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Some Thrice-Told Tales.
 

The Calloway Sisters.--Benjamin Calloway was one of the pioneers of this section, having his home on the upper Watauga. Two of his daughters, Fanny and Betsy,(1) must have been women of unusual physical charm. That each was possessed of a character on motherly devotion which halted at no sacrifice can never be doubted by anyone who knows their true story. It was the fate of one of these women unconsciously to supplant another woman in the affections of her husband, and of the other to be supplanted by a "mere strip of a girl." But the time came when each was widowed while yet the father of her children lived. Still, notwithstanding the ruin of their affections, each "found a way out of the wreck to rise in, a sure and safe one," through her children, each emerging from the fiery furnace of affliction without the smell of fire upon her garments, nay, glorified and almost apotheosized beneath her crown of martyrdom.

Pioneer Hunters.-- There was much in the wild, free life, no less than in the picturesque costume of the backwoods hunter of this period, garbed in hunting shirt, fringed leggins, moccasins, powder horn and bullet pouch, to attract the fancy of young girls in this mountain wilderness. Light-hearted, care-free, debonair, they sang and danced and frolicked when they came in from their traps and camps in the pecks and crags of the wilder mountains. For they hd regular huts or homes at different places on their "ranges," where they lived in solitude, often, for months at a time. One of them is thus described in the "Life of W. W. Skiles" (p. 53, etc.).

"They pushed bravely on, however, and at nightfall came to a small clearing in which stood the solitary cabin of a hunter. It

Note: (1) Ben Calloway was closely related to Col. Richard Calloway, of the Kentucky pioneers, and named his daughters for the two daughters of Richard Calloway, Fanny and Betsy, who, on the 17th of July, 1776, were captured by Indians with Jemima, second daughter of Daniel Boone, while boat-riding on the Kentucky river, one of whom, Betsy, married Samuel, a brother of Richard Henderson.

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was built of unhewn logs; the chimney consisted of sticks, crossing one another, well daubed inside and out with clay. The roof was shingled with oak boards three or four feet long, kept in place by logs laid lengthwise, well pinned down, with here and there a heavy stone to give additional strength against winds. The floor was of hewn lumber, three or four inches thick. There was but one room in the cabin, with a rude bed or two in one corner, three or four rough chairs of home make, a bench or two, a table to match in the center, and a huge fireplace where logs of six or seven feet could be piled together. Over the door, on wooden pegs, lay the rifle, always within reach and always loaded. Against the outer wall of the cabin were hung antlers of deer, while skins of wolf, bear and panther were hung up there to dry. Here, in the heart of the forest, lived Larchin Calloway, a famous hunter, and here the party from Valle Crucis was made heartily welcome. They were hungry and dripping wet from head to foot, but the latch-spring of a mountain cabin door always hangs outside in token of welcome."

James Aldridge.--This hunter and pioneer has been, of late years, somewhat overshadowed by the fame of his son, Harrison, probably as great a marksman, trapper and backwoodsman as his father. As well as can be now ascertained, James Aldridge came to what is now called Shull's Mills about the year 1819 or 1820, his first son by Betsy Calloway having been born December 15, 1821. James claimed to be a single man, and soon persuaded Betsy Calloway to marry him. He must then have been at least thirty-five years old, for he had left a wife and five children in Virginia on the Big Sandy River(1), his first wife having been born a Munsey, according to James A. Calloway, one of James' grandsons. It is claimed that he married Betsy, but as such a marriage would under the circumstances have been a nullity, it is immaterial whether he did or not. Certain it is that she always went by the name of Betsy Calloway and that she bore him seven children: Harrison, who married Jensey Clark; Tempe, who married Benton Johnson, Jane, who married Ensley

Note:(1)The Big Sandy separated Kentucky from Old Virginia, now West Virginia, and rises about 100 miles north of Abingdon. It was visited by Boone in the autumn of 1767, accompanied only by a man named Hill, according to Bruce (p. 48), who says he then visited the West Fork of that stream. Aldridge may have lived on the Virginia or the Kentucky side of the Big Sandy, but his descendants in Watauga always speak of his home as having been in Virginia.

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Issacs, Perrin Winters, Henry Shull, of Virginia, and John Calhoun; Ellen, who married Frank Fox; Benjamin, who married Millie Burleson and yet lives, Crossnore being his post office; Waightstill, who married Polly Johnson and lives near Benjamin, and Emeline, who married Abram Johnson. Harrison, in memory of a faithful dog which saved his life from wild hogs, had that dear friend buried on a ridge above the home of his son, James A. Aldridge, and requested that he be buried there also. His tombstone, surrounded by a substantial stone wall, records the fact that he joined the Baptist Church October 22, 1870, and died January 11, 1905.

