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miles east of Boone, where his grandson, A. B. Cook, now lives, and is better known as "Burt" Cook. From this point, going west along the Ridge, we next reach the home of the old pioneer, Michael Cook, who first settled in the noted Cook's Gap and from whom it took its name. He had six sons, to wit: John, Adam, David, Robert, Michael and William. There were at least two daughters, one of whom married Aaron Hampton and the other Rice Hayes. From this point we go to John and Joshua Storie's, where George Storie now has a store. George is a grandson of John, his father having been Walter, who married a Miss Powell, of Caldwell. Walter lost his life in the Civil War. These two families were hard working and industrious people and owned adjoining farms, the voting place being called Storie's Barn. Jesse, son of John Storie, is probably the only one living of the two old families. This takes us to what is now Blowing rock, four miles further west, to the old Green settlement, where the two noted brothers, Joseph and Benjamin Green, lived. These brothers were so much alike that their neighbors could scarcely tell them apart. Isaac Green, called "Mountain" Isaac, lived at what is now the Boyden place, where he reared a large family. Amos Green lived where Mrs. Sallie Reeves, widow of the late Dr. L. C. Reeves, now lives. He had a large family. Alexander Green, son of Benjamin, lived where Mr. Lance now lives, one mile east of Blowing Rock. His father used to live there before him, while Joseph Green lived east of Green Park hotel. He was the grandfather of Mrs. W. L. Bryan. A small Reformed Lutheran Church stands on part of the land. Warren Green, youngest son of Joseph, was killed when Stoneman raided Boone. Robert Greene lived where Cone's Lake now is. He was the father of Judge L. L. Greene, his wife having been Chaney Elrod, whose father lived two miles south of Boone, where J. Watts Farthing now lives. Lot Estes married Chaney Green, a daughter of Benjamin Green, and lived where Colonel Stringfellow's house now stands. Five miles west lived McCaleb Coffey at what is called Coffey's Gap. He married Sally Hayes, a sister of Ransom Hayes. They had four boys and no girls. The boys were Jones, Thomas, Ninevah and

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John. All were killed in the Civil War except Jones and he was badly wounded. No one else lived on the Blue Ridge from Coffey's Gap west until after the Grandfather was passed. Finley and Jesse Gragg probably moved to the top of the Ridge after the Civil War.

Moses H. Cone.–He began to acquire real estate in the vicinity of Blowing Rock about 1897, and secured over 3,500 acres of land before his death at Baltimore, Md., December 8, 1908. The mansion he erected on Flat Top Mountain is second only to that of George W. Vanderbilt near Asheville. The lake in front of that residence is one of the picture places of the mountains. He died childless and intestate, but his widow and brothers and sisters have joined in the creation of the Moses H. Cone Memorial Park for the public "in perpetuity," after the death of his widow, by donating the above land. Moses H. Cone was born at Jonesboro, Tenn., June 29, 1857. He married Miss Bertha Landau, of Baltimore.

An Established Pleasure Resort.–Blowing Rock went up top as a pleasure resort soon after the completion of the turnpike from Lenoir and Linville City. Many people bought land and built summer homes there. Hotels and boarding houses began to go up and to multiply year by year. Livery stables, bowling alleys, automobiles, drug stores, churches, stores of all sorts soon became numerous and provided for the amusement and needs of a growing summer population. It has a flourishing bank also, a long-distance and local telephone line, several physicians, and everything to make life pleasant for the permanent resident and the transient guest. The views are unsurpassed. Schools provide for the education of the children, and all sorts of games, entertainments and amusements go on from from morn till night all seasons of the year. The mails are adequate, and Charlotte and Raleigh papers reach "The Rock," as it is called, on the day they are issued. In other words, everything that is essential to a first-class pleasure resort is provided, and all tasts and purses can be suited, as the range of hotel and boarding accommodation is extensive. Blowing Rock is established beyond question as one of the finest and most popular pleasure resorts of the South.

