Trail of Tears

Robert Fogle                                                                          1987 words 

115 Hemlock Hill Rd.

Boone, North Carolina 28607

(828) 264-5714

TRAIL OF TEARS

(A story in which someone finds a secret passageway.)

Author

Bob Fogle

           Shining the light around, I stood in a narrow underground passageway extending north and south into large rooms. The walls had no treatment, just hard packed dirt with large rocks partially exposed here and there.

           My wife Carolyn and I have explored many of these North Carolina mountain back roads looking for the ‘just right’ authentic old log cabin that rang our bell. None would do except historic and authentic.

           One day I was talking with a neighbor in Boone named Jeb. He mentioned an old cabin on land he owns, but admitted it’s in bad shape. “You’re sure welcome to look, Dad left my wife Clara and me fifty acres up top of Hwy194.”

           Not overly excited after his ‘poor shape’ description, I accepted his directions along with his invitation to look.

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           Next, we found ourselves that same morning headed up Hwy194 with growing excitement building as we followed Jeb’s directions. If you have ever followed mountain directions from a mountain man, they require a keen eye and a good sense of humor. There are no street signs.

           His directions sent us ten miles north on Hwy194 from Boone. That was easy enough. Next, we were to turn right at a big old Oak tree split down the middle, there will be a hint of an old road wide enough for your car. 

           OK! We found the split Oak just eight miles out, but there was no ‘hint’ of an old road. Instead, beside the tree were rocks, big rocks, on a steep slope. Therefore, with a good sense of humor and a keen eye, we continued north two more miles, and guess what we found? A tall old Oak tree split right down the middle, beside it the ‘hint’ where a grown over two-wheel rut road had been years ago.

           Prepared to rough it, dropping into four-wheel, we proceeded with the prudence of intrepid explorers. The fifty acres are at the top of this mountain, rather than up and over like normal mountaintops, this one is flat. Here again flat is dubious in mountain talk. 

           Bouncing and slipping for at least a hundred miles (one-half mile actually) we discovered the remnants of a small two-story building. What endured showed it had been a log cabin, but in our modern minds, we hadn’t thought a house would be that small. But, it was something, so we tramped around looking for other structures, and found several.

           Carolyn discovered two small piles of rotted wood, one north and one south of the house. There were remnants of yet another small building, maybe a corncrib, close by the side of the house.

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           Having walked the property, we decided we were looking at a small log house worth checking for background information. In a sparsely populated area, this meant knocking on doors. Any old timers probably have legendary tales that could excite us to continue investigating.

           We stopped at an old home a short way back down the mountain. There we met a man who told us he was eighty-four years old, and lived there all his life. He had wonderful tales about the mountaintop where his family lived for over two-hundred years. The original owners of the property we looked at were the Goshen Family who sold out back in the 1950s to Jeb’s family. We found we were looking at the remnants of a two story Oak log cabin from back in the 1830s, nearly two-hundred years old.

           That evening we searched the internet for log cabin pictures from the 1800s, in the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains. Logs were the building material used mostly in this area. Families were relatively poor and had immigrated from overseas.

           Jeb stopped by and asked if we had found the place. We told him yes, and he was right. It is falling down. He said he checked with his Dad’s still living brother, who said it was one of the oldest homes in the area, Jeb wanted to know if we had any interest. I told him possibly, and if we bought, would he cut out ten from the fifty acres?

           Jeb thought, scratched his head, then mumbled to himself. Then he finally offered ten acres at $10,000.00 per acre. When he noticed the look on my face, he quickly added,

“that includes the log cabin at no extra charge.” He did not understand how valuable the cabin might be from a historical standpoint, but his per acre price was very high. We held off on answering, telling him to work harder on his asking price.

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           The next day I contacted the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources to ask how I might get records on old properties. The reception desk connected us to Restoration Specialist, Jenny Hobart. She was rather excited about our information and find, so offered to come to the site and look.

           Two days later Carolyn and I met her at the old split oak tree and led her to the site. Jenny dug around, picked up stuff, laid it down, and took pictures. After four hours she said, “Folks, you’ve got yourself what could be one of the oldest log cabins still restorable in these mountains. Here is the name of a contractor nearby who specializes in original restorations.”

           Very excited, yet reserved about the cost of restoration, we contacted Mr. Cahill, who said he could meet us on Thursday, two days from now. Thursday morning we met Mr. Cahill at the Hardees on Hwy194 and Hwy421, in Boone, and he followed us to the house.

           For the next three hours, he measured, took pictures, and made drawings going over the home and outlying area. He told us there were enough construction materials and logs left to start a rebuild, and the existing framework showed it was two stories. We needed a cost. This sounded like something beyond our means. Mr. Cahill said he would have a detailed estimate by the following Monday.

