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and could settle the balance due only by an interview with Weath himself. Therefore, he would join Weath's man at Blowing Rock the following morning and go with him to Statesville. He and Jack Horton, who was on McCanless' official bond, then took a ride together, after which Horton sold his horse to one of the Hardins and McCanless immediately bought the same horse to one of the Hardins and McCanless immediately bought the same horse for the exact price Hardin had paid for it. During the same day McCanless conveyed certain real estate to his brother, J. Leroy McCanless. Subsequently, on the first day of March, 1859, J. L. McCanless conveyed the same land to Jack or John Horton, and on that day Jack Horton conveyed it to Smith Coffey. In a suit between Calvin J. Cowles against Coffey it was alleged and so found by the jury that these conveyances from D. C. to J. L. McCanless and from him to Jack Horton had been given to defraud the creditors of D. C. McCanless (88 N. C. Rep. p. 341). Horton is said also to have secured McCanless' saddle pockets with many claims in them against various people in Watauga County, these pockets having been left by McCanless in a certain store in Boone for that very purpose, thus securing Horton as far as possible from loss by reason of his liability on McCanless' official bond. McCanless also had the proceeds of a claim which as sheriff he held against Wilson Burleson, who then lived near Bull Scrape, Now Montezuma, Avery County. This money was due to J. M. Weath also, and which, for safe-keeping, had been placed by McCanless with Jacob Rintels in Boone, in whose store Col. W. L. Bryan was then clerking, then known as the Jack Horton Old Store. Late that sixth of January McCanless called on Rintels for the money, with the request that as much as possible be paid in gold and silver. This was done. McCanless then started on the road to Wilkes County, where he claimed he was to pay the money over to Robert Hayes on an execution, having told Levi Coffey not to wait for him, as he was not going to return home that night. But instead of continuing on to Wilkes, McCanless went only as far as Three Forks Church, where he doubled back and went up the Jack Hodges Creek and through the Hodges Gap to Shull's Mills, where he was joined by a woman. They went

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together to Johnson City, where their horses and saddles and bridles were sold to Joel Dyer. There they took the train for the West. After D. C. McCanless had been away several months, J. L. McCanless, his brother, followed him, but soon returned and took west with him D. C. McCanless' wife, who was born Mary, daughter of Joseph Greene, her children, her father and mother and his own sisters, who had married Amos Green and Isaac Greene, sons of Joseph Greene.

"Wild Bill" Kills McCanless.-- News came to Watauga during the Civil War that "Colb" McCanless had been killed in Kansas, but it was not till 1883 that the details became known. But in that year D. M. Kelsey published "Our Pioneer Heroes and Their Daring Deeds" (pp. 481, et seq.), Scanned, publishers, from which the following facts were gleaned; that what was knows as the McCanless Gang were impressing horses in Kansas, as they claimed, for the Confederate government, but in reality for themselves. James Butler Hickok, otherwise known as "Wild Bill," was connected with a stage line at Rock Creek, fifty miles west of Topeka, Kansas. There he occupied a "dug-out," the back and two sides of which were formed of earth of the hillside, into which a thatched cabin had been built. There, also, on the 16th day of December, 1861, in a fight with ten of McCanless' gang, all but two of the latter were killed by "Wild Bill" and his friends. Among those killed are mentioned Jim and Jack McCanless. It is supposed that one of these was David Colvert McCanless. J. LeRoy McCanless is now living at Florence, Colorado, as a good citizen and highly respected man. Rev. W. C. Franklin, their nephew, resides at Altamont.

Bedent E. Baird.-- There is probably no more picturesque character among the pioneers of this section than that of Bedent E. Baird. He was a man of fine education and possessed the best library west of the Blue Ridge. He was what would be called these days as agnostic, and was independent in thought and deed. He was one of the first to represent Ashe County in the legislature and was for many years a magistrate. He named one of his sons for Euclid, the geometrician. It is said that his testimony was once challenged on the score of his unorthodox

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belief, and that when he answered that he had taken the oath as a magistrate, the presiding judge at the trial refused to allow the challenger to go behind that statement.

