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and drape the edges of all the rocks. For some reason the trees here are small, the chestnuts being not much larger than bushes, but the nuts are proportionately large, the largest nuts one ever saw on our native chestnut trees, and they are peculiarly sweet, again a hint to the fruit-makers, who from this could doubtless create a nut as large as the chestnuts of France and as sweet as those of America. The summit of this little mountain of the large chestnuts is one of your favorite places to go for a day of rest and contemplation. It is a lovely, soothing place, as it ought to be, for it is the Grandfather Mountain." Grafting French Chestnuts.--Mr. Jack Farthing, of Timbered Ridge, demonstrated some years ago that French and Italian chestnuts, when grafted to the native trees, will produce as large chestnuts as those imported as French and Italian, and Newton Banner also has several trees so grafted which are never failing.

Dr. Buxton's Description.–A letter from Rev. Jarvis Buxton, which speaks with greatest admiration of the grand sunrise seen from the top of the Grandfather Rock, is thus quoted in the "Life of Skiles" (p. 50):

"I have seen the glorious sunrise at sea, but nothing of sky at sea ever filled my vision with such deep impressions of glory as came from those gorgeous skies--brilliant hues evershifting, dissolving and re-combining, ever growing in brightness as the morning advanced, till the vast heavens seemed filled with the glory and flame of color; while below, stretching far away into the azure, the hills still slept their lowly sleep of silence, with the heavens all aglow above them."

Beaver Dams.–There is no more picturesque section than this in all the North Carolina mountains, nor is there any population more self-respecting and law-abiding. It has never known lawlessness, depravity or loose living. Schools and churches have been common since it became sufficiently settled to support them. From an account book kept by the late Dudley Farthing, his son, Col. Henry Harrison Farthing, of Timbered Ridge, can tell most, if not all, of the residents in this section in 1826 and 1827. George Wilson lived on Fork Ridge, which is between

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Cove and Beaver Dam creeks; Benjamin Harley lived where Lewis Farthing now lives; Joel Dyer, father of Ben., lived where James Cable now lifes; Micajah Lunsforth lived up under the Stone Mountain, where the Millsaps and Eggers now live, but his family moved to Tennessee after the death of Micajah; a man named Wallace lived in the "Pick Breeches" country, which is on the right of the Baker's Gap road, going west, between where the Millsaps and Eggers families now live and the top of the mountain. *7 Col. Phineas Horton told Mr. W. S. Farthing forty years ago (1875) that he had helped to build the road up Beaver Dams and over Baker's Gap, which was the main thoroughfare from North Carolina to Tennessee in 1826, and over which drovers took their stock of all kinds, but principally hogs. Mrs. William W. Farthing, widow of the minister of that name, lived just below Bethel Church, though the house is now gone, and entertained the traveling public. Her husband died there in January, 1827, having lived there only since the previous November. Thomas Curtis lived where Lee Osborn now lives at the foot of the George Gap road on the Cove Creek side, and he said that the first clearing on Beaver Dams was the field in which the Farthing graveyard now is and where a log cabin stood. It was there that the first log-raising and log-rolling, or clearing, took place on Beaver Dams. Curtis's sons went west, but in 1910 a great grandson, Webb Mast, by name, came back and had a picture taken of the old Ben Webb house site. The Webb cabin stood above the place where Alfred Trivett now lives, Webb having moved to middle Tennessee after he sold to Rev. W. W. Farthing in 1826. One of Ben Webb's daughters married Reuben Mast and died in that old cabin. Reuben Mast then married one of Thomas Curtis's daughters and moved to Texas. It was in this first cabin that Bishop Asbury stayed on one of his trips through Beaver Dams andwhen it was covered by only a few boards. When Mrs. W. W. Farthing kept the tavern on Beaver Dams, and old man stayed all night there and
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Note: (1) Big and Little Hessian are names given to two peaks on the Tennessee-North Carolina line, near Zionville. They are said not to be really named Hessian, but Hay-Shin, because although they are the shin or shank of the mountain they have hay on them, nevertheless. Some claim that they are named the Big and Little Ration because "out-layers," during the Civil War got their rations there, the rations being left by friends and relatives living near.

