county, and we shall rejoice in the continued growth and prosperity of all her towns. In fact we would be glad to see the time when Dillsboro and Sylva shall grow into each other and be governed by one corporation. In the meantime we desire to foster and encourage the kindest relations between the two places. Let us all work together for our common good...

Which Way to the Land of the Sky?

 

Reading old stories on the mountains roundabout here, I’m reminded how Earth can change. Rivers bend. Mountains move. Forests disappear and rise again.

Obscure travel accounts from the 19^th century, painting word pictures, provide clues about how the landscape was different then. But I’m fascinated by something more, which is HOW those travelers saw the land. Did they relate to the landscape in a different way than we do now?

I recall Silas McDowell, perched on a cliff of the Hickory Nut Gorge, who said he would need at least an hour to take in the view from that spot.

Then there are the unnamed writers quoted by Henry Colton in Mountain Scenery (1859). One had devoted much thought to the relatives merits of ascending to the Land of the Sky via either Hickory Nut Gap or Swannanoa Gap. Great stuff!

We close this chapter with an article from the same paper, in which the editor draws a comparison between the two Gaps of which we have been speaking:--

I did not reach the foot of the mountains until dark, therefore I can say nothing of my present experience as to the mountain scenery, but, having passed over the Swannanoa Gap before, I well remember its loveliness and sublimity. It has been a disputed point with me which has the finest scenery, the Hickory-Nut, or the Swannanoa Gap. The last I go over always seems to attract me most. Yet a distinction may be drawn. The Swannanoa Gap, and its attendant scenery, is all loveliness and beauty. There is a soft, sweet delicacy about it, which reminds one of the goodness, mercy, and love of the Creator, and makes one feel that he is drawing near to the throne where all is peace, happiness, and supernal loveliness. As one gazes from the mountain height upon the green fields of the Catawba valley, rich in the soft delicacy of budding nature, and sees, too, around him, not barren rocks, but the tall oaks, rising their lofty heads, tinged a yellowish-green with the incipient buds of spring, while the gentle breeze wafts to his gratified senses the sweet perfume of the laurel, the ivy, and the multitudes of other mountain flowers, and treads under his feet a soil as fertile, even in its alpine height, as much of the lowlands which are stretched before his vision in the far-reaching distance, a feeling which seems to partake of other than the earthly, that breathes of the celestial, steals over his senses, unconscious of aught but the panorama of loveliness before him; there rests over the whole mental and physical system a delicious repose and tranquillity unknown but to those who highly appreciate the beautiful in art and in nature. Such is the scenery of the Swannanoa Gap.

On the other hand, when we view the grand, towering, bare rocks, of the Hickory-Nut Gap, displayed in all the majesty and, greatness of Jehovah, one feels his insignificance, and trembles with awe at the typification of the grandeur and terror which is thrown around the ideal we have of the Creator in his wrath. He has no true appreciation of the grand and the sublime who will not, as he looks on those great high rocks, feel the intensity of his insignificance, and shrink within himself, gazing upon these marvellous works of sublime and terrible power, as displaying the supreme majesty of the All-wise, All-powerful Creator. Here the savage himself would pause, wonder, fear, and tremble; and not even the vilest of sinners, in his, wild, profanity and reckless infidelity, can pass such a scene, and not feel for a moment a dread of that awful unknown future. When in such a scene as this, I like to pause and lose myself in thought, not a word uttered, not a sound to be heard, except the wild dashing of the turbulent water of the crystal streams, which seem, even in their boisterousness, to sing a song of repose in the soft cadences of nature's own music. To be in such a place, to witness such a scene, is worth a lifetime of toil and care.

But, to leave the dreamland in which I have been dwelling, it comes, then, to this: Lovers of the beautiful, combined with softly delicate sublimity, will find their tastes most gratified in a home on the Upper Catawba, and a trip through the Swannanoa Gap. Others, however, who prefer the sternly grand, will find themselves most pleased by a view of the Hickory-Nut Gap, the falls, and their surroundings. I would, however, advise all tourists to visit both, and decide for themselves."

The cost of these two routes is about the same. The only difference being the railroad fare from Salisbury to Charlotte. On the Swannanoa route, the traveller will have the cars to Newton or beyond, which enables him, by resting a night in Morganton, to go through to Asheville in daylight.

Fare from Charlotte to Asheville, $10. Meals, $2 50. Time about 36 hours.

