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Schools.

Ante-Bellum Education.-- Much has been written about the want of education of the mountain people. Some of it has been deserved and some underserved. There have always been schools in Watauga County. Tradition tells of schools as far back as the coming of the first settlers into this country. It is true that education was not general, neither was it of an advanced type. But children were taught the rudiments--the three R's--from time immemorial. The minutes of Three Forks Church show chirography that would be a credit to the best pensman of today,(2) and while the spelling is sometimes erratic and lacks uniformity, the language is terse and plain, leaving no doubt as to its meaning. Some of the phrases are even more forceful than any of the present time, and the tendency to follow Bible language is marked, showing close Bible study. When a member was admitted to the church, the invariable formula was "a door was opened and ----------received into the church." That the church doors are always open to any who would enter, goes without saying, but that "a door" was opened for the reception of that particular person seems far more expressive and forceful. "She confessed her transgression," was another phrase of strength and scriptural authority. And even now we have expressions which transcend any that modern philology has substituted for those of the sixteenth century. "He heired that land," is far more significant and direct than to say "he inherited" it. We "mend" when we improve in health, which is far better than to say that we "get better." "It don't differ" certainly is more economical and quite as expressive as "it makes no difference."
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Note: (1) Space will not permit the record of public schools, a full account of which can be obtained from the reports of the Superintendent of Education.
(2) John W. Owen appears to have recorded these minutes, which are correct in diction and spelling. Thomas Morris, a kinsman of Mr. Geo. L. Van Dyke, was a fine scribe also, his copy-book, still preserved by her, showing specimens of his writings when he was a boy of twelve years, being remarkable. All writing of those days was done with a quill pen.

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But an adept at such matters has given an entire chapter to our short-comings, as well as to our long-goings in that respect. Hear him:

Peculiarities of Our Speech.-- In Chapter XIII Mr. Kephart sums up many of the most striking peculiarities of our speech which differentiate us from most people. Following is a condensation of some of them: The insertion of sounds where they do not belong, as musicianer; the substitution of one sound for another, due to a change of vowels, as ruther for rather; difficulty in pronouncing diphthongs, as brile for broil; the occasional substitution of consonants, as atter for after; the conversion of nouns into verbs of action, as "that bear'll meat me a month;" the coming of a verb from an adjective, as "much that dog, and see won't he come along;" the creation of nouns from verbs, as "I didn't hear no give-out at meetin'," or from an adjective, as "Nance took the biggest through at meetin'," and "a person has a rather," meaning preference; the use of corrupt forms of verbs, as gwine for going, het for heat; the formation of peculiar adjectives from verbs, as "them's the travelin'est horses I ever seed;" the use of verbs for adverbs, as "if I'd a been thoughted enough;" the use of the old syllabic plural, as in nesties, posties, beasties; the great abundance of pleonasms, as "I done done it," and "in this day and time;" the use of double, tribble and even quadruple and quintruple negatives, as "I ain't never seen no men-folks of no kind do no washing;" intensifying expression, as "we had one more time", "we jist pintblank got to do it,' etc. Biscuit-bread, ham-meat, rifle-gun, rock-clift, ridin'critter, cow-brute, man-person, women-folks, preacher man, granny-woman and neighbor people are common everywher in the mountains.

We Are Commended for Much.-- This author in the same chapter credits us with seldom being at a loss for words, even if we have to create them. They are, however, always produced from English roots, but if all else fails, we fall back on "spang," a coinage peculiarly our own. The use of the old English past tense of holp, stunk and swum is commended, holp being used bothas a preterite and as infinitive, and he gives examples of a strong preterite with dialectical change of the vowel in brung,

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drap, drug, friz shet and shuck, and of weak preterites in div, driv, fit, rid, riz, seed, throwed, etc. Even our most illiterate "startle" the "furriner" by the glib use of such words as tutor for rear or train, denote for signify, caviled for quarreled, discern for realize and proffered for offered. He says that cuckold and moon-calf, which have none but a literary usage in America, and often herd in the mountains, and of the much-derided "hit" he says, "His, pronoun hit , antedates English itself, being the Angelo-Saxon neuter of he;" and on another page, 280, he says hit and it are used indifferently, as euphony may seem to require. We use fray for afray or fight, and fraction for rupture, which we find in Torilus and Cressida. "Feathered into them" he says is heard here, and refers to the time when arrows were dirven into the flesh up to the feathers. We call married women "mistress" and "miz" for short, and aged men "old grandsir." We still "back" letters, instead of addressisng them, as was the custom before envelopes were invented. We call a choleric person "tetchous," and, like Ben Franklin, we "carry" our wives and daughters to different place when we accompany them there. To most of us molasses is "them," and license to marry in variably is called "a pair of licenses." Of wome of our idioms he cites: "I swapped hosses, and I'll tell you for why;" "Your name ain't much common;" "you think me of it in the mornin';" "The woman's aimin' to go to meetin';" "I had a head to plow today;" "Reckon Pete was knowin' to the sarcumstance;" "I knowed in reason she'd have the mullygrubs over them doin's," and "You cain't handily blame her."

