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What is now Boone was for years known as Councill's Store, and as early as 1835 a post office was in existence there. Sheriff Jack Horton had a store house which stood on the present court house lot, fronting what is now M. B. Blackburn's hotel. It stood on the same side of the street as the present new court house and nearly in front of where that building now stands. In this store Horton sold Whiskey, goods and kept a sort of harness and saddlery shop. He also conducted a tan-yard on the lot near the branch which runs below Blackburn's present upper barn, where traces of the vats are still visible. James Todd, of Rowan County, was the saddler, and William F. Fletcher, of Lenoir, was the tanner and harnessmaker. Fletcher is said to have been related to William Lenoir and married Sarah Dula, of Yadkin Valley. He lived till ten or twelve years ago, when he died in poverty. He had neglected the hides which were being tanned in 1857, and Col. W. L. Bryan was employed to make such hides as had not been too badly damanged into shoes. These hides had been removed from the Horton vats to those of Henry Hardin, which stood where they still stand, in rear of the present residence of Joseph Hadin, one mile east of Boone and on the north side of the Jefferson road. Here these damaged hides were finished. It was soon after this that Jacob Rintels, who had been in copartnership with Samuel Witkowsky above Elkville on the Yadkin River, came to Boone and rented Sheriff Jack Horton's store room, where he remained for about one year, removing his stock of goods to the store room and residence which had been built by Jordan Coucill, Jr., for his son, James W. Councill, on the land now occupied by the residence of J. D. Councill, opposite the Blair hotel. James W. Councill hasd kept goods in this store for awhile, but closed out and rented the store room to his cousin, Joseph C. Councill, son of Benjamin Councill. Rintels got Milly Bass, a respectable white woman, to keep house there for him, and W. L. Bryan boarded there while he clerked for Rintels. He occupied this building for a year or two, when Rintels moved to Statesville. W. L. Bryan bought the debts due Rintels and then, with Moretz Wessenfeld, opened a store in the same building. But Wessenfeld soon had to go to

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the army, when W. L. Bryan bought him out and continued to sell goods there till Stoneman's raid, March 28, 1865. This building was burned late in the fall of 1878, and the present dwelling was erected by Jas. W. Councill, father of J. D. Councill, assisted by his sons, th following spring. James H. Tatum, of Iredell, cme soon after Boone was established, and built a store on the lot now occupied by the residence of W. L. Bryan, part of the foundation of that store still serving as part of the foundation for the residence. Tatum ran a store there several years and then rented it to Joseph C. Councill, who sold goods across the street to the store and residence built by Jordan Councill, Jr., for his son, James W. Then Allen Myrick kept store there for Shilcutt & Bell, of Randolph County. Bell came to Boone several times, but soon closed out and went to Texas. Then Gray Utley, who married Tatum's daughter, got an interest in the land and sold it to Col. Wm. Horton and E. S. Blair shortly after the Civil War. Blair was the Brother-in-law of Wm. Horton, and sold his interest in the land to him, Col. Jonathan Horton obtaining a one-half interest therein also. Jonathan Horton and Mrs. Rebecca Horton, widow of William, sold the lnd to W. L. Bryan about 1889. Sheriff Jack Horton occupied this store while as an office, and then E. S. Blair sold goods there for Rufus L. Patterson & Co., of Patterson, for a few years after the Civil War. Then Col. William Horton and Blair sold goods there for awhile. The old storehouse was removed and a large new store erected in its place. It was well built and greatly admired. Colonel Bryan kept a large stock of goods there till the night of July 4, 1895, when the store and goods, with a dwelling which stood between the store and what is now the Blair hotel, and a large barn in rear, were burned by James Cornell and Marion Waycaster, who had been hired to burn this property by Lloyd, Judd, Tyce and Mack Wagner. Their object was to burn the evidence which Colonel Bryan, who was United States Commissioner, had locked in his safe against Tyce Wagner for robbing the mail. Judd, Lloyd and Mack were sentenced to the State penitentiary for ten years each,

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Waycaster got twenty years and Cornell five years, the latter having turned State's evidence. They were convicted by a jury at Boone, at the spring term, 1896, of Superior Court, presided over by Judge Geo. W. Brown (Minute Docket D, p. 102). Tyce was convicted in the United States Court of robbing the mail and sent to Sing Sing for five years. Governor Russell pardoned all who had been sent to the State penitentiary. By the first of March, 1870, W. L. Bryan had completed the store room at the west end of what is now known as the Blair Hotel, now used as the parlor, and carried on business there till September, 1873, for M. V. Moore, of Lenoir, when he bought Moore out and continued the business there till 1889, when he moved into the new store room he had built on the site of the Tatum store.