James Aldridge was seen and remembered by very few men or women who are living today. Those who saw him say he was slightly above the average in stature, with dark hair and blue eyes. He was a great fiddler and hunter and of a happy disposition. He first lived near where G. W. Robbins' hotel now stands, but after the birth of Harrison moved to the Hanging Rock Ridge, near Nettle Knob, a mile from James A. Aldridge's present house, for it seems that he had been "squatting" where he first settled, but entered and obtained grants to land in 1828. There he built two substantial cabins, with large fireplaces, so deep, in fact, that the dogs frequently went behind the fire and between it and the back of the chimney, where they sat and blinked at the people in front of the hearth. There is a cleared place in the "swag" of the ridge above Robbins' hotel which is still pointed out as the place where James Aldridge burnt willow logs and limbs to make charcoal for powder, which he manufactured for his own use.

The Real Wife Appears.-- The exact date of the coming of the real wife into the life of Betsy Calloway is not certain, but shortly after the birth of Waightstill, her last child, which must have been about two years after the birth of Benjamin, he having been born about 1834, say, 1836, a fur peddler of the name of Price, as Levi Coffey remembers it, came to the home of Edward Moody above what is now Forcoe.(1)

Note: (1)In his geological tour through Ashe in 1828, Dr. Elisha Mitchell speaks of a hunter as living on the head of the Watauga River with the children of his real wife, who was then risiding on the Big Sandy, in Kentucky, and his own children by another woman with whom he was then living as his wife. If this refers to James Aldrich, then Betsy Calloway had two children by him after his first wife appeared in the scene, for both Ben and Waightstill were born after 1828.

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James Aldridge, and , knowing something of his past, returned to the Big Sandy and told Aldridge's wife what he had discovered. Soon afterwards a woman riding a fine house stopped at Edward Moody's, asked the way to James Aldridge's house, and was directed there. The next morning, before day, Aldridge came to Moody's and bought a bushell of wheat, which he had ground on Moody's little tub-mill at the mouth of what is still called Moody's Mill Creed, near Foscoe. After it had been ground it was "hand-bolted," that is, sifted through cloth by hand. James explained that "the cat was out of the bag at last," meaning that his wife had appeared on the scene. When asked how Betsy "took it," he answered that she was sulky, but that he himself was treating both women exactly alike, and had no doubt that Betsy would soon get over it. But she never did. She told Aldridge plainly that he had deceived and outraged her and her children, and that while she had no other home than his, and must perforce remain there in order to rear her children, their relations had ceased. Finding that Betsy was not disposed to contest her rights, Mrs. James Aldridge lost interest in James and returned to her former home on Sandy. Soon afterwards several of her children appeared on the scene, the boys being Sam, Frank and James, while a girl, Rachel, married William Calloway, ad remained permanently, the boys returning to Big Sandy. James followed his wife back to Big Sandy, where he remained awhile, but soon came back to Watauga, but finding no welcome from Betsy, he again returned to Big Sandy. It is likely that his real wife would have no more of him either, for Betsy and her oldest son, Harrison, visited his hut there and found him living with a young girl. He threw some bear skins on the floor, where she and her son passed the night, leaving at dawn the next day. James came again to Watauga, when Ben was four years old, gave him a dime and patted him on the head. But he brought two large brindle bear dogs with him, and his little son was afraid to put foot out of doors while they remained. This must have been about 1838, since which time no one has seen James Aldridge in Watauga County. His grandson, James A. Aldridge, says he heard that his grandfather died on Big Sandy during the Civil War, aged 110 years.