Fare from Salisbury to Asheville about $8 to $10. Meals and lodging about $2 50. Time on the way 36 hours, but does not travel at night.

The Chimney Rock Files - Bottomless Pools

The [Bottomless] Pools, just above the old Logan hotel or tavern in the same picturesque locality [Chimney Rock] are three circular holes from eight to fifteen feet in diameter, in the rock bed of the creek, all of which are said to be bottomless. It is evident that they were made by the revolution of small stones on the softer surface of the creek bed, kept in constant motion by the continual flow of the creek; but they are not bottomless, nor is there any danger of suction, as swimmers disport themselves in their cool depths every summer.

-John P. Arthur, Western North Carolina, A History, 1914.

 Just one mile from the road, to the left (leaving it at the house of Mr. Washington Harris, at the foot of the mountain), are 'The Pools.' A small stream flows down a deep ravine, and at length, with a perpendicular fall of ten or twelve feet, plunges into a natural well, or pool, formed in the solid rock. This pool is perfectly round, perhaps fifteen feet in diameter, and about thirty in depth. The stream flows on for a few steps farther, and again falls into another pool, similar to the first, and about the same size and depth. A little farther on is the third pool, about twenty feet in diameter, and of unknown depth. The water in this has a rotary motion, but there seems to be no subterraneous outlet, as the volume of water below is equal to that above. When a stick, or branch of a tree is thrown into it, it will disappear for some time, and again rise on the upper side of the pool, then disappear again, as before, and so continue appearing and disappearing. The whole surface around the Pools is a solid and smooth rock.

- Account from unnamed traveler, ca. 1858

The Swannanoa Files - Finding Point Lookout, Part Three

 [From March 17, 2010]

“Old US 70” heading west from the Old Fort Picnic Grounds is a quiet stretch of road these days. You wouldn’t guess that it was once the main highway up the mountain. This route came into use in the early 1800s as a connection between Old Fort and Ridgecrest. Long before the age of automobiles it was known as the Western Turnpike.



In the years after the Civil War, passengers would disembark from the train at Old Fort, the end of the line, and take the stagecoach to Swannanoa Gap and beyond. In those days, Jack Pence handled the reins on a team of six white horses drawing the stage up and down the mountain daily. I did see some horses along the “Western Turnpike” but these plugs weren’t exactly chomping at the bit to pull a stagecoach anywhere.

When I reached Piney Grove Baptist Church I encountered the barricade across the road. I had been here several years ago and didn’t have time to get out and explore. Things have changed since my earlier visit. A narrow strip of asphalt has been installed over the original concrete road surface.

Despite my hope that an uphill climb might ease the pressure on my injured toes, the Timberlands continued to mistreat my piggies. After considering the smooth blacktop, I freed my feet from boots and bloodied socks. Going barefoot was a great relief.

This section of the road twists and turns through the Pisgah National Forest and provides some of the prettiest scenery on the entire hike.

Almost three miles from the barricade, I reached Point Lookout (elevation 2146) and a long-anticipated view of the Royal Gorge.

The steep banks above and below the overlook are covered with kudzu. And another tell tale sign of abandonment, the invasive paulownia tree, is also thriving. Fragments of rock walls are all that remain of the buildings where you could buy hamburgers, hot dogs, popcorn and soft drinks while enjoying the view in the 1930s.

On the bank across the road from the overlook, a steep rock stairway leads to a flat spot offering an even better view of the gorge.

A flagpole and benches are recent additions to the Point Lookout and a sign on the benches identifies them as an Eagle Scout project by Tyler Smith. Thank you, Tyler, for a job well done!

Clearly, this old stretch of road has attracted recent attention. Volunteers and community groups have worked with the NC Department of Transportation to enhance the route for hiking and biking. In October 2008, what they’re calling the “Point Lookout Trail” was officially dedicated. For a detailed NC DOT report on this project, click on http://www.ncdot.gov/bikeped/download/bikeped_funding_offroad_point_lookout.pdf

Nevertheless, the place has retained its ghostly charm.

Above Point Lookout, the road starts intersecting with the rail line that snakes up the mountain. When the railroad was built in the 1870s, it was the most ambitious feat of engineering ever undertaken in Western North Carolina. Seven hand-dug tunnels accommodate the track.