Place Names.-- He gives a number of names of places which have adhered to them for years merely because of some event which happened there. Among these are Dusk Camp Run, Mad Sheep Mountain, Dog Slaughter Creek, Drownin' Creek, Burnt Cabin Branch, Broken Leg, Raw Dough, Burnt Ponne and Sandy Mush. The fighting spirit blazes forth in Fighting Creek, Shooting Creek, Gouge-eye, Vengeance, Four-Killer and Disputantia. Personal names are common everywhere, as Jake's Creek, Dick's Creek and Jonathan's Creek. But he had not heard of the Snow Wine Branch of the Beech Mountains, so did not include it.

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Not Guilty in Watauga.-- Several words and colloquialisms are recorded which seem strange to some of us in Watauga County, as gin for it, do' for door, dauncy for mincing, doney-gal for sweetheart, toddick or taddler for the toll-measure at a mill, swivvet for hurry, upscuddle for quarrel, etc.

Occult Errors.-- Both Mr. Kephart and Miss Morley are struck with the use of "soon" for "early", but to most of us there is nothing wrong in this use, and we "fling a rock" in South Carolina as well as in the mountains when to "furriners" we throw a stone. Why, too, should we not ask, "Are you plumb bereft?" if we wish to know if one is entirely bereft of one's senses? What, too, is wrong with "Sam went to Andrews or to Murphy, one," or "I don't much believe the wagon will come today," or " 'Tain't powerful long to dinner, I don't reckon?" They may be plainly wrong to others, but to us they are "plumb right." In conclusion, he adds that instead of having a limited vocabulary of three hundred words, he had himself taken down from the lips of Carolina mountaineers some eight hundred dialectical or obsolete words, to say nothing of the much greater number of standard English terms that they command.

No Foreign Words Admitted.-- Mr. Kephart has detected only three words of directly foreign origin in the vocabualary of the mountaineers (p. 289) --doney, from Spanish or Italian donna; Kraut, from the Germans, and "Sashiate" or "Sashay," from the French chasse. And he calls attention to the fact that, although the eastern band of Cherokees have lived with the Smokey Mountain highlanders for from seventy to eighty years, the mountain dialect contains not one word of Cherokee origin. Many of the whites, however, do use the word "O-see-you," which is the Cherokee for "Howdy do." What he calls the obsolete title of linkister or interpreter, is nothing but a corruption of the present word linguister.

Our Literary and Moonshine Fame Secure.-- Kephart, in his "Southern Highlanders, " agrees with us in thinking that ours is the purest English spoken anywhere in the world today. As has been shown, he commends us for very, very much. He condemns us for little, if anything. And to this high praise we can

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now add that of no less distinguished a literary lion than Mr. Cecil Chesterton, of London, England--not Connecticut. This is how he is quoted in the Literary Digest> for June 19, 1915 (p. 1469); "I do not want anybody to suppose that I am suggesting that the American language is in any way inferior to ours (the English!). In some ways it has improved upon it in vigor and raciness. In other it adheres more closely to the English of the best period. Thus an American uses the word 'sick' as it is used in the Jacobean Bible--to his not inconsiderable embarrassment sometimes, I should think, when hef finds himself in European society. Also he uses old forms like 'gotten,' which we have abbreaviated. If you want the purest Shakespearian English, I believe you have go go among the illict whiskey distillers on the Southern mountains. But I was never fortunate enough (in a double sense) to come in contact with this ancient and delightful race."

Ante-Bellum School Teachers.-- Following is a partial list of school teachers who taught at various paces in Watauga prior to the Civil War, as remembered by several old men and women at various points in what is now and used to be Watauga County: James McCanless, William Roland, George N. Evans, Vine Thompson, H. H. Prout, Mack McCleard, Culver Wise, Josiah Wise, Levi Chandler, Joseph Culberson, Levi Chandler, John Wise, Alex Dobson, John Patterson, Sterling Sallens, Wm. C. Wise, George Grissom, Isaac and Harvey Wise, ----------Miller, Wm. Thomas, Pink Matheson, Erastus Longacre, Samuel Watson, a one-armed man; Levi Heath, H. A. McBride, Joel Dyer, Wm., Reuben and James Farthing, William Draughan, ----------Byland, Poovey, Wm. Cannon, T. C. Coffey, Abner C. Farthing, Edward Faucett, Lewis Church, Thomas Hodges, Martin Harrison, Joshua Rominger, Jonathan Norris, Joseph Woodring and Christian Woodring, L. Dow Allen, W. W. Presnell, Hamilton Blackburn, H. B. Blackburn, Charles Lippard, T. C. Land, Carroll McBride, A. F. and H. A. Davis, Timothy Moretz, Leonard Phillips, Thomas Bingham, J. B. Miller, Frank Whittington, Christian Moretz, Dr. ---------- Thurman, David Calton, Geo. Dyer, John Kennedy, Robert Coffey, Elbert Dinkins.