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Betsy Calloway.--Ben Calloway says that his mother told him that she had dug many a pound of sang with a child strapped to her back. That is, she had had to go into the mountains to dig sang when her youngest children were too small to be left at home, and carried them with her from the necessity of the case. "She was the master sanger you ever seed" is the way one old man expressed her industry and devotion to her children. For sang was the only cash article in those days, and it brought only about ten cents a pound. But Betsy could make a living in no other way, except when, occasionally, she could get a job of scouring or washing to do for some friendly woman for her meals and meals for her children. She was also a master sugar maker, if accounts may be trusted, and worked several "sugar orchards" through the mountains. Her old kettle, in which the sap was boiled, is still to be seen at Foscoe in the yard of the home of former Sheriff W. H. Calloway. The first shoes Ben Aldridge ever had were bought by Betsy with the proceeds of the sale of sang dug by him. She had to take the sang sometimes as far as Abingdon, and this particular sang which Ben had dug was sold by her at Blountville, Tenn. As the sang was gradually becoming scarce, she went to Big Sandy to sang, taking Harrison with her. It was while on this trip that she pent a night at James Aldridge's cabin. She had no feeling against James Aldridge's first wife, but told him, though he had lied to her, to bring his children and she would do the best she could by them. Once when in a sugar camp on Watauga she saw tracks of a bear in the snow and knew that they were those of a she-bear with cubs, as beard do not come out of winter quarters when snow is on the ground except to get sustenance upon which their cubs could draw. Harrison, her eldest son, killed the mother bear and caught the cubs. Betsy sold the maple sugar for ten cents a pound and the syrup for ten cents a gallon. When Harrison was seven years old his mother was baptized in Linville River, near Fred Ledford's, by Rev. Robert Patterson, at the Elkhorn Meeting house, She took care of all preachers who came to her home, and Ben was always glad to see them come, as then he "got something good to eat." He used to put corn

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into dried bladders and tie the bladders to chickens, which, when they heard the rattle, became frightened and flew across the table at which the preachers were eating. Once he tied such a contrivance to the horns of a "billy-buck," as he terms a goat, and he nearly ran himself to death. Betsy Calloway died about 1900 and is buried in the Moody graveyard above Foscoe.

Delilah Baird.-- She was born about 1807, and when eighteen years of age left her home with John Holtsclaw, who had been a member of Three Forks Church and a moderator of that congregation at its meeting in October, 1821. There is evidence also that he was a preacher. He had a wife and seven children living at the time Delilah eloped with him, about the year 1825, for their first child, Alfred B. Baird, was born March 7, 1826.(1) Delilah knew of his marriage, but she went with him, claiming that the believed that he was going to take her to Kentucky. Instead, he took her to the Big Bottoms of Elk, one mile from what is now Banner Elk, where he kept her in a camp at the mouth of a branch which empties into Elk almost directly in front of and about three hundred yards distance from the residence of James W. Whitehead. This was a bark camp, built against the trunk of a large fallen tree. It was here that her first child was born. Later on they moved into a rude cabin lower down the creek nd near an apple tree which still stands in Mr. Whitehead's meadow. It was there that she fought wolves with firebrands when they came too near the house, seeking to devour a young calf which she kept in a pen near her chimney. She also "sanged" on the Beech Mountain, and finally recognized one of her father's steers, with a large bell fastened to its neck, and knew that she was not in Kentucky. She soon established communications with her home connections, and would ride up a ridge and across Beech Mountain to get such supplies as she required and sell her sang and maple sugar. She knitted socks and stockings while riding on the road to and from her old home. She brought dried grass in a sheet in order to get seed for the meadow around her new home.

Note:(1) According to Mrs. Sallie Hackney, of Neva, Tenn., Delilah Baird was three years younger than her first cousin, Alexander Baird, who was born April 5, 1804.

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After awhile poor Fanny Calloway, whose place in her husband's heart and home Delilah had usurped, came, an humble suppliant, to her door, asking to be allowed to spin, weave, wash, hoe or do anything that would provide John Holtsclaw's children with bread. John Holtsclaw was getting old and it behooved him to provide for his real wife before he should go to his long account. Instead, he made a deed to Delilah Baird for 480 acres of land in the Big Bottoms of Elk, which had been granted in 1788 when that part of the state was in Wilkes County. But he made her pay him $250.00 for it.(1) His wife, Fannny, was thus left to the cold charity of the cold world and his and her children had to make their own way as best they could. That way, we may be sure, was not an easy one, especially for poor Fanny. But nothing is surer in this world than the solemn asseveration of the Bible: "Vengence is mine, saith the Lord: I will repay." He kept that promise. He always keeps that promise. Among Fanny's children was a girl named Raney. Raney had a hard time at first, but she finally married Abraham Dugger, for years the chief owner and manager of the Cranberry mine. After his death she married Daniel Whitehead, and their son, James W. Whitehead, now owns all the broad acres which John Holtsclaw had deeded to Delilah Baird and away from his own legitimate children, and not one foot of that land or any of the land nearby which Delilah got from the State belongs to her descendants.(2)

