The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1905-09-29
THIRTY TIMES OVER.
SAME LAND SOLD OVER AND
OVER BY ONE PERSON.
Best of Timber Countries Where Men
Have to Maintain Their Titles
to Land with Long
Range Guns.

Talk about rich country and wild
country" said an old resident of Wash
lngton to a Star man the other day,
that region of eastern Tennessee and
western North Carolina is It, | was
| through good part of 1t on horseback
recently, and you couldn't get further
out of civilization in darkest Africa
There is timber down there to burn, and
! that is all they do with it. There is no
way of getting it out. A fellow that was
with me got some of the finest timber
land ever saw for dollar and dollar
and half an acre. But | don't know
what he is ever going to do with it.
Think | am drawing on my imagina-
ton when tell you saw cherry trees
down there five feet in diameter? Well,
| don't blame you. But it is so, and there
vas more than one bay that we went
through where the cherry trees aver
aged 312 feet. But there is no way of
getting the timber out 1t is a 95-mae
haul in one direction and 35 miles the
other. The country is all set up on
edge. You can get over it on horseback,
but that is about the only way. There
are some places where the trail, such as
it is, runs down the bed of mountain
stream and crosses it six times in
mile. The rest of the time 1t runs in the
bed of the stream itself, and you are
lucky if your horse gets through with
out breaking his legs among the
powders.
There is enough water power in the
eastern edge of the mountains to run
the street cars In half dozen big cities
But there is not a trolley car in any of
the towns until you get down to the big
towns in the lower levels. The streams
are no good for logging, or where they
have been. the timber is all cut off them,
and what is left is so far back in the
hills that you couldn't get 1t out except
with an airship.
'The people down there don't go much
on clothes What they have in the way
of raiment seems to be handed down
from father to son. and as far as living
is concerned, if they can get piece of
corn pone and little fat pork that is
quite as much as they bargain for.
But are they shrewd? Well, they
might not shine in metropolitan society,
but when 1t comes to doing the stranger
and the Levite they are right on the spot.
One of the difficulties of buying land
down there is that the land laws and the
titles are the worst in the United States
| was asking one of the best lawyers in
Knoxville tie other day about the title
to piece of land, and he said: 4 don't
want to boom my own stock any, but
guess l know about as much of the land
laws as any lawyer in this part of the
world. And when it comes to looking up
a title for man in that mountain coun-
try would rather lose the fee than take
the trouble to do it,
THAT is about right The land titles
down there start back with grants from
George III, The big proprietors That he
granted land to in large blocks sold.
snapped or gave it away in smaller
pieces. and when the revolution came
on half of the holders were kicked out
as tories and the other half of the resi-
dents took what suited them, and often
three or four of them took the same
piece of land. and perhaps all of them
sold it three or four times. The only real
sure way to get property down there is
to camp on it with a Winchester, and
be sure your gun will carry further than
any of the other claimants.
There is one other way of getting
money out of it without even owning the
land. | know one man who went down
there and sold the same piece of land
nine times to different parties, and he
didn't have any title to it originally. He
must have had an affection for that piece
of land, however, for after he got
through with selling it over here he
went abroad and sold it some more. He
conducted the whole operation on a GER
tain 250 acres of ground He sold it in
squares and oblongs and triangles. and
when he got through think there were
80 claims on it, OVERLAPPING each other |
worse than the scales on a fish. He |
made pretty fair fortune out of that
$50 acres that didn't belong to him, but |
when you get back into the mountains
you never know when you are going to
get into just that sort of a game.
know one fellow down there who bought |
tolerable-sized tract of land and he had
nine lawsuits in IA years over the title.
The suits are still coming in.
ooh. no, am not knocking the coun-
try. 1t is a great region, and if they
could cut some chunks out of those
mountains and transport them down to
tidewater they would be valuable.
if you want to get In there,
think about the easiest and cheapest
way is tunnel"
Scheme to Reduce Audience.
Hon. Henry L. Dawes in his Young