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started away the next morning. He was never seen again alive, but some time afterwards a dead body was found at the mouth of the Stone Mountain Branch, and it was supposed to have been his, and it was also thought that he had left the road over the Baker Gap and gone to sleep in the woods, and, waking up, became bewildered and followed the branch to its mouth, where he starved or froze. His name was never learned. The body was buried in the graveyard where Rev. W. W. Farthing and his wife are buried, just above where Alfred Trivett now lives. The first mill on Beaver Dams was one mile above Bethal Church, where an old mill is still running today. The Timbered Ridge, on which Coil. H. H. Farthing lives, was so called from the heavy timber which grew there. Behind his house, on a high plateau, is a most commanding view, easily reached by a well graded road, and from which the gorge of the Watauga River, the gloomy slopes of the Beach Mountain, the valley of Cove Creek, and the Big and Little Hessian, the Bald and the Elk mountains can be plainly seen. It invites a magnificent hotel and summer resort adornments, and for climate is unrivaled. Boone's Beaver Dams Trail.--The Cable family who first settled on Dry Run, just over the Baker Gap, claim that they were living on Boone's trail into Kentucky. That trail is said to have passed down Cove Creek to the place where Dr. J. B. Phillips now lives, from which point it left Watauga River, passed over Ward's Gap, and then followed a ridge down behind the homes of W. S. and J. H. Farthing, crossing the Beaver Dam Creek near where Alfred Trivett now lives--the old Ward and W. W. Farthing home--and passed on up the ridge by the Star Spring over the Star or Stair Gap to Roan's Creek in Tennessee. The Star Springs are at the foot of the Stone Mountain, one being at the head of the Stone Mountain Branch, which empties into Watauga River near W. A. Smitherman's farm, one mile below the Flat Shoals, the other being at the head of the Little Prong of Beaver Dam Creek, the two springs being scarcely 100 yards apart, but on opposite sides of a ridge. Star is the name given these springs because of particles of mica in them which shine like stars. There is little doubt that this was

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Boone's trail, but it seems not probable that he would have gone so much out of his way, when by going across the Grave Yard or Straddle Gap and over the mountain at Zionville, he could have got to Shoun's Crossroads on Roan's Creek, and thence followed to Laurel Creek almost directly to Abingdon, and thence to Cumberland Gap, a route many miles nearer than by going by Sycamore Shoals, and thence to Cumberland Gap, and over a more level country. He did go via Sycamore Shoals in 1775, but not in 1769.

Beech Creek and Poga.–The first man Col. H. H. Farthing remembers as living in the Beech Creek country was a man named Hately, who resided near the mouth of Beech Creek. This was long before the Civil War. I. Valentine Reese has lived a mile below since before the Civil War, where he has carried on a merchantile business. After the turnpike was finished down the river, say about 1854, the country began to settle up slowly, though it was used principally for ranging cattle, hunting and fishing. There was also a Harman settlement near the mouth of Beaver Dam Creek, but on the opposite side of the river, near what is now called the Cow Ford. But Golder Councill Harman and John Tester settled there even before the turn pike was built. The first settlers on Poga were Samuel Trivett, Phillip Church and Vincent Greer, although some man had settled on the Dark Ridge Branch before these came to that section. Vincent Greer lived in the Loggy Gap, he having married Jennie Brewer, "a big, portly woman, sir," to use a quite descriptive phrase of one of the neighbors All Poga has been cleared within the recollection of men yet living. Poga is said to have derived its name from the alleged fact that a man got lost in that section and wandered around a long time. When found, he said he had been "pokin" around all day--hence poky or pogy. But in his "Rhymes of Southern Rivers," M. V. Moore claims that pogy is nothing but a corruption of boggy, which was also the name of the Elk River.