No Water-Power by a Dam-Site.--It is also related of him that he told Bishop Ives, who was looking for a good site for a water power, that he could show him the finest site for such a power in the world. The Bishop, keen to develop the country, then followed Squire Baird to the top of the Beech Mountain over the cart-road which Baird had had constructed nearly to the highest point, after which they followed a trail to the north prospect or pinnacle of the Beech. This is a sheer precipice, or rather overhanging shelf of rock, overlooking the head of Beech Creek. "This," remarked Baird to the Bishop, "is the finest site for a water power in the mountains." "But where is the water?" asked his Reverence. "That is your part of the business," returned Baird, chuckling; "I have provided the site -- all I agreed to do."

Who Were These Old Bairds?-- That many of the first settlers of this county came from New Jersey seems to be confirmed by the fact that D. Gilbert Tennent, of Asheville, has a book which is called the "History of the Old Tennent Church," compiled by Rev. Frank Symes, its pastor, and printed by George W. Burroughs, at Cranberry, N. J. In it is published a diagram of the pews of the church, one of which in 1750 was held by Zebulon and the other by David Baird. The church was then called the Freehold Church, but is now known as the Tennent Church. It still stands in Monmouth County, New Jersey. Just what relationship these Bairds hold to the Bedent Baird of Watauga and the Bedent and Zebulon Baird of Buncombe in 1790 seems to be a riddle beyond solution at the present day. But that Zeb Vance's mother, who was a Baird, was related to the Bairds of Watauga is about as certain as any unprovable fact can well be, for family names, family traits and physical family resemblances are so marked as to be unmistakable.

A Mysterious Enquiry.-- Early in January, 1858, Bedent Baird received a newspaper, on the margin of which was written a few lines, in which the claim was made that Bedent E. Baird

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was akin to the writer, who, however, failed to sign his name.(1) But he had given his post office, that of Lapland, in Buncombe County, but now called Marshall, the county seat of Madison. Bedent E. Baird, then, in 1858, in his eighty-eighth year, answered this unknown writer, sending his letter to Lapland, but he received no answer. From this letter we learn that John Baird and a brother came from Scotland in the Calendonia and settled in the Jerseys, meaning in New Jersey. This John Baird had married a woman named Mary Bedent, and they named their first child Bedent Baird--the very first of the name "that was ever on the face of the earth." Their seventh son was named Ezekiel and he married Susanna Blodgett, whose father was killed in the ambuscade near Fort Duquesne at the time Braddock also net his death. Ezekiel Baird moved to North Carolina, where Bedent E. Baird was born about 1770. Ezekiel Baird's brother, Bedent, was married three times "and reared three numerous families at or near the German Flats, Canada." Ezekiel Baird's other five brothers also married and reared families "who helped to break the forests and settle five or six of the southwestern States."

Peggy Clawson.-- One of the strongest characters of the past was that of Peggy Clawson, who resided in the neighborhood of Elk Cross Roads. She was the wife of William Clawson, though for some time it was doubtful whether this was to be the case, as her evident inclination was to have him simply the husband of Peggy Clawson. For, tradition says, in a most friendly spirit, that they occasionally "fell out and kissed again with tears." One one of these occasions, as the story goes, for it is also told of Ezra Stonecypher, she had driven him to take refuge under the bed. Thinking she had him conquered at last, she told him that if he ever said another "crooked word to her, she would kill him." "Ram's Horn, Peggy, if I die for it!" came the prompt and defiant answer to her challenge. She was a member of the Three Forks Church in July, 1832, for at that time she was excommunicated from that church for "beating her son." However, in due time, namely, in the following October,

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she "made open acknowledgment for her transgression and was restored to full membership." One morning she was near the cliff or bluff between John L. Tatum's present home and Todd, covered with laurel, pines and ivy bushes, making maple sugar. A dog chased a bear into the river, and she got into the canoe tied near by, poled out to the bear swimming in a deep hole at the base of the cliff, and drowned it by holding it head under the water with the canoe pole. After this exploit, it being Saturday, she walked down to the Old Fields Baptist Church in time for morning sevice.

Some Other Old Stories.-- Welborn Waters was employed after the Civil War to exterminate all the wolves from the Virginia line to the Bald Mountain in Yancey. He undertook the task and succeeded, howling in imitation of wolves when on the mountains, and they, unsuspectingly, coming to him, he killed them. It is related, however, of the old Lewises, as the first wolf hunters in these mountains were called, that wishing to get the bounty offered for wolf scalps, they would not kill the grown wolves, especially the females, as they wished them to bear as many litters as possible, the scalp of a young wolf being paid for as well as that of an old one. It is related till this day that the Wolf's Den on Riddle's Knob took its name from the fact that the Lewises went in there in search of wolves and usually found and killed a litter every spring.