Double Tunnels, Then and Now

The longest of these is the Swannanoa Tunnel built at a cost of $600,000 and 120 lives. (That is another story for another day.)

I recognized one more bend in the road from an old postcard I carried along with me:

Royal Gorge, then and now

After crossing the barricade at the upper end of Point Lookout Trail, I followed the state road back toward Swannanoa Gap and took one last detour to inspect a marker on the Civil War Trail. This one commemorated an engagement at the Gap in April 1865 when Confederate forces effectively blocked Stoneman’s raiders who had come up from Old Fort.

There’s not much more I can say about this trip. I’m glad I took the ten-mile loop…love those endorphins.

One guide to Point Lookout Trail is available here: http://mcdowelltrails.com/PointLookoutBrochure.pdf

Finally, here’s something really special, a beautiful performance of "Swannanoa Tunnel" from the great Bascom Lamar Lunsford:

The Swannanoa Files - Finding Point Lookout, Part Two

 [From March 16, 2010]

River Birch (?) by Swannanoa Creek

I could tell you the easiest way to get to Point Lookout, but since I opted for the much longer scenic route, that’s what you get.

I began literally astride the Blue Ridge at Swannanoa Gap. By the time I reached the Kitsuma trailhead, though, I was on the Atlantic side of the Divide.

The first several hundred feet of Kitsuma Trail skirt Interstate 40 West, and you experience the relentless, hellish noise of traffic in a way you avoid while driving in it. Soon, you climb a series of switchbacks overlooking the highway and reach the summit of Kitsuma Peak (elevation 3,159).

Kitsuma Trail, I have learned, is achieving legendary status among mountain bikers - “gnarly” - to quote one fan. They love it…and hate it. The half-mile climb up Kitsuma Peak is the dreaded “calf-popping lung buster.” But the reward for that effort is a long and treacherous descent down Youngs Ridge to the Old Fort Picnic Area.

I’ll spare you the cycling jargon describing the highlights of this single-track trail. To those who can successfully negotiate it (as opposed to a biker like me, who would end up wrapped around a tree), I tip my hat. Even this video made by Al Garcia on June 28, 2009 is enough to give you a mild adrenaline rush:

Kitsuma 6-28-2009 from Al Garcia on Vimeo.

As someone eager to see wildflowers, I don’t anticipate spending precious spring afternoons dodging high-speed mountain bikes on the Kitsuma Trail. Other locations hold greater botanical interest. Most of the trail is on south-facing slopes, reflected in the plant communities along the way. However, with the foliage at a minimum now, the route offers nice views of many surrounding mountain ranges.

Three miles into the hike, I sensed trouble. Expecting rain showers before the end of the day, I had laced up my Timberland boots instead of the lighter weight, but less waterproof, Merrell hikers I usually wear on the trail. On the long decline, my feet got into a disagreement with my boots. The boots were winning decisively, and so my pace slowed on what otherwise would have been an easy downhill cruise.

After the trail turned from the east to the north, I heard running water for the first time and noted a change in vegetation, with lots of rhododendron, dog hobble and lush moss.

I knew I was nearing the Old Fort Picnic Area when I saw the stonework of an old fountain. It was constructed, no doubt, by the CCC boys who had built the picnic area long ago.

Much to my chagrin, I was the only picnicker in the vast dining area along Swannanoa Creek (elevation 1610). I had my choice of tables, and fine tables they were.

After polishing off a can of tuna and a PB&J, I explored the banks of the creek. I really wasn’t expecting to see any flowering plants on the hike, but at the very lowest elevation of the day, I did see some flashy early bloomers.



I’m guessing the delicate blossoms were river birch (Betula nigra) but it is quite possible that I got this wrong (and welcome correction on this point). The pendulous tassels are the male catkins, and if you look closely, you’ll see cone-like structures that contain the female flowers. When I bumped the catkins while taking pictures, they dispersed small clouds of greenish-yellow pollen.

Swannanoa Creek should not be confused with the Swannanoa River. The former flows east to join the Catawba, while the latter flows west into the French Broad. Their watersheds do adjoin at Swannanoa Gap, so when I crossed the divide I passed from The Swannanoa River drainage to the Swannanoa Creek drainage in one step.

According to anthropologist James Mooney, the name “Swannanoa” is derived from the Cherokee “Suwali-Nunna” meaning “trail of the Suwali tribe.” The “Suwali” or “Sara” people lived to the east of the mountains, and their ancient trail followed the Cartawba River (south of the present-day interstate) before crossing the Blue Ridge at Swannanoa Gap.