A Sordid, If Belated, Romance.-- Sometime in the summer of 1881, when Delilah Baird was seventy-four years old, she spent the night with Ben Dyer's mother on Cove Creek. It was there that she determined to write to Ben, offering him a home and support for his life, and adding, "my folks are lawing me to death," asking him to come and help her defend her rights. At this time she dressed gaily and was supposed to be demented, but a commission de lunatico inquirendo, consisting of Smith Coffey and two others, found that she still had mind enough to manage her own affairs. After the unusual manoeuvres of courting

Note:(1) The deed is dated May 2, 1838, Book N, P. 515, Ashe County.
(2)Deed Books R., p. 274, A., p. 498. amd U, p. 98. She had a daughter, names Aurilda, who married Levi Moody.

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couples, Dyer agreed to come upon the terms stated, and Miss Delilah wrote in September following that she was delighted that he was to come, assuring him again that she had plenty "and all we will have to do is to sit back and enjoy ourselves." But Miss Delilah was too non-committal for Dyer, and he did not come, neighbor did he write again till November 14th, when he wrote acknowledging her "second letter," indicating that she had written "twice to his once," a thing no coy maiden ever should do. Just what that last missive really contained is not known, for the judgment roll in which this romance is preserved (Judgment Docket A, p. 172, Clerk's Office, Watauga County) does not contain it. But in Dyer's answer he states, "You make me a new proposal in your last letter, which is more than I could expect you to do," adding that he could never repay her except "with my love and kindness towards you." As he himself stated, in 1883, that he was then seventy-two years old, three years Miss Delilah's senior, these old people any be said to have been progressing rapidly and smoothly along the primrose path of love and should, therefore, have known that they were rapidly nearing a precipice.

So, to make a long story short, he came, saw and was not conquered. Neither was she. For she paid him nothing, gave him no home, and allowed him to return to Texas "loveless and forlorn." Then, in May, 1882, in an action before D. B. Dougherty and J. W. Holtsclaw, justices of the peace, he sued Miss Delilah for his expenses going and coming and while here. They gave him exactly $47.50, railroad fare to and from Texas. He appealed, and a jury of "good men and true" gave him exactly the same amount and not one cent more. Moral: Better let the women have their own way. Miss Delilah died about 1890 and is buried in the Baird graveyard at Valle Crucis. Sometime prior to her death, October 20, 1880, she lived with her son, Alfred Burton Baird, in a small log cabin, which still stands directly in front of James W. Whitehead's home. This cabin was shingled with yellow pine shingles when it was built in 1859, and, although it has never been repaired, the roof does not leak to this day.

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"Cobb" McCantless.--David Colvert McCanless was a son of James McCanless, whose wife was a miss Alexander, said to have been nearly related to Hon. Mack Robbins, former congressman from Statesville. James McCanless came from Iredell County to Shull's Mills and resided near the present Robbins hotel at that place. James was a man of education and taught school where Mrs. Martha Phipps now lives. He was also a cabinet-maker, some of his work being still preserved. James and his brothe, David, of Burnsville, were both "fine fiddlers." For some reson, now unknown, Phillip Shull refused to grind James' corn for him on his mill. This mill, built about 1835, was washed away about 1861 and never replaced, though the neighborhood still retains its name. McCanless went before a magistrate and got the usual penalty for such refusal to grind corn without good excuse. Shull still refused and McCanless still collected the penalty till at last Shull gave in. Colvert was always called "Colb" or "Cobb," and he was Jack Horton's deputy when the former was sheriff from 1852 to 1856. It was then that "Colb" announced himself as a candidate against Horton. It is said that the oral duel that then ensued, on Meat Camp, was fierce. "Colb" ran and won. He and Horton had frequent fist fights, both being powerful men physically-- Horton, of medium height, but thick set, and McCanless tall and well proportioned. McCanless was a strikingly handsome man and a well-behaved, useful citizen till he became involved with a woman not his wife, after which he fell into evil courses. As sheriff he was tax collector and also had in his hands claims in favor of J. M. Weath, a Frenchman, who sold goods throughout this section in Job lots. As there was no homestead then, whatever an officer could find in a defendant's posession was subject to levy and sale. January 1, 1859, came and soon afterwards came also a representative from Weath for a settlement with McCanless.

On the morning of January 6th "Colb" set out for Boone, accompained by Levi L. Coffey, a near neighbor, then about twenty-seven years of age. "Colb" told Weath's man that he had made many collections for Weath, but had offsets against some of them

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