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Our Schools.-- The public schools of Watauga are matters of record and need no extended mention in these pages. To rescue the story of ante-bellum efforts in education is quite as much as there is occasion for in this work. In old days there were no schools till after the crops were gathered in and secured for the winter. Then men were employed to teach in various localities upon written contract, the teacher boarding among the patrons. There is still preserved among the many valuable old papers of Col. Henry H. Farthing, of Timbered Ridge, a contract duly executed between the subscribers and Alfred Fox for a school to commerce on the 9th of November, 1835, and last three months, for which the teacher was to receive $1.50 for each scholar and board for himself, and the subscribers "agree to tolerate him with due and legal authority in school." It is nowhere recorded that any school teacher in these mountains got rich by teaching school, but Massachusetts herself has no such record for any of her ante-bellum pedagogues, either. Then, too, there were what were termed "Saturday and Sunday teachers," who taught on those days, or, sometimes, only on Saturdays, when they were called "Saturday teachers." The coming into Watauga County of Rev. Henry H. Prout in 1843, or 1845, to teach school was a great step forward, and old men now living on upper Watauga speak of him as the most scholarly man they ever met, and credit him with having taught them more than they ever learned from any other teacher. Unfortunately, during the first term of the regular school at Valle Crucis, about 1845-46, several unruly boys were sent there from east of the Blue Ridge, under the impression that the school was a sort of reformatory for the recalcitrant youths. This disheartened several of the ladies connected with the mission, and they withdrew one after another (Skiles, p. 20). However, after Mr. Thurston's death, in 1846, Rev. Jarvis Buxton came, after which the school got a good start, Mr. Prout going up to Mrs. Edward Moody's to teach.

"Straights and Pot-Hooks."-- Mrs. Battle Bryan used to tell her son, Col. W. L. Bryan, of Boone, that the way in which writing was taught in her girlhood was by requiring the beginner

Page 249to make numerous vertical lines, one after the other, till a degree of perfection was attained, when the same straight lines were required to be made, but with the addition of small curved lines, turning upward, and called hoods. The arithmetics that preceded Davies' were Pike's, Smiley's and Fowler's and the spelling book that was the forerunner o Webster's blue back was Dillsworth's. A few of these old school teachers are now distinctly remembered by Col. W. L. Bryan, who supplies the following:

Phillip Church.-- When about twelve or thirteen years old, he went to Phillip Church, who lived in the edge of Ashe County, near Riverside. He taught at the old Lookabill schoolhouse, which stood close to David Lookabill's residence, one mile east of Soda Hill, and on the road leading from the Deep Gap of the Blue Ridge to the Deep Gap between the Snake and Rich mountains where these mountains came together and where the road forks, one prong going to Zionville, N. C., and the other to Trade, in Tennessee. It was a free school, which was usually taught in the fall and winter, after the crops had been gathered and there was little for the children to do. He attended this school about three months, or one session. Soon after the close of that session Church married Samuel Trivett's daughter, and moved with his father-in-law to the Poga Creek settlement between Beech Creek and Ford of Elk, where he died in 1914. Colonel Bryan got as far as "abase" at that time.

Jonathan Norris.-- This pedagogue was called "Lame Jonathan." because he had rubbed brimstone --powdered sulphur--over a skin eruption and had then gone in swimming. The result was almost complete bodily paralysis though his mind remained clear. He taught at the Lookabill school house also, and Colonel Bryan attended his school parts of two terms. Norris lived till he was about sixty years old, when he died at his home near Soda Hill.

Eli M. Farmer.-- Colonel Bryan's next teacher was Eli M. Farmer, at the same school house. This gentleman married a Miss Austin, of Caldwell County, and died on Cove Creek about 1890.

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Burt Davis.-- This was the next teacher, but he taught at Soda Hill school house and at Eli Brown's school house. Davis married Carolina Moretz first, and, after her death, Martha Lookabill. His first wife was a daughter of Squire Johnnie Moretz, and his second the daughter of David Lookabill. The latter still lives on Elk Creek, above Todd. Davis himself, however, died about 1900.

Todd Miller, of Wilkes County, was the next of Colonel Bryan's instructors, and he taught at the Ben Greene school house between the latter gentleman's residence and where his son, Jacob, now lives on the Little Fork of Meat Camp Creek. It was there that he went through Davies' arithmetic and ended his school days. This was in the fall or winter of 1857, and after the Colonel had been clerking for Joseph Councill and Allen Myrick. Before that he had studied Fowler's rithmetic. That and the blue back spelling book were the only books he had during all his school days. His mother told him that Dillsworth's Speller was the spelling book which had preceded the blue back.