A century ago, Buncombe historian Foster Sondley cited Mooney’s explanation along with other theories on the origin of “Swannanoa:”

Sometimes it is said to be a Cherokee word meaning "beautiful"; sometimes a Cherokee word meaning "nymph of beauty"; sometimes a Cherokee attempt to imitate the sound made by the wings of ravens or vultures flying down the valley; sometimes a Cherokee attempt to imitate the call of the owls seated upon trees on the banks of the stream…

Sondley dismissed all of these:

[Swannanoa] is merely a form of the word "Shawano," itself a common form of "Shawnee," the name of a well-known tribe of Indians. These Shawanoes were great wanderers and their villages were scattered from Florida to Pennsylvania and Ohio, each village usually standing alone in the country of some other Indian tribe. They had a village in Florida or Southern Georgia on the Swanee or Suanee River, which gets its name from them.

Another of their towns was in South Carolina, a few miles below Augusta, on the Savannah River which separates South Carolina from Georgia. This was "Savannah Town," or, as it was afterwards called, "Savanna Old Town." The name of "Savannah," given to that river and town, is a form of the word "Shawano," and those Indians were known to the early white settlers of South Carolina as "Savannas." The Shawanoes had a settlement on Cumberland River near the site of the present city of Nashville, Tennessee, when the French first visited that region…

These Shawano Indians had a town on the Swannanoa River about one-half mile above its mouth and on its southern bank, when the white hunters began to make excursions into those mountain lands.

Between 1700 and 1750 all the Shawanoes in the South removed to new homes north of the Ohio River where they soon became very troublesome to the white people and were answerable for most of the massacres in that region perpetrated in that day by Indians, especially in Kentucky, it being their boast that they had killed more white men than had any other tribe of Indians.

Their town at the mouth of the Swannanoa River had been abandoned before 1776, but its site was then well known as "Swannano." At that time the river seems not to have been named; but very soon afterwards it was called, for the town and its former inhabitants, Swannano, or later Swannanoa River. One of the earliest grants for land on its banks and covering both sides and including the site of the present Biltmore, calls the stream the "Savanna River."

A little lunch, a little rest, a little botany, a little toponymy, and the picnic was over. I shouldered my pack, crossed Swannanoa Creek and reached Old Highway 70 for the second part of my hike, back up the mountain via Point Lookout and the Royal Gorge.
.

[to be continued]

The Swannanoa Files - Finding Point Lookout, Part One

Long, long ago the trails began to appear, so faint at first.  Paths reached toward the Land of the Sky through gaps in the long mountain ridges. As a landmark for travel two gaps were of the greatest historical significance - Hickory Nut Gap and Swannanoa Gap.  There's much more to say about the respective journeys, and more to say about my own travels across those gaps.  

Some say that Interstate 40, from Old Fort up to Ridgecrest, takes you through the Swannanoa Gap, but that's not entirely correct.  No, look a little farther north, where the Old Central Highway climbed Royal Gorge.

My search for a postcard view of Royal Gorge turned into an adventure - retracing the ancient trail that actually crosses the Swannanoa Gap.

[From March 14, 2010]

Seventy-five years from now, what will people think as they amble through the ruins of our pride…



This story begins with a vintage postcard I acquired several years ago. It shows a roadside stand at Point Lookout on NC 10 in Western North Carolina.

I had never heard of Point Lookout. Where could that be? Another old postcard identifies the same Point Lookout as being on US 70 and overlooking the Royal Gorge.

As someone moderately familiar with Western North Carolina geography, I was stymied. Why had I never heard of a place with the majestic name of “Royal Gorge”?

Upon further reflection I guessed the tourist stop at Point Lookout had been wiped out by the construction of Interstate 40 snaking up the mountain from Old Fort to Ridgecrest. That premise made good sense until I studied a map showing Royal Gorge a full mile north of I-40 and separated from that road by Kitsuma Peak and Youngs Ridge.

After more sleuthing, I learned that NC 10, a.k.a. “The Old Central Highway,” a.k.a. US 70, DID follow a route about a mile north of the present I-40 and was the primary highway leading up to the Swannanoa Gap, until the 1940s. I discovered the road was still there although barricaded at the top and the bottom of the mountain.