Joseph C. Gaines, of Caldwell, built the Ransom Hayes brick house about 1851 or 1852. It was one story high, with a ground plan of forty by twenty feet, with brick partition through center. It had a chimney at each end and both gables ran up to the rafters. Hayes' boy waited on Gaines and the latter laid all the brick in eight days. He was paid $70.00 for his work, besides board. This house stood on the north side of the road from Brushy Fork just before it reaches Boone, and its foundations are now the foundations of the two-storied brick house occupied by Mrs. L. L. Green, the Hayes house having been burned. Calvin Church, of Wilkes County, built the brick house occupied by Judge L. L. Green till his death, and since then by his widow. It is two stories high. Church lived on the Watauga River at the Franklin Baird pace below Valle Crucis, and died there, and Henry Taylor was executor of his estate.

Post Bellum Boone.-- Rev. J. W. Hall was a Baptist preacher and performed the marriage ceremony when Judge L. L. Green was married to Miss Martha Horton, daughter of Sheriff Jack Horton, and when J. Watts Farthing was married to Miss Rivers, daughter of Dr. J. G. Rivers, both marriages having been solemnized in the Masonic Lodge of Boone on the first day of March, 1876. Mr. Hall was also a carpenter and cabinet maker. He did the wood work on the second court house. After going

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to McCowell County, he went to Clay County and thence to Georgia, where he remained. But before leaving Boone finally he went for a time to Mountain City, Tenn., where he learned to fram dwelling and other houses by nailing the uprights to the silld, instead of mortising and tenoning them, as had been the universal practice before that time. On his return from Mountain City to Boone he built the dwelling now owned and occupied by W. Columbus Coffey in accordance with the new method. Squire D. B. Dougherty built a small house for the post office just east of the Critcher hotel soon after the Civil War. It was enlarged and improved and used by D. Jones Cottrell as a store room about 1909 and since. St. Luke's, the Episcopal Church, was built about 1882 or 1883. The residence now owned and occupied by J. C. Fletcher, Esq., was built by Dr. L. C. Reeves, of Alleghany County. He married Sallie Councill, daughter of J. W. and Mollie Councill. Dr. Reeves moved to Blowing Rock, where he died. J. C. Fletcher bought this property about 1896, and has occupied it ever since. He married Mill Carrie H. Bryan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. L. Bryan, December 16, 1896. In 1913 he was appointed examiner of land titles under the Week's law for the acquisition of national forest lands. Soon after the Civil War, in which he had served, Major Harvey Bingham bought the lot of land where Brannock's residence now stands, and laid the foundation for a home there, but Rev. J. W. Floyd, a retired Methodist minister, from east of the Blue Ridge, bought and finished the house and lived there several years, dying there about 1888. Then Joseph F. Spainhour, Esq., a lawyer, now living in Morganton, bought and enlarged the house and lived there till he sold the place to the Hinckels, of Lenoir (Deed Book N, p. 63). Benjamin Brannock then bought the place nd has lived there since.

Thomas Greer built the Beech house in rear of the residence of W. C. Coffey, between 1865 and 1868, and died there, having moved there from the head of Elk after the marriage of his daughter with T. J. Coffey. Although weatherboarded now, it is really a hewed log house, in the hewing of the logs for which Captain Cook, a son of Michael Cook, took a large part.

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J. G. Rivers came from Bluff City, Tenn., in 1863 to Cove Creek, N. C., on account of his Southern principles. In the spring of 1865 he moved to Boone and bought the residence now occupied by his son, R. C. Rivers, from Captain J. L. Phillips, who had owned the property, having bought it from Jordan Councill, Fr., about 1860, and having moved there from Todd. Phillips was a most estimable gentleman, and was a certain in the 58th North Carolina Regiment, under Col. John B. Palmer. He was shot in the forehead by a pistol bullet during a battle in Tennessee, and while in a hospital his brains actually oozed out of the wound. Notwithstanding, he got well apparently and returned to his old home at Todd, where he taught school and made shoes, but in two or three years died from the effects of the old wound. His wife was a sister of the Miss Greer who married T. J. Coffey. Phillips was a brave and honorable citizen.