The Twisting Temple.-- Battle Bryan called the school house on Meat Camp by this name because the frame was not exactly plumb and square, but leant a little to one side. The district has kept that name ever since. The house stood where Frank Reagan lives now. The district has, however, been divided into the Tugman School and the Green Valley School, and a better house has replaced the Twisting Temple. Still, this old Twisting Temple School District has furnished one congressman, E. S. Blackburn; one lawyer, E. S. Blackburn; two teachers, two physicians, the latter being Thomas Blackburn and B. W. Ferguson.

Lees-McRae Institute.-- Without the slightest flourishing of trumpets or sounding of the big brass drum, Rev. Edgar Tufts came to Banner's Elk about 1901 and established a boarding and day school for girls. This has been successful from the beginning and continues to flourish. The terms are reasonable and the instruction thorough. Within recent years Grace Hospital was started, Mrs. Helen Hartly Jenkins, of New York, having

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given more than anyone else. It is equipped with a complete operating room and laboratory. It has several rooms for patients undergoing treatment. The cool and pure mountain air aids much in all surgical operations. The Grandfather Orphanage was started in the spring of 1914, the Lybrook farm having been secured for that purpose. The capacity of the orphanage has been doubled already. Girls are given practical instruction in many useful arts. The key to these benefactions is "IN, OF, FOR," meaning that they are in the mountains, of the mountains and for the mountain people. This tells the entire story eloquently. The church which is nearing completion will be one of the most attractive architecturally in the State. The two large conglomerate rocks or pudding stones on either side of the entrance are in themselves rare curiosities. The school most sensibly closes during the cold months of winter, and is open during the summer, spring and fall months, opening in the spring and closing in December. The good already accomplished and yet to be achieved in incalculable.

School Teachers in Boone Before Civil War.-- Miss Annie Rutledge, from Wilkesboro, taught in the court house. Miss Barber, of Lenoir, taught in the court house. While being driven in a buggy of Joshua Winkler from Lenoir to Boone, with trunk on back of buggy, they met a man named Dooley as they came up the mountain from Patterson towards Blowing Rock. They talked with him and started on. Soon they found that the trunk was missing. Winkler went back, but never got the trunk. It was never recovered.

Col. J. B. Todd also taught in the court house. After the Civil War Henry Dixon, of Alamance, taught in the court house. W. B. and Robert Arrowood and Professor Blake, of Davidson College, their uncle, taught in a small one-room house which stood in the corner of the lot where Dr. J. W. Jones now lives, near the present drug store. Professor Blake started the school, but left it in charge of his nephews when he returned to Davidson. W. B. Arrowood is now a Presbyterian preacher. They boarded with Dr. J. G. Rivers. Miss Margret Coffey taught in 1869. After the Arrowoods, came Prof. John McEwen, who

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taught in Masonic Hall. James Warner taught here three months. James H. Hall, of Mount Airy, also taught at Masonic Hall in 1874. Then came Mr. McEwen. J. F. Spainhour and J. F. Hall taught at the academy which stood where Calvin Cottrell's stable now stands. This consisted of two large rooms, one above the other, and had been built but not quite finished by the Three Forks Baptist Association. It turned the building over to the Boon Baptist Church, which finished it. W. F. Shull was another teacher who had not been forgotten.

A Normal School at Boone.-- By chapter 229, Laws of 1885, a normal school was authorized at Boone for the training of teachers, and a sum not to exceed $500.00 was appropriated out of the University Normal School Fund with which to pay instructors. This was a small beginning, but it has had a great ending.

Appalachian Training School.-- In 1903, Professors B. B. and D. D. Dougherty were teaching a private school at Boone, having succeeded in securing the erection of a large and commondious building for that purpose. But in that year the legislature incorporated the Appalachian Training School and made an appropriation for its support. It had already begun, however, for in 1899 the sum of $1,500.00 had been appropriated on condition that a like sum should be provided by the people. By several yearly appropriations following the first, the present plant was built, consisting of about a dozen buildings, a water power electric light plant and library. There are 500 or more acres of valuable land belong to the school. There are three sessions annually, with an attendance of from four to five hundred. There is a competent faculty.

T. P. Adams went to Raleigh at his own expense in 1905 and urged the inauguration of the training school, and when in the late fall of the year the science building was about to be left exposed to the elements all winter, he carried mortar and brick for one month till the roof was on. He also insisted on the purchase of the Edmisten farm, containing the present dam and electric light plant, and in the face of much opposition from other directors, succeeded in having the purchase completed before the option expired.

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