A pilgrimage to Point Lookout was not only a possibility but, for me, a necessity.

Finally, I made the much-anticipated sojourn this past Saturday. And it more or less lived up to my expectations. I mean, we have seen forests wiped out to build highways. But how often have we seen old thoroughfares overtaken by the forest? This was a “man bites dog” story, for sure.

A trip like this makes you think about the past, the future and the delusions of permanence. I pictured some pensive anchorite trudging up Old Fort Mountain in the year 2085 - ruminating on the crumbling remains of an abandoned and long silent Interstate 40.



When I finally reached Point Lookout, I lingered for a while and exchanged pleasantries with the people in those old postcards.

One man admiring the view of Royal Gorge had driven all the way from Raleigh. I noticed the camping gear in his car and he explained that he was on his way to explore the Great Smokies. He had been reading about the new park and wanted to see it for himself.


Point Lookout, then and now

Nearby, a boy and a girl were watching the black bear, Prohibition Sally, take a long swig from a bottle of pop. Mom and Dad told them, “c'mon kids, we need to go.” The family had been to Barnardsville visiting grandparents and cousins and were on their way back down the mountain to a mill village in Marion.

Several young fellows were examining their old jalopy with dismay. The radiator was boiling over. One of the guys went to fetch of can of water to cool it.

My reverie was interrupted by a train whistle up the mountain a ways. With metallic squeaks and squeals and a steady “clickety-clickety-clickety-clickety” the train began its slow and winding descent toward Old Fort.

I could feel drops of rain and still had a two-mile walk from Point Lookout to my car at the crest of the mountain.

It was time to go.

[to be continued]

The Chimney Rock Files - A Cliffhanger for Silas

 

Silas McDowell (1795-1879) was the Renaissance Man of the Cullasaja. I’ve seen him identified as “tailor, farmer, court clerk, scientific observer, and writer” but that hardly seems adequate to describe the gentleman who has been my main mentor, of sorts, for the past 40 years.

From what I know he was a tad quirky and eccentric, but in a way that brought smiles from the people around him. Wry humor emerges from his recounting of a trip to Chimney Rock, where he intended to debunk the tradition of a spectral cavalry.

The earliest published accounts of such a sighting came in 1806. McDowell described a similar episode as occurring in 1811. His visit to Chimney Rock was in 1831 and he was recollecting the events in 1878.

McDowell claimed that the 1811 sightings was reported in Niles’ Weekly Register in October 1811. However, I perused every page of Niles’ for all of 1811 and found no mention. McDowell also obliquely referred to contemporary newspaper accounts, but the only ones I found related to the 1806 sighting.

A 1903 photograph of the cliff (in the distance) where Silas McDowell almost met his demise

Regardless, during his 1831 visit to the gorge, Silas McDowell was intemperate with his derision of the old woman who “concocted” a story of spectral visions. He discovered, quite abruptly, that he had insulted the Grandmother of his very guide.

And at that point, the story becomes a literal cliffhanger...

A Spectre Cavalry Fight At Chimney Rock Pass, Blue Ridge N. C.

Old Bald Mountain of North Carolina, may, shake, crack, and yawn into chasms, attracting News paper Reporters, Yet will never get up a sensational story to equal that, of, the Spectre Cavalry fight, of the Chimney Rock Pass, in Rutherford County N. Carolina Nearly seventy years ago. The year 1811 was, the most sensational period, that our country has ever known, and, from these causes:

Early in that year, our continent was shaken by the earthquake, that sank New Madrid, a town on the bank of the Mississippi river. And, it was also in that year the Heavens were swept, by the luminous tail of a comet, reaching from the horizon to the top of the, ethereal vault. And to give, intensity to the excitement of superstitious minds, a fanatic, named Nimrod Hughes circulated a pamphlet; announcing, that the comet would strike the Earth, set it on fire, then the drama, of Time would end, amid a great noise. We must not forget, that seventy years ago the Press had done but little toward, enlightening the public mind, and that, Superstition run rampant, over the land. It was, under these circumstances that the Story of the Spectre Cavalry fight, at the Chimney Rock Pass, took its start, and was published in all the newspapers of the States.