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Brushy Fork.–John Holtsclaw, son of James D., who was the son-in-law of Samuel Hix, moved from Valle Crucis in 1801, when the road was finished down Brushy Fork and built and operated the Buck Horn tavern, which stood in the field to the left of the road going down the creek opposite Floyd Ward's present home. Buck horns were nailed to a large white oak which stood in front of the old tavern. Valle Crucis was then off the main road to Tennessee, and John had come to Brushy Fork to be in the current of the western movement. Later on a school house was built near this old tavern, which has long since disappeared, and the small mound on which it stood is still pointed out. Marcus Holtsclaw, son of John, lived at several places on Brushy Fork. John also built and operated a grist mill a third of a mile below the Brushy Fork Baptist Church, on the right of the road going down, a sycamore stump still marking the site of the old dam. Almost opposite the old dam site, but to the left of the road, still stands an old stone chimney which furnished a fireplace for a cabin which stood on ten acres of land which John Tomlin in 1830 to 1835 contracted to buy and pay fifty dollars for. He put up the walls of a large log house, Alfred Hately hewing the logs, but Tomlin was unable to finish paying for the property and it fell back to its original owner. Tomlin sold goods at what is now called Vilas. His wife was a daughter of John J. Whittington, but she left him and went to Missouri. What became of him is not known, except that he also left Brushy Fork, never to return. John J. Whittington lived a quarter of a mile below and on the right of the road, and the old Whittington graveyard is on the hill on the right of the road, while the Hagaman graveyard is on the left. John Holtsclaw's youngest son is buried there. He had married Nancy, a daughter of Moses Hateley. There was a sang factory at the Whittington place as far back as W. W Presnell can remember. It was in charge of Bacchus J. Smith, of Buncombe, who in turn was the agent of Dr. Hailen, of Philadelphia. The sang factory stood just below Joseph Ward's present home. M. Granville Hagaman first lived and sold goods right after the Civil War in a house where Andrew Greer now lives. He also bought sang

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there, and Col. W. W. Presnell gathered and sold to him $47.00 worth of sang at twenty-five cents a pound in exactly twenty-two days.(1) Where Samuel Flannery now lives is the site of the original home of Thomas Hagaman, who settled there before the Civil War, coming from the Fork Ridge. The Ben Councill house at Vilas, built of brick, was completed about 1845 by a man from Tennessee by the name of Mace, while Polly Cornell cooked for the work hands. In 1827 the parents of Col. W. W. Presnell reached Brushy Fork, coming through the Coffee Gap on the old John's River Road from near Taylorsville. His mother, Mary Munday, was born at the Black Oak Ridge and his father, Solomon Presnell, in Union County in 1810. Where the widow of ex-Sheriff A. J. McBride now lives, nearly opposite the Ben Councill brick house at Vilas, is where the old Tomlin and Ben Councill store house stood. It was built of logs. On the hill above the present residence of Wm. L. Henson is the site of the first Methodist Church that was ever built in Watauga County, but it seems never to have been completed, though Colonel Presnell says that his mother told him services were held there soon after she came to this settlement in 1827. It is at Vilas that Ben Councill built a large mill for that day and time (1845), and from that place the road forked, one prong going through the Councill gap to Valle Crucis and the other to Sugar Grove, from which point it went through the Mast Gap to Valle Crucis, as well as on down Cove Creek to Watauga River and up the Cove Creek to Tennessee. The Whittington family finally moved to Missouri. The Dugger family of Cove Creek are descendants of Benjamin Dugger, who came from Yadkin Elk in 1793 or 1794 to Brushy Fork and entered land there, and for whom the Dugger Mountain and creek east of the Blue Ridge are named. There were three Dugger brothers who came from Scotland and stopped awhile near Petersburg, Va., named Benjamin, Daniel and Julius. Ben stopped at Yadkin Elk, Daniel went to Kentucky and Julius settled near Fish Springs on the Watauga River, Tennessee. It was from Julius' children that the Banner's Elk Duggers descended.
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Note: (1) One of the sons of Newton Banner has about a fourth of an acre in ginseng, near Sugar Grove. Others have large patches of it also. Many have very small plots of ground in shaded corners where a few plants are tended.

