Col. Billy Miller’s Upright Farm in the Upright Regions of Cleveland County, and How He Came to Own it, with Sketches of the County and Some of its People.
This famous county, the place of my nativity as well as that of many others of more or less national and local prominence, such as Thomas Dixon, Jr., of the Clansman fame; Hon. E. Yates Webb, Congressman Ninth District; Col. A. M. Lattimore, of Lattimore; Capt. O. D. Price, the old-time singer; Capt. Pink Petty, the famous fox-hunter with the silver-mounted horn; Capt. Nim Champion, the standing candidate for the Legislature on the one-plank platform—the restoration of the whipping-post. Then we have Frank Barrett, the old soldier candidate, who always runs on just any platform the people want, and who distinguished himself during the Civil War by going up in a balloon over the enemy for a pint of whiskey, with many others too tedious to mention, such as bankers, cotton mill men and shop keepers, etc. This goodly heritage lies east of the Blue Ridge and is flanked by the South Mountains on the north, Cherry Mountains encircling the west, with the famous little King’s Mountain on the south. One large township embraces the South Mountains.
Little First Broad River with numerous tributaries, flows from these mountains south, making a diversified, rolling country, interspersed with hills and sandy flats. There was a man in our company, F, in the Confederate army from the mountain section of our good county by the name of John Wesley Richards, a stalwart fellow of thirty, who for three years was a brave and courageous soldier; but after lying in the bloody trenches of Petersburg eight and one-half months, during which time he was wounded, he became disheartened and, forsaking all rights and interest in the Confederacy, shouldered his musket and, taking a dozen of his comrades with him, set out to fight his way home, and were successful in reaching home about the time General Lee surrendered, so they were not molested. Besides the right to hold Negro slaves, there was another right dearer to the people of upper Cleveland, viz, the right to convert their sour apples into brandy and their corn into whiskey, infringed upon by the Yankee government. After the surviving remnants of the Confederate army came home, and the shirkers came in from the bushes, all of the little copper stills started up for a joyful time, and public sentiment was so strongly against Federal interference that they were not molested much for two or three years. Our hero, John Wesley Richards, after his long, arduous campaigns in the war, felt that he was entitled to a season of rest and recreation, with plenty of refreshments thrown in to boot. So he got on a long and continuous spree, and went to the bad, until his wife had to divorce him and turn him out to “root hog or die.” Then, after a while, he began to rally and reform; and a grand, speculative idea striking him, he traded his faithful squirrel dog and his old shot gun for a warrantee deed for one hundred acres of land in the upright region of Cleveland County. Then, as Wesley began to prosper, he found himself in need of a one-horse wagon, called in these parts a “carryall”; and learning that J. S. Groves, a big merchant at Shelby, kept wagons to sell for cash and on time, Wesley wended his way to Shelby and, looking over Mr. Groves’ wagons, said he would like to have the running works of a one-horse wagon, but did not have the cash to pay down. Mr. Groves said that was all right; if he could give him a good paper he could have the wagon. John Wesley said he could give him a mortgage on one hundred acres of land. Mr. Groves said that would do. The papers were fixed up, the wagon delivered and John Wesley went on his way home rejoicing. The next fall Mr. Groves notified him that his note was due and they would expect him down soon to settle. A few weeks later he wrote Wesley that if he did not come soon and make some arrangements that he would have to advertise that land. John Wesley heeded not these warnings, and the land was advertised; and here is where Col. Billy Miller butted in and bought a cheap farm. Col. Billy had served in the cavalry during the war and managed to pull through in good shape. After engaging in several enterprises he founded a weekly newspaper called The Shelby Aurora, and made a great success. So this was the paper the land was advertised in. When the land was sold, lying twenty-five miles from town, none of the town people knew anything of it. Colonel Billy started it at forty cents per acre, which covered the cost of the wagon and advertisement, and no one bettered it, and he thought he had picked up a great bargain. Now this writer used to be somewhat connected with the Aurora. When his crops were short and prices low he could always get a job with Colonel Miller during the winter months to help out making ends meet, collecting and drumming up new subscribers. The Aurora was very popular—good coarse print so everybody could read it—and most everybody took it whether they could read or not. Its chief policy was to flatter all its patrons—those who paid for it because they paid and those who did not pay in hopes they would pay. When a man re-covered his house, built a new stable or cleared a fresh field we called him one of our most industrious and enterprising citizens, and when a fellow came to town to buy a side of bacon or a sack of flour on time he was alluded to as being on a business trip; and when nothing else good could be said of a fellow, we would puff him on his enthusiastic and steadfast Democracy. The way to run a county paper is to brag on all the people all the time and keep a good list of subscribers, and the patent medicine fellows will pay the running expense. So one winter, as I was ranging around the mountains near Colonel Miller’s farm, I met up with Blacksmith George Towry, a jovial, good-natured man, who said, “Tell Miller to send me his paper six months for showing those fellows his farm and trying so hard to sell it to them. He sent two young men up here and referred them to me and I went over there and showed it to them and bragged on it all I could. When we got to the house I said, “You see that large white-oak on the lower side of the yard, that is the place to have your hog pen; it will always produce acorns enough to fatten a hog; then see that large hickory in front of the house; it is full of squirrels every day in the fall, and while your hog is fattening you can sit in the door and shoot a mess as you need them. Then, if you get tired eating squirrels, just look out yonder in that old field at the ’simmon trees. They are full of ’possoms every night, and you can gather a mess as you need them. Then when you kill your hog and get tired of so much greasy doings, just go up on the side of the mountain and cut some gum logs and you can catch all the rabbits you want. Don’t you see its the easiest place to live you ever saw? Then look down there at that spring, as pure water as ever come out of the ground; it would be worth a thousand dollars anywhere in Texas; and the climate can’t be beat anywhere in the world—malaria, microbes and such things never bother us. These high mountains on the north and east break off the cold winds. In winter you can set out on a log in the sunshine all day and enjoy the scenery; then, if you are ambitious and enterprising, you could start up a turkey ranch right here; you have sixty thousand acres of free range, enough to raise 10,000 turkeys, with at least fifty cents per head net profit; that gives you $5,000 per year income on turkeys alone. I tell you that would beat raising cotton on the sandy flats all hollow. All the expense raising turkeys would just be to throw them a little corn to keep them gentle. The young men looked puzzled and one said, ‘And where would we get the corn?’ ‘Oh,’ said I, ‘you could find some corn down at Jack Morrison’s mill or at Ped Price’s store.’ Then one says, ‘And how could we get the turkeys to market?’ and I says, ‘Oh, drive them out; they can fly across these deep hollows.’ He then added, ‘The young men turned away looking sorrowful, and I don’t know whether they will buy or not.’”