▐►◄▐

           After going back and forth with Jeb for hours on Saturday, he finally hit on our magic number and we shook hands. Monday Mr. Cahill came by with an itemized couple of pages. When he finally flipped to the last page, the numbers looked good. We would have

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our log dream house. There was but one caveat. He needed to put his men to work immediately; they just finished a job were all specialists at antique home restoration.

           The dozer arrived on Tuesday morning to construct a passable drive. As he was finishing the dozing four large dump truck pulled up full of gravel. After they had left, we drove the driveway just to enjoy our new home entrance road. It wasn’t but a half-hour till a couple trucks pulled in with workers, tools, and Mr. Cahill. He had a set of plans to show us that modeled the original house with two rooms downstairs, a bedroom, and a large room with a huge fireplace. Apparently, back then there would not have been a separate kitchen, for they did the cooking at the fireplace. Yet, this house had a large kitchen added. He said this was the only one he’d found with such a large kitchen built in. We opted for a second plan with a bedroom, plus a bath, plus a large kitchen, plus the fireplace in a living room. Upstairs had been two bedrooms, and he added a bathroom.

           Worn out from a day of surprises and thrilled Mr. Cahill was doing our work, we topped the day off with a large loaded pizza.

▐►◄▐

             The actual work started on the house with me looking over their shoulders while Carolyn took pictures. The logs weren’t in as bad a a shape as we thought. Much that had fallen was reusable. As they worked, the workers occasionally discovered an artifact, which they turned over to us. Then one day it happened!

           Working in the downstairs bedroom one afternoon, a worker stomped his foot on the floor and his foot went through, burying him nearly up to his hip. There had been no sign of a cellar, but a closer look revealed an old trap door. Pulling up on what was left of

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the trapdoor, it revealed old rotted wooden steps going down into the dark. Looking down with a flashlight Mr. Cahill realized this was a tunnel and immediately called our home.

           Carolyn and I changed into our stomping clothes and headed north. Upon our arrival, it appeared no one was working; all were standing around the opening. When we walked up, Mr. Cahill shined a light down, showing us a dirt floor at least fifteen feet underground. They had a twenty-four foot ladder that when lowered inside provided an entrance.

           I went down to the bottom, and that’s when I realized we had an underground tunnel to add to our home's history. Carolyn came down and started taking pictures and measurements.

           The narrow tunnel ran north and south with a room at both ends. This narrow connecting tunnel was twenty-feet long. It was time to explore further, so we headed to the south room. The walls were dirt with an occasional rock sticking out that was probably too large to extract. They also added cohesion to the walls integrity.

           This had been a room about twenty by twenty. Back in that time they used a long lasting mud mixture for filling in between logs called chinking. They had used this mud

with flat rocks to build six floor to ceiling supports. Protected underground all these years, they looked newly finished.

           On the floor were patches where old straw had once rested in what I’d call a sleep pattern. It rather looked like an ancient sleep over had occurred.       

Though very dark inside, the roof held many air vents that let in some light. These would later measure to be three feet deep under the topsoil. Beyond this room, the tunnel

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continued just a short distance. A steep set of stairs carved into the earth went up to just          

under the topsoil where there had been a trap door now gone and grown over with weeds. Conveniently, an outhouse had stood nearby; remember Carolyn found the evidence north and south of the house.

           The room to the north was a duplicate, except for no straw on the floor, but pieces of rotted linen. This helped determine one room slept men, the other women.

▐►◄▐

           We contacted Appalachian State University, which is in Boone, and discovered a professor Jeffery on staff who was a local area historian. It didn’t take much to entice him to come look. In fact, he canceled a class and brought three graduate students with him.

           Thrilled, excited, temporarily out of his mind, however one attempted to described him, I imagined a scenario where we might have to evict him at some point. What he provided us were historical facts about our very home.

           During the late 1830s, the U.S. Government in one of its less proud achievements forced the Cherokee Nation to uproot from North and South Carolina, Tennessee and

Alabama to join the infamous, “Trail of Tears.” Leaving their homes where they lived before the white man came from overseas, they were forced to march to Oklahoma where

our Government demanded they live. Estimations were that four-thousand Cherokee died during the forced march.

           Artifacts now housed in the Appalachian State Museum prove the written record of a home on a northwestern North Carolina mountaintop where Cherokee escaped for

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shelter from the march. Well, we now had an answer why such a large kitchen and the tunnel.

           The written record also revealed the name of the homeowner who took the Indians into his home and hid them against their enemy. He was Mr. James A. Smith, most likely the Rev. James Smith, a Baptist pastor. How blessed we are to protect this heritage and share this story.