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Shull's Mills.--From this point to the Linville gap is full of historical incidents and romantic occurrences. It was in the field in front of the Joseph C. Shullhome, near the cattle barn, that young Charles Asher was shot by White's men after the Revolutionary War, and soon after he had married a daughter of David Hix and settled in the orchard below the Shull house. Here also came James Aldridge soon after he had left the Big Sandy and his wife and five children to commence life anew with Betsy Calloway, as a hunter and trapper. Rev. Henry H. Prout came there too, and built Easter Chapel, and it was there that Edward Moody and his wife lived lives of usefulness and inspiration to all who came into contact with them. There, too, came Jesse Boone, a nephew of Daniel, and built a cabin on one prong of Watauga River, which has ever since borne the name of the Boone Fork. Col. Walter W. Lenoir, soldier, lawyer, legislator and philanthropist, settled just above Shull's Mill at the close of the Civil War and built, or, rather, improved a mill there which has ever since been known as Lenoir's Stonewall Mill. The Grandfather Mountain looms above it on one side and the Hanging Rock on the other. It was in this neighborhood that many of the most tragic events of the Civil War occurred, while just across the Linville gap is the romantic valley of Altamont, the old home of the Palmers and Childses, who had been lured from New York and Massachusetts to pass their days in these enchanting surroundings. It was the broad bottoms and other attractions that made Bishop Ives apply to Phillip Shull, the father of Joseph C., for a deed to what was then Shull's Mills, embracing the present Shull holdings as well as those of Alex. Moody across Lance's Creek. And it is as well to state here that Lance's Creek was so called because Lance Estes first lived on its waters, but sold out to Len. Estes February 8, 1830. The Shull Mills land was granted to Charles Asher in 1788, when it was supposed to be in Washington County, Tennessee, and by him conveyed to Joseph White in 1792, and by Joseph to Benjamin White in 1798. It was from this neighborhood, also, that Cobb McCanless rode to Boone with young Levi L. Coffey on that January morning in 1859, where he was confronted with

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the agent of the Weyeth's, for whom he had been collecting money, but to return that night and take the fatal step of absconding with trust funds from which there was no return. The old bridge across Watauga River, one mile below Shull's Mills, still called the Old Bridge Place, and on which William Mast had been at work when, in October 1849, the poison he and his wife had drunk that morning in their coffee began to make their fatal effects felt, fell down in 1909 while Wood Young was passing over it in a wagon drawn by two mules; while Zeb Dana was killed there in 1883 at night when returning with horses which he thought he had borrowed and their owners thought he had stolen. The old Caldwell and Watauga Turnpike crossed the river at this point, but after the Civil War (1870) Col. Joseph C. Shull changed it so as to cross at the present ford and run in front of his residence, instead of in rear, as it had done before, thereby avoiding a moist and boggy place near his well.

Linville Valley.–One scarcely thinks of this region--from Linville Gap to Linville Falls--as a valley, for it is more like a high ridge upon the crest of which a silver stream winds its romantic way, with "here a blossom sailing, and here and there a lusty trout, and here and there a grayling." And, most wonderful, even incredible, it seems, is the fact that its course from Linville Gap to the Linville Falls is east of the Blue Ridge. The Humpback Mountain lies between the stream and the eastern lowlands, and looks for all the world like the Blue Ridge, but such is not the case. And more wonderful still is the fact that just over Pisgah Ridge is one prong of the Tow River, flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. Following this ridge out, one comes to the ridge which divided the waters of the Watauga from those of the Toe, and the Cherokee territory to the south from there under the cliff just above Pisgah Church before the Revolutionary War, to which point they had been chased by troops from below the Blue Ridge. A man named Fullward evidently lived ont he branch between the old J. B. Palmer house and the store now occupied by Bickerstaff and Stroup, as that branch is