At that time I was, in my sixteenth year, and lived in the town of Rutherfordton, only twenty miles from, the locality of this great excitement, —But, as the tale to be narrated is located at, Chimney Rock, Pass, I had better tell what that place was, and is. It is a deep ravine, four miles in length, and an half mile wide, that Time has scooped out of the east side of the Blue Ridge, around which, we fancy in the "Long ago," the Titans built a wall of, rock, varying in height from one thousand to fifteen hundred feet, with an open space at its, east entrance. And at that opening, stands a rough column shaped rock, three hundred feet high, crowned with a coronet of pine trees. This is "Chimney Rock," and its name attached, to the Ravine, and at the date referred to, was named, "Chimney Rock Pass." The ravine, was used as Summer pasture for cattle, salted and herded by an old man and his wife, the only residents of the ravine.

Chimney Rock Pass is one of Nature's sublimest poems, where the objects are so weird, beautiful, and grand, that words cannot translate them, and they can only be seen, and felt, when we look, wonder, and admire, in dumb amazement.

I am through with this digression, which the reader can skip, if he is impatient for the story, of the Spectre Battle, which is this—Early in the month of Sept, 1811 several Mountaineers from the Blue Ridge, came to town, and narrated the exciting story of the Spectre battle of Chimney Rock Pass, and the tale spread in all directions as if borne by the winds.

Farmers quit their fields, and rushed to town to hear the wonderful Story. A public meeting was called and a delegation selected, headed by Gen'ls Miller and Walton, with a Magistrate and Clerk to repair to the place of the reported battle, examine Witnesses, and record testimony.

They went, and returned, with the Spectre phenomenon, of which this is the substance to wit—The old man and his wife, who lived in the deepest part of the ravine, opposite the "High-falls," were seated in their yard, after the sun had sunk behind the Blue Ridge, noticing how fast the shadow of the cliffs darkened the ravine below, while the Sun's rays still lingered on the tops of the cliffs, when their attention was arrested by the astounding spectacle, to wit—two opposing armies of horse-men, high up in the air all mounted on winged horses, and preparing for combat.

At length (the old man was deaf) the old woman heard, the word "Charge!!" when the two armies, dashed into each-other, cutting thrusting and hacking, and she distinctly heard the ring of their swords, and saw the glitter of their blades, flashing in the Sun's rays. Thus they fought for about ten minutes, when one army was routed, and left the field, and then, she plainly heard the shouts of the victors, and wails of the defeated.

Soon after which; darkness, hid both armies from their view. On subsequent evenings they had seen these Spectre troopers, but not in battle, and the latter statement was confirmed, by three, respectable men who had been at their house, and witnessed the same phenomenon.

In less than a month, subsequent to this, the Story of the Spectre Cavalry fight, at Chimney Rock Pass was circulated in all the journals of the United States, and may be found, in Nile's Weekly Register of that date, (Oct 1811.).

For the next ensuing twenty years I rated the story, as the very best sensational story I had ever read, and its concoctors, (particularly the old woman) as shrewd, but perjured, and without motive, save notoriety. But in the year 1831, I spent near a week in the ravine, and then was satisfied, that, at times, there is an illusive phenomenon, seen there that would lead astray the judgement of any one who was not a philosopher, and its explanation, shall be the subject of another chapter.

Against the year 1831, a Road company had knocked all poetry out of the name, "Chimney Rock Pass," by constructing a public road through the ravine, and calling it "Hickory Nut Gap." Yet its scores of wild and weird objects were untouched. Chimney Rock was unchanged, and still stood sentinel at the entrance, of the ravine, towering in its crown of pines. The limpid pool more than fifty feet in depth, in a solid rock basin, still remained, while above it down the smooth clear face of the cliff ran a crystal brook, which at regular intervals of fifty paces was broken into three cascades, of snowy spray, each lightly plashing into its rock basin, all three rising one above the other on the rock, they constitute a picture undescribably lovely. Each cascade is on the same height, fifteen feet. A mile away, up the ravine is, seen pitching from the top of a cliff, the snow white waters of "Falling creek," as it makes its single leap of, seven-hundred (700) feet. Moreover the ravine is still drained by the lovely little river, fed by a thousand mountain springs, and dancing merrily as it brawls over pebbles, or sleeps in shadowy pools. What's in a name? That of Hickory Nut Gap, even, has not faded out the wild romantic beauty of this ravine.

I will now dash into my story. In September 1831 I engaged lodging for a week with Washington Harris, who kept a small Hotel in the ravine, and employed a strong muscular youth who knew every nook in the glen to accompany me, and at tight places help me up the cliffs.

