The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1879-08-15
OLD-TIME "REMINISCENCES.
Hunting and Fishing Among the Mountain
Regions of North Carolina.
BY W. W,

Regions of North Carolina.
BY w. W.
The extensive mountain district at
the South comprised in certain portions
of three or four States, beginning with
Eastern Kentucky and going in a sort
of circle, irregular enough in shape, to
be sure, but taking in East Tennessee,
the Western portion of North Carolina
and Southwestern Virginia, however
well known by the events of the late war.
were, as far as the average traveller was
known there, almost-certain portions
of them-a real terra i1ecognita before
the war and undisturbed by any
marked event from the time they were
peopled by emigrants, principally from
the older settlements of North Carolina
and Virginia; they contain a population
as peculiar In many respects, and as well
worthy of study, AS any known to the
nationality.
So rough was the eastern portion of
Kentucky, for instance, before military
roads were made necessity to some ex-
tent there, that the traveller on horse
back might ride almost from the mouth
of Big Sandy, on the Ohio river, to
Cumberland gap, without seeing a
wheeled vehicle; the carrying of goods
being done, as intimated in another
place, on the backs of horses, and the
90 hauling" for the little farms or clear
ings" done on "slides or lizards" q
rough kind OF sled made to go, not on
the snow or ice particularly, but ON the
ground !; while the fire-wood, which
fortunately was always abundant and
handy, was procured by hitching horses
or oxen to logs or limbs of trees, and
"by main strength and awkwardness"
shaking them to the wood pile in front
of the cabin.
East Tennessee and the other sections
named, with larger valleys, more open
land, and great rivers like New river,
the Holston, French, Broad, and others
which made wide tracks of arabic land,
had, of course, great leading stage roads
in ample supply; but even East Tennes-
see and Western Virginia had, right ad-
jacent to these great through routes, the
most primitive of populations-people
OF very much the same stamp as those
4 have been describing as residents of
the mountain districts of Kentucky.
The valley of Cinch river, and the val
leys that supplied the affiuents of the
Holston, French, Broad, Tennessee and
Cumberland had populations kindred
nm character in many respects and only
10y hunting expeditions, jaunts to me-
dlcinal springs, ETC., was the traveller
likely to be led very far into these dis
tricts, and so enabled to become ac-
quainted with the people who had made
them their home.
1 remember striking such section as
this on a jaunt as an invalid, for the
time being, in the very heart of the hill
region, perhaps eighty miles north of
Cumberland gap. 1 state only the fact
when l record that in the family we So
.iourned with, in remote and deep val
ley, the boots of the party were literally
"a curiosity for their rarity, the family
knowing of nothing in that line but
~moccasins." The older people had
left Virginia rs emigrants when chill
'dren, and had never been twenty miles
from home; and an amusing feature in
the case was the "stuck-up" knowledge
of an old contraband, who had some
how broken from his moorings about
Richmond to drift in there, and who
prided himself upon knowing more
about the conveniences and Injuries of
civilization than his master and the |
family.
With mild and healthful climate.
and generally very rich soil in those
narrow valleys, Jew portions of the
UNION have presented equal advan-
taees for getting an easy ard comfort
able living, where persons ambition
and wants were limited to the bare COM
forts, without the Injuries of life; for
with the most scant, or next to none at
ALL means OF transportation, and no
market, even il they could get their
little produce out of the country. thew
were obliged to content themselves
with the few resources for endowment
immediately around them.
On one occasion, remember. was
ON hunting trip in the mountains of
North Carolina, not far from the French
BROAD river, when laughable and spas-
'modic attempt at unusual enterprise was
initiated, or sought to be, by sharp
mountaineer, who took a notion to 90
into an Irish potato speculation. On
q fat-boat jaunt down tho Tennessee
of which the French Broad is branch.
he had discovered a market for potatoes
somewhere in North Alabama, 1 believe.
so, on his return home, having a very
rich and suitable piece of land for the
growth of potatoes in sort of valley or
crater high up in the hills, he deter
mined to appropriate that for his pur-
pose.
Well, he went into the undertaking
with a will, and the result was an
enormous crop, which he proposed to ,