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called for in grant No. 1 of Burke County land. This grant is dated December 17, 1778 and is to J. McKnitt Alexander and William Sharp, for 300 acres, covering what will always be known as the Palmer Place on Linville River.(1) It is signed by Governor Caswell and has the old bees-wax seal hanging to the grant by an old ribbon. Who Fullward was no one can now tell, but there was also another settler whose name even has been forgotten and who lived where M. C. Bickerstaff now resides. William White, after whom the Billy White Creek of this place is called, then lived at the Bickerstaff place, but he moved to Missouri about 1821, when that territory was opened up to settlement. White sold to James Erwin and he to J. B. Palmer. George Crossnore settled in what is still called the Crossnore place, where Benjamin Aldridge now lives, and he was probably a hunter. The post office and neighborhood still bear his name. William Davis, a soldier of the Revolution, stole his wife, a Carpenter, from Ashe, and settled at what is still called the Davis Mountain, now the Monroe Franklin place, and which Warsaw Clark now owns, one mile and a half above the Crossnore place, where Kate, the five year old daughter of Davis, is buried under an apple tree. It is said that he first gave the name of the Cow Camp to a creek of that name which runs into the Toe River because of the fact, that, having no feed for his cattle, he camped near them on that creek and supplied them with lin tree limbs, called laps, from the time the buds began to swell till the grass came. Another reason is given, however, for this name, which is that there was abundance of stagger-weed on the creek, and when the cattle ate it, as they did, their owners camped on the creek in order to doctor them.

The Ollis Family.– John Ollis was one of the first to settle in the Linville country, making his home just above Crossnore, where he cleared a field, still called by some the Ollis Place, while across the Fire-Scald Ridge is a rock called the Ollis
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Note:(1) Col. J. B. Palmer, afterwards colonel of the 58th North Carolina, came from New York State in 1858, and built a large frame house there. Because of the execution for desertion of some of his soldiers, condemned by court-martial, he could not return there after the Civil War. His widow sold it in 1889 to Mrs. Anna K. Watkins, wife of Maj. G. B. Watkins, of U. S. Navy, retired, and she to C. E. Wood, trustee in 1908. Kirk having burnt the Palmer house, Major Watkins erected the residence now on the old site.

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Deer Stand. He was of German extraction and was a soldier of the War of 1812, but was discharged at Salisbury after serving only sixty days on account of physical disability. His children were Boston, John, Jr., Daniel, James and George, Sarah, who married a Harrel; Elizabeth, who married James Gragg, and Mary who married Major Gragg. W. H. Ollis, one of John's sons, was born September 22, 1840, and married Melinda Harstin, January 25, 1866.

Other Early Settlers.– Harvey Clark settled near the Harshaw place below Pinola; Andrew Bowers, at the Bowers' Gap; Abe Gwyn lived above Scaly, near Cranberry mines; Rad Ellis lived on the Fork Mountain, while Dr. Wm. Houston lived at what is now called Minneapolis, where he bought sang. Dr. Houston is said to have been seven feet tall. Bayard Benfield now lives where Abram Johnson first put up a forge. It is said that Johnson frequently looked for his jacket, as the vest is called here, while he had it on his person, and that the floor of his home was made of red hickory six inches thick and so closely joined that cracks were invisible. Tilmon Blalock lived on Beaver Creek, near Spruce Pine. Larkin Calloway built a little mill and lived at what is now Linville City, a little above, and his broher-in-law, Torry Webb, lived where the lake now is. Mathias Carpenter came from Pennsylvania and settled on New River in Ashe. It was his daughter who married William Davis. His son, Jacob, moved to Three Mile Creek, where he died July 18, 1856, aged eighty-six years. His son, Jacob, of Altamont, was born January 4, 1833. Henry Dellinger came from Burke about 1834 and settled where Linn Dellinger now lives. Henry salted and tended cattle in the mountains for the Erwins; John Franklin lived at the Old Fields of Toe and was one of Cobb McCanless's deputies. Wesley Johnson, a son of Abraham's, went to Utah and died there in 1880, aged eighty-one years.

Elk Crossroads.–As Elk Creek comes into the South Fork of the New River at this point, it has been a noted place for many years. Riddle and his men passed there with Ben Cleveland after they had captured him at Old Fields in April, 1781.

