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Guyot or LeConte of the Smokies, or the Balsam Cone of the Black Mountains. In any case the Great Smoky Mountains are the master chain of the Appalachian system, the greatest mass of highland east of the Rockies (p. 58). The most difficult and rugged part of the Smokies (and of the United States east of Colorado) is in the saw-tooth mountains between Collins and Guyot, at the headwaters of Oconalufty River."

Who Measured the Highest Peak?– Dr. Arnold Guyot, of Princeton College (now University), published an article in the Asheville News, July 18, 1860, to the effect that Dr. Mitchell's measurments of this mountain failed to agree with each other; that the location of the highest peak had remained indefinite, even in the mind of Dr. Mitchell himself, "as I learned it from his own mouth in 1856." At that time, 1860, the peak now called Mitchell's, or Mount Mitchell, was called Clingman's, while the peak now known to some as Clingman's was called Mount Mitchell. Dr. Guyot says of this: "If the honored name of Dr. Mitchell is taken from Mount Mitchell and transferred to the highest peak, it should not be on the ground that he first made known its true elevation, which he never did, nor himself ever claimed to have done, for the true height was unknown before my measurement of 1854 . . . Nor should it be on the ground of his having first visited it, for, though after his death evidence which made it probable that he did [came out], Nor, at last, should it be because that peak was, as it is alleged, thus named long before, for I must declare that neither in 1854 nor later during the whole time I was on both sides of the mountain, did I hear of another Mount Mitchell than the one south of the highest, so long visited under that name, and that Dr. Mitchell himself, before ascending the northern peak in 1856, as I gathered it from a conversation with him, believed it to be the highest.

Politics or Public Opinion?– Dr. Guyot further said in the same article that General Clingman "could not possibly know when he first ascended it [the highest peak] that anyone had visited or measured it before him, nor have any intention to do any injustice to Dr. mitchell." General Clingman in 1884 told

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Charles Dudley Warner ("On Horseback," pp. 94 to 96) that he had been the first to discover the highest peak, and he also told this writer later that he had made this discovery by climbing a balsam tree on what was then called mount Mitchell, the southern peak, and applying a spirit level to the surrounding horizon. Thus, the superior height of the northern peak was disclosed to him, and he then proceded to measure and claim it. He told others the same story. Dr. Warner states that public sentiment awarded Dr. Mitchell this honor because of his tragic death. (Id. P. 95.) But was that all? Here is what Hon. Z. B. Vance, long Clingman's political opponent, said in a letter to Prof. Charles Phillips, dated Asheville, August, 1857:(1) "Yet there are some who believe that Clingman superintended the creation of these mountains, and, therefore, has a right to know more about them than anyone else. The editor of the News [the late Major Marcus Erwin], who expects to go to Clingman when dies (and perhaps will) . . . is already beginning the war against the dead, as you will see by reference to that sheet of last week. I advised the Spectator men to keep perfectly quiet, and would give the same advice to the doctor's friends elsewhere. Let us prepare our case in silence and wait patiently for the good feeling to operate among the mountaineers, which is now going on admirably. In the meantime the proper efforts might be made to rectify Coke's map [which gave Clingman's name to the highest peak] and to push up the influential journals at a distance/ a thing that the faculty are better able to do than anyone else. Only one thing remains to be done, in my opinion, to make our proof complete–to have the gearings of the High Peak taken from Yeate's Knob and compared with Dr. Mitchell's memorandum thereof. I hope steps will be taken to do this before long, as Clingman intends doing it himself after the election. I understand, though I have hot seen it, that Mitchell's map also puts that peak down as Mount Clingman. Is it true? . . ."

In the same letter Senator Vance speaks of certain certificates from Big Tom Wilson and others, but their contents are not disclosed. There was also published in the same paper a copy
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Note: (1) Published by R. D. W. Connor, secretary N. C. Hist. Com., in Charlotte Observer, p. 11. Jan. 24, 1915.

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of an address to solicit from citizens of North Carolina and friends of Dr. Mitchell funds for the removal of his body to the highest peak and the erection of a monument there. Five thousand dollars was asked for, but nowhere in that address can be found any claim that Dr. Mitchell either discovered or measured the highest peak. Its language is: "in view of the fact that he was the first to visit these mountains and to make known their superior height to any east of the Rocky Mountains, and that he spent a great portion of his time and finally lost his life in exploring them," the subscriptions were asked. As the result of this appeal, is also published a subscription list containing the names of only ten subscribers, with William Patton at the head for $100.00, and the entire amount aggregating only $195.00.

Big Tom Wilson was with Dr. Mitchell on his first trip, when it is claimed that he measured the highest peak, and his certificate should settle the controversy. But where is it? Where is the data showing the comparison of the "bearings of the High Peak from Yeates' Knob with Dr. Mitchell's memorandum thereof?" Did Mitchell's geography or map concede the highest peak to General Clingman? We are in the dark as to these matters. But we have Judge David Schenck's report of an interview with Big Tom on the subject.

The Crucial Question.– Did Dr. Mitchell ever visit the peak which now bears his name? "Big Tom" Wilson is the only witness, and upon his testimony rests the validity of the claim that he did. What is that testimony? Simply this: that the search party with Wilson first "examined the area of ground on Mitchell's Peak, where the doctor went, and then going to the trail he [the doctor] was directed to take, and, finding no sign, they commenced the descent towards the south side by the east prong. They had not gone more than a quarter of a mile until Adniram D. Allen found an impression in the moss . . ." This was the first trace of the doctor, and, after following it some distance, they went back to "examine where the track first left the peak . . .and found that the doctor had taken a ‘horse trail' by mistake for the trail which led to ‘Big Tom's'" This is every shred of evidence concerning the peak in the interview between Wilson and judge David Schenck on the 26th day

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of September, 1877, and which was published in the Charlotte Democrat of November 2, 1877. From it can be deducted only that there was no "sign" of the doctor's having been on "the area of ground on Mitchell's peak," but that when "they commenced the descent towards the south side," the very side on which stood the peak which had always been called Mitchell's, they found the first sign in the moss "not more than a quarter of a mile away." There is no evidence that they went to the south which he was going when they found his track in the moss. What is meant by "where the track first left the peak" and that he took "a horse trail by mistake for the trail which let to Big Tom's" is all that even vaguely points to the fact that the doctor had been on the northern, or highest, peak.

Dr. Kemp P. Battle's Error.-- In an article on Dr. Mitchell, written by Dr. Battle, the last survivor of the University Faculty of June, 1857, and published in the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society, March, 1915, he refers (p. 161) to "Letters from the Raleigh Register in reply to General Thomas L. Clingman, who claimed that Dr. Mitchell was never on the highest peak of the Black Mountains, but that he, Clingman, was the true discoverer. He caused W. D. Cooke to designate on his wall-map the highest peak as Mt. Clingman. On the death of the Doctor he gracefully surrendered his claim. It is now conceded that Dr. Mitchell was right. He is confirmed by the United States Geological Survey of 1881-‘2, the highest and final authority." Dr. Battle is right in saying that Gen. Clingman "gracefully surrendered his claim," but it is not "conceded that Dr. Mitchell was right," and the United States Survey simply ascertained the highest peak among the Blacks, but did not and could not prove Dr. Mitchell had ever been upon that spot.

Clingman's "Speeches and Writings."– North Carolina has not yet reared any monument to this one of her greatest sons. But in his "Speaches and Writings," published by himself after the Civil War, he has erected to his own memory a monument more eloquent that "storied urn or animated bust," and more enduring than bronze effigy or marble cenotaph.