Coffey Brothers.-- Thomas J. and W. C. Coffey, two brothers, had carried on business at what is now Butler, Tenn., but on the left bank of Roan Creek, before the Civil War. They had to leave on account of their Southern principles after the war commenced. They returned to their old home in Caldwell County and remained till after the close of the war, when, in 1866, they moved to Boone and opened a store in the store room which stood where J. D. Councill's residence now stands. But W. C. Coffey opened a branch store at Zionville and moved there about 1867. T. J. Coffey lived in the Brown cottage just east of the Blair hotel after his marriage to Miss Curtis, of Wilkes County, till the Coffey hotel and store, now occupied by Murray Critcher, was completed in 1870.

Coffey Brothers' Enterprises.-- Thos. J. Coffey and brother used to operate a wagon, harness and saddle business in Boone for years after the Civil War. These wagons were taken to Kenltucky and exchanged for horses and mules which were driven South and sold. The Wagons were made about two hundred yards east of the house now occupied by Wilson A. Beech; the saddles and harness were manufactured in rooms on the second story of the present Brick Row, east of the Critcher hotel. John Allen made the wagons and Joshua Setzer made the harness and

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saddles. They also tanned hides in front of what is now the residence of W. A. Beech. They bought hided in the South, in bales, besides tanning hides for local farmers.

Newspapers.-- The Watauga Journal was the first paper in Boone; was started by a man named McLaughlin, of Mooresville, and was Republican in politics. McLaughlin left and went to Johnson City, where he became chief of police. The Enterprise succeeded the Journal in 1888 and was conducted by Judge L. L. Greene and Thomas Bingham during the Harrison campaign, stopping soon after his election in 1888. The Watauga Democrat was also begun in 1888 by Joseph Spainhour, Esq., and the Democratic party. John S. Williams also was connected with it, but R. C. Rivers and D. B. Dougherty took charge July 4, 1889, and it has been conducted since then by R. C. Rivers. The Watauga News was established in January, 1913, by Don H. Phillips, as an independent paper, but it suspended after having existed for about a year.

Population.-- The town has grown so much since the census of 1910 that the figures there given would be misleading now. Within the corporate limits, without including the school population of about 300, it is thought there are something over 400 people. This is a pretty constant quantity, as there are but few visitors to the town in the summer season, almost all stopping at Blowing Rock and seemingly unconscious of the fact that Boone is on the map at all.

Counterfeiters.-- From about 1857 and till 1875 or thereabouts a gang of counterfeiters and horse thieves carried on their business from Taylorsville to Cincinnati, Ohio. Boone was one of their headquarters. Dark and blood-curdling stories are still told of the secret murders and robberies which occurred in a house near Taylorsville, which stood near a body of water. It is said that the owner of this house enticed travelers to stop over night with him and that they were never heard of again. When, years afterwards, the pond was drained saddles and bridles were found at the bottom, heavily weighted with stones. It was supposed that the horses were hidden in the woods till a favorable opportunity offered, when they were driven across the mountains

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to Cincinnati, Kentucky and Tennessee and sold. The basement of an old, unfinished house which had been built by W. F. Fletcher, framed and covered, was used as a hiding place for the horses as they passed through Boone, being tied under that dilapidated building during the nights they stayed in that town. When the dwelling of the man living near Taylorsville was removed after his death, skeletons of human beings were found underneath the floor. A woman saw a man chasing another near this house at dusk one evening, and reported the facts to the sheriff. Investigation revealed nothing but tracks, but when the road was changed later on, a human skeleton was found buried near a ford under the bank of a creek. About 1872 or 1873 Watauga County was flooded with counterfeit ten-dollar bills on the Bank of Poughkeepsie, of New York. They were thick, badly printed bills and were far too green in color to deceive experts, but they passed current here for some time. The house in which these men congregated at intervals stood near the present site of the county court house till about 1883, when it was removed.