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Wm. Howell, Wm. Ray, Solomon Younce and G. and Joseph Tatum were early settlers. It has always been a stopping place and a noted "stand" for the sale of goods and provisions. James Todd and Hugh A. Dobbins kept a store there before the Civil War and several others have sold goods there since. It is now called Elkland by the Virginia-Carolina Railroad, having for several years born the name of Todd. Col. E. F. Lovill, of Boone, kept a store there after the Civil War, and then moved to Boone, where he has practiced law ever since. The completion of the Virginia-Carolina Railroad to that place in 1915 promises to make of it a large town in the near future. All of Elkland is now in Ashe County, the legislature making the line follow the creek from its mouth to the Blackburn ford. The Tatum place was first granted to Thomas Farmer 1788, when this was a part of Wilkes County. Farmer sold to John Lipps in 1796 for 70 pounds, "current money." (Deed Book C, p. 598.) Lipps sold to Susanna Holman in 1799 for same amount (E, p. 241),and she sold to William Clawson in 1802 (A, p. 534), who held it till 1835, when he sold it to Ebeneezer Clawson, and he to Buckner Tatum in 1836 (L, p. 122), and in the year 1845 Buckner sold it to Elijah Tatum, the father of John L., its present owner (N, p. 483).
[ Sharon's note: Elkland, ( later called Todd,) did become a booming little town. I remember hearing folks talk about how "at one point Todd was bigger than Boone". But the flood of 1940 washed out the railroad tracks and they were never rebuilt. Now once again it is a quiet little community. Today there is the famous Todd General Store where one can buy a cold pop and a chunk of hoop cheese along with milk and bread and the other sort of things one expects to find in small country stores, as well as some antiques of the area. The historic Todd store is still the nearest one to my childhood home.]

Banner's Elk.-- John Holsclaw was the first permanent resident of this place, though Samuel Hix had occupied a place in the laurel a short distance away at what is now the Grandfather Orphanage. Baker King and Ben Dugger at some time had a camp on that very land.(3) It was there, too, during the stormy days of 1863 to 1865 that Lewis and Martin Banner piloted many an escaped Federal prisoner and Union man trying to get through the lines into Tennessee. Only a few in the secret knew of the place -- Dan Ellis, of Elizabethon, Tenn.; Harrison Church, another conductor of the underground railroad, and Keith Blalock were admitted into the inner temple. Andrew Bowers lived in what is still known as the Bower's Gap and gave his name to the Bower's Mountain between Banner's Elk and Valle Crucis. Down on Elk, Abram Gwyn lived at what is still
(note 3 This camp is called for in deed from John Holtsclaw to Delilah Baird of date May 2, 1838, to the Big Bottoms.)

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called the Ford of Elk. George Dugger came later on and settled about where the road to Dr. Jenning's hotel leaves the turnpike. This, however, was on the Shawnehaw side of the ridge. There were no clearings of any extent at Banner Elk, except those at the Hix Improvement, which was very small, and at the Big Bottoms, but there were two "deadenings," one called the Moses Deadening, and the other the Lark Chopping. But nearly one hundred years ago Martin Banner had walked through from Surry to Nashville, accompanied by a single companion and having one horse between them. He passed through Banner Elk and determined to return there at some future time. Accordingly, in 1845 he returned with his family, crossing Watauga River at a ford opposite the place Walter Baird now lives, it being then the home of Bedent Baird, and followed his cart way or wagon road to his place on Beech Mountain, where he turned to the left by the Roland clearing and reaching Banner's Elk at what is now called Balm. But he did not stop there, pitching his tent permanently near what is now the Lowe Hotel. His brother, Lewis, came three or four years later and built his cabin where his daughters, Mrs. Wetmore and Miss Nannie Banner, now live, a mile above Martin's home. Levi Moody and Joel Eggers lived above Lewis Banner's house. Martin Banner moved across Sugar Mountain Gap and built a new home near the head of the North Fork of Toe River in 1866. Some time later he was on a visit at Eb Harris's home near what is now Montezuma, where he died as the result of a fall. He was born February 7, 1808, and died February 19, 1895. John Franklin and Marcus Tuttle also lived near Montezuma at that time. It was then called Bull Scrape because, being on the very crest of the Blue Ridge, there is a current of cool air constantly stirring and the cattle on the ranges thereabout used to assemble there in the heat of the day and lie under the trees while the amorous bulls pawed the ground around and locked horns over their bovine love scrapes. Close to what is now Linville City, a rather small city, but remarkably clean and attractive, lived Tyree Webb, then a very old man. The road through the McCanless Gap, reaching from Banner Elk to Linville Gap, was not constructed

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