Joseph T. Wilson, commonly called "Lucky Joe," was in jail in Boone at the November term of the Superior Court during a very cold spell, and, pretending to have frozen in his cell, was removed in an apparently unconscious state to the Brick Row joining the Critcher hotel, then the old Coffey hotel. Here he was resuscitated by the late Dr. W. B. Councill, but instead of taking him back to jail to freeze all over again, they left him in the Brick Row with a guard. He persuaded that guard to go out and get some more fuel, and while he was gone the frozen man escaped from the room and the State. He was recaptured in Ohio by Alexander Perry, of Burk, however, brought to Elk Park and thence taken by the then sheriff, David F. Baird, to Morganton to jail, where he remained till the next term of Ashe

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court, to which his lawyers had had his case moved on account of alleged prejudice in Watauga County. He was convicted in Ashe and served ten years in the penitentiary for stealing horses from Alloway and Henry Maines, of North Fork. While in the penitentiary he became superintendent of the prison Sunday School, and by apparent good conduct had earned a reduction from the full term of his sentence. When, however, his belongings were examined it was found that he had pilfered many small articles from the penitentiary itself, and consequently lost what he had earned by good behavior in all other respects. When he got back home he studied law and led an exemplary life till about 1904, when he again came before the court, was convicted and sent to the Iredell County roads for five years' sentence. There he died, aged nearly sixty years.

Elijah Dotson and Alfred Hilliard quarreled once, standing at a safe distance apart, a mile or more, one being in his own field and the other in his own field also. This occurred on Beaver Dams before the Civil War and no telephone wires connected them. This difficulty arose from a cordial and sincere invitation extended by Dotson to Hilliard to visit certain grid-irons "where the worm dieth not and the fire is not 'squinched.'" It is also said that Hilliard and his wife late in life joined the church, and being dissatisfied with their marriage, which contract had been solemnized by an unsaintly justice of the peace, had and knot retied by a minister of the gospel regularly ordained.

An African Romance.-- On the 16th day of October, 1849, Mr. and Mrs. William Mast, then living where the Shipleys now live, near Valle Crucis, were poisoned by drinking wild parsnips in their coffee. It was said by some that a slave woman named Mill or Milley had been whipped for having stolen twenty dollars from Andrew Mast, and poisoned William Mast out of revenge. Others say the crime was committed by Mill and her slave lover, Silas Baker, in the hope that if Mill's master and mistress were dead, she would have to be sold, and that Jacob Mast, who was about to marry Miss Elizabeth Baker and move to Texas, would buy her and thus prevent these dusky lovers from future separation. Although there was no direct evidence against either, Mill

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was sold to John Whittington and taken to Tennessee, while Silas was taken to Texas with his mistress and her husband, Jacob Mast.

James Speer lived on Beaver Dams and had no more brains than were absolutely necessary. He and two others agreed that all three should go to South Carolina, where Jim was to color his face with lampblack and suffer himself to be sold as and for a slave of African parentage, and that after the money had been paid over, he was to remove the lampblack and escape back to Beaver Dams, where the proceeds of the little game were to be divided into three equal parts. This may have been done, but as Jim did not get his third, he and one of his partners were heard to quarrel about the division at one of the Big Musters near Boone. It was not a lawyer who insisted that the letter of the bargain had been fully carried out when the proceeds of the sale had been simply divided into three equal parts, but one of Jim's own partner, who had never studied law an hour in all his life. Nor was it in accordance with any sentence of any court of record or otherwise that Jim disappeared from the face of the earth and had remained "gone" ever since. A skeleton was found about 1893 in some cliffs, usually called "rock Cliffs," in rear of J. K. Perry's residence on Beaver dams, and some have supposed that these bones used to belong to Jim Speer.

Joshua Pennell manumitted his slaves by his will, and his nephew, Joshua Winkler, as executor, took them to Kansas and set them free. Many still remember their passage through Boone just prior to the Civil War. Joshua Winkler and Joshua Pennell had lived in Wilkes County, but Winkler soon after his return from Kansas bought land in Watauga and removed to this county, where he died. Among other valuable properties acquired by him was the old Noah Mast farm near St. Jude post office, afterwards conveying one-half thereof to his son, William F. Winkler.

