The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1879-08-14

H~nsine and Fishing Among the Mountain
Regions of North Carolina.
BY W. W.


The extensive mountain district at
Ehe South comprised in certain portions
of three or four States, beginning with
Eastern Kentucky and going in 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 i7ocog7oit0 before
the war and undisturbed by any
marked event from the time they were
pe0pled by emigrants, principally from
Che older settlements of North Carolina
and Virginia; they contain population
as peculiar in many respects, and as well
worthy of study, as any known to the
nationality. ' '. 5.t
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
hauling" for the little farms or " clear.
ingS" done on slides or lizards" a
rough kind of sled made to go, not on
the Snow or ice particularly, but ON the
ground while the fre-wood, which
fortunately was always abundant and
handy, was procured by hitching horses
or oxen to logs or limbs of trees, and
Shy main strength and awkwardness'
shaking them to the wood pile in front
OF the cabin. ..'% -+''..
East Tennessee and the other sections
naned, with larger valleys, more open
land, and great rivers like New river,
tAe Holston, French, Broad, and others
which made wide tracks of arabic land,
had, of course, great leading stage roads
nm ample supply; but even East Tennes-
see and Western Virginia had, right ad-
lscent TO these great through routes, the
most primitive of populations people
OF very much the same stamp as those
L have been describing as residents of
the mountain districts of Kentucky.
The valley of Clinch river, and the val
legs that supplied the af1uents of the
HOlston, French, Broad, Tennessee and
Cumberland had populations kindred
nm character in many respects; and only
by hunting expeditions, jaunts to me-
tiaeinal springs, etc., was the traveller
likely 10 be led very far into these dis
tricts, and SO enabled to become &C
quaanted with the people who had made
them their home.
4 remember striking such section as
this on a jaunt as an invalid, for the
hne being, in the very heart of the hill
region, perhaps eighty miles north Of
Cumberland gap. I state only the fact
when 1 record that in the family we So
1olrned with, in remote and deep val
10y, the boots of the party were literally
o curiosity for their rarity, the family
knowing of nothing in that line but
"moccasins." The older people had
left Virginia as emigrants when chill
dren, and had never been twenty miles
frOn home; and an amusing feature in
tAe case was the "stuck-up" knowledge
of an old contraband, who had some
&Ow broken from his moorings about
Richmond to drift in there, and who
pr1ded himself upon knowing more
about the conveniences and luxuries of
civilization than his master and the
family. ..... ....... t.....
With mild and healthful climate.
and generally very rich soil in those
marrow valleys, lew PORTIONS of the
U~'on have presented equal advan-
tases for getting an easy and comfort
able living, where a 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
aid, means of transportation, and no
market, even if they could get their
aatae produce out of the country, they
were obliged to content themselves
with the few resources for enjoyment
nnmediately around them.
On one occasion, remember, was
Cn annting trip in the mountains of
North Carolina, not far from the French
Broad river, when laughable and spes-
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
fiat-boat jaunt down tho Tennessee,
of which the French Broad is a branch,
he had discovered market for potatoes
somewhere in North Alabama, I believe.
So, ON his return home, having a very
INCH and suitable piece of land for the
growth of potatoes in a 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 will, and the result was an
enOrmous crop, which he proposed to