The recesses of the ravine were as familiar to him as a book, and he showed me every thing and informed me of all the secret nooks of the mountains, for miles around. And I was surprised at the intelligent way in which he traced effect up to its cause in accounting for, the deep pools in solid rock. No Geologist could have spoken more learnedly on that subject. Rocks, their Strata, dip and Strike, he was perfectly, familiar with the entire subject. If I have ever, seen another youth of as much native, mental force I am not aware of it—But, in temper he was a tiger, and I had one small evidence of it before we parted.

The incident transpired during our last days ramble, in the ravine. We had climbed to the top of the South cliff and walked upon its lofty crest, until we reached the point, where Fall creek makes its clear leap down the rock for seven hundred feet. By holding on to the shrubs, and leaning our bodies over the cliff, we could see the white sheet of water in its entire descent, until it struck the rock below, then for six hundred feet further it dashed among loose boulder-rocks to the river. From this point of view, the entire ravine is seen as a grand panoramic picture, and, I think, the world cannot show a better. It occupied an entire hour, to examine it in all its details.

At length, below us in the ravine I espied the house; where, twenty years before lived the old couple, who had fabricated the Story of the "Spectre Cavalry fight at Chimney Rock Pass." Pointing down to the old building I observed to the youth, "In yonder old house just twenty years, ago, lived an old couple, man and wife, and they had the strong brain to fabricate, and wicked heart, to swear to, the most sensational falsehood, I ever read, but in my opinion, it was the old woman who concocted and managed the whole affair. She must have been an old hag!—A devil in petticoats."

The youth at this suddenly became transformed; his keen grey eyes glowed like coals of fire, while his breast heaved with the fury of a tiger, he sprang at me. I was as powerless as a child in his powerful arms, and holding me at arms length, over the yawning abyss of one thousand four hundred feet, he exclaimed "Villain! You shall take back or qualify your utterances against my Grand-Mother, or I'll hurl you to the bottom of this cliff"

"Hold on young man for Heaven's sake" I cried, "and I will qualify, take back, or do any thing you wish."

He at once grew composed, and bore me in his arms, from the brink of the cliff, and seated me on a rock. I thought the youth crazed, and that it would best, to conciliate him, in regard to what I had said against his Grand-Mother but he bade me not proceed with the subject, that if, an apology was due, it was from him to me, as he, had acted like a fool, in suffering his anger to overcome his judgement, That from my point of view, my estimation of this Grand Mother, was a natural result, and that my conclusions were what his would have been in like circumstances.

"But, —he continued—I have made the phenomenon of the Spectre troopers, seen in this ravine, the grand study of my life, and have, for years, accounted for the phenomenon on philosophic principles, and in this way. Some years, in Autumn, when the atmosphere is clear, before a change in weather, the lower atmosphere, in the ravine is surcharged, with vapor, and to all objects in the upper atmosphere, seen through this medium, this vapor acts with telescopic effect, and swells in size a bunch of gnats when at play in the sun's rays to the appearance of a squadron of winged-horse."

"What about the riders?" I questioned.

"Each gnat has a hunch on its back that does look like a rider" he replied.

"But, I continued, "Your Grand Mother saw their swords flashing?"

"That was the glitter of their wings" he answered.

"Your Grand-Mother's hearing must have been extraordinary. She heard the command of officers, and when, one army was routed, the shout of victory and wail of defeat, What about that?"

The young man made no reply but looked, perplexed and impatient and I again saw the glint of devil, in his luminous grey eyes, but he controlled his passion, and at length observed. "Sir I am aware that a long cherished opinion requires, plain demonstration to remove it."

"But could you have been at the old cabin, down yonder, on some still evening, about sunset, with a score of cattle-bells sounding in the ravine, and of different tone, and then heard the echoes, return from these tall cliffs, you would not have thought it strange that my Grand Mother had interpreted, these sounds as words, shouts, and wails.

I grasped the young madman's hand (he was nothing else) and exclaimed, "Young man you have made out a plain and beautiful case, and I heartily take back, all my unkind utterances against your good old Grand-Mother."

Since that day it is now forty seven years, and from then 'till now I have been, occasionally, haunted with "night mare" dreams, in which this crazed youth is hurling me from the top of some tall cliff.

July 1878
Silas McDowell