Jesse Mullins' "Niggers."-- Jesse Mullins and his wife were getting old just prior to the commencement of the Civil War. They owned two negroes in addition to the farm which still goes by the name of the Mullins farm, on the South Fork of

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New River, about four miles from Boone. There is also a small hill or mountain which is still known as the Mullins Mountain. There were two "interests" who had their eyes on those slaves, and one night the slaves disappeared. The next heard of them was the arrest of two young men in a Southern city for trying to sell slaves without themselves being able to show how they got them. It is supposed that the "interest" which had been outgeneraled by the one abducting the slaves had caused the arrest of these young men. they were released and the slaves returned to their true owners. It is said that the most famous Grecian Sphinx, that of Thebes in Boeotia, once proposed a riddle on the Thebans, and killed all those who tired but failed to give the correct answer. Cedipus solved the riddle, whereupon the Sphinx slew herself. There is many an Cedipus yet living in Watauga County who might solve the riddle of the taking and carrying away of these darkies and of the arrest and imprisonment of their captors. So, too, they might tell who was one of Jim Speer' partners, and whose grave is said still to smoke in a certain church yard in this county of Watauga.

Cross-Cut Saw and Cross-Cut Suit.-- Just before the Civil War, how long no one now knows, Noah mast, claiming that he had loaned Hiram Hix a cross-cut saw, sued him for its recovery. Hix had some affliction of the eye-lids, rendering it necessary that he should prop them open with his fingers in order to see. He and his wife lived under a big cliff near the mouth of Cove Creek, called the Harmon rock-House.(1) This cliff projected out a considerable distance and the open space was enclosed with boards and other timbers, thus affording some degree of comfort even in winter, the smoke going out of a flue built against the side of the cliff. here hix kept a boat and charged a nickel to put passengers across the river. He also built a sort of cantilever bridge, the first in the world, most probably, using two firm rocks which extended into the stream, thus forming a narrow channel at that point. based upon these immovable rocks were two long logs, hewn flat on the upper surface, one projecting from each bank toward the other, but not
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Note: (1) The first white child born in Watauga County is said to have been born in this rock cliff; but its name is not known. Page 203 Page 204 Page 205 Page 206 the above is from W. S. Davis himself, the only survivor of the incident. This Lee Carmichael loved the cup that first cheers and inebriates a little later on. That, probably, is why Davis had to fee O'Neil. Then Carmichael ran for Congress and was defeated. He died soon afterwards.

The Musterfield Murder.-- As an aftermath of the Civil War, say about 1870, there turned up in several of the more secluded sections of the Southern mountains "men with a past." Whence they came and whither went, no one knew. Among these was a man who called himself Green Marshall, who suddenly and without invitation put in an appearance on what is now universally and enthusiastically called Hog Elk, just east of the Blue Ridge, but still in Watauga County. He lived in the family of young Troy Triplett. Together they came to Boone one day and had a quarrel near the court house. Later on that day they left town together, and when they got half a mile away the quarrel was renewed at the old Muster Ground and Marshall stabbed Triplett, wounding him so badly that Triplett died several days later at the house of Henry Hardin, one mile east of Boone. Marshall hid that night in the house of a colored woman named Ailsey Council,(9) her home being beyond the ridge in rear of Prof. D. D. Dougherty's present home, almost south of Boone, ultimately escaping for a time, but being caught later near Hog Elk. He was tried and convicted of manslaughter and served his sentence. No one knows where he came from nor where he went after his term was up. It was remarked after this murder that Marshall had never been seen without an open knife in his hand. Luke Triplett, the dead man's father, put up a rough mountain rock in the shape of a rude slab, four feet high and twelve to fourteen inches broad, on the spot on which his son bad been stabbed: He had chiseled on the stone his son's name and a rude effigy, showing the outline of a man's form and a wound from which blood was apparently flowing. It stood there several years, but disappeared. It is said that the blood from the real wound changed the color of the vegetation on which it had fallen for several years. Note: Ailsey Councill is said to have named what is now known as Straddle Gap, between Brushy Fork Baptist Church and Dog Skin Creek, in which a Boone Marker has been placed. This gap used to be called Grave-Yard Gap.