In the first report of the President and Directors of the Louisville, Cincinnati, and Charleston Railroad, it is stated as one of the results of the surveys and measurements made with reference to that work, that “the elevation of the summit of our mountain passing above a line drawn along what may be regarded as their base about twenty miles below, does not exceed 1054 feet.” This will leave 1114 feet for the height of that line above the sea, or 146 feet more than I had allowed for Morganton.
But the surveys referred to were carried along the French Broad river, in the immediate vicinity of Ashville, and therefore afford a base, or starting point, from which all the heights in that region could be conveniently ascertained. Dr. Dickson having undertaken to observe the barometer at Ashville, and knowing that in his hands it would afford results in which confidence could be placed, I determined to try the Black once more, in which mountain I was well satisfied that the highest points are to be found, as I was, also, that I had never yet been upon the highest.
The Black Mountain, as you well know, is a long curved ridge, 15 or 20 miles in length, its base having somewhat the form of a common fish-hook, of which the extremity of the shank is near Thomas Young’s, in Yancey. It sweeps round by the heads of the South fork of the Swannanoe, Rim’s Creek and Ivy, and ends at the Big Butt, or Yates’s Knob—Caney river drains by a number of forks the hollow of the curve. The summit of the ridge is depressed at some points, and rises at others into peaks or knobs, 2, 3 or 400 feet higher than the rest, and it is a matter of considerable difficulty to determine before ascending which is the highest, as we cannot tell how much the apparent elevation is affected by the distance of the different points. The general elevation of the ridge may be stated at 600 feet. The following are the heights measured, which are likely to have most interest for the readers of the Messenger.
| Feet. | |
| Ashville, | 2200 |
| French Broad at Ashville, | 1977 |
| Lower Ford of Pigeon, | 2475 |
| Waynesville, | 2722 |
| Head of Scott’s Creek, | 3240 |
| Tuckaseege Ford, | 1927 |
| Cullywhee Gap, | 3397 |
| Blue Ridge head of Tuckaseege, | 3795 |
| Col. Zachary’s Cashier’s Valley, | 3324 |
| Chimney Top, | 4433 |
| Chimney Top above Zachary’s, | 1109 |
| Burnsville, | 2763 |
| Top of Black, | 6672 |
| Morganton, | 1031 |
| Table Rock, | 3584 |
| Grandfather, | 5719 |
| Roan, | 6187 |
It appears that the valley of the French Broad is a trough, or depression, extending quite across the great back-bone of the United States, having the parallel, but considerably higher valleys of the Nolachucky and Pigeon on its two sides. Ivy Ridge is the boundary of this valley on the north-east, the ford of Ivy creek, near Solomon Carters, having very nearly the height of Ashville. The difference of temperature and climate corresponds to the indications of the barometer, grain and wild fruits ripening sooner about Ashville, than in the neighborhood of either Burnsville or Waynesville. At the ford of the Tuckaseege, on the road to Franklin, we are at the bottom of another deep and warm valley, but this does not, like that of the French Broad, extend across the whole range of the Alleghanies.
These measurements are not altogether without value, to the people of Haywood and Macon, showing as they do, what is the amount of obstacle that has to be overcome in carrying a road from Tennessee into South Carolina, along the Tuckaseege. Such a road should be made, or rather the existing one should be greatly improved, and the route altered in some places. There is likely to be a good deal of travel along it, but the gap in the Blue Ridge, where it is to pass, is about 1500 feet higher than that at the head of the French Broad.
There are but two routes by which the highest peaks of the Black Mountains can be reached, without an amount of labor which few people are willing to undergo. One is by the head of Swanannoe. This brings us to a point a little higher than the top of the White Mountains in New Hampshire. The other is from the south fork of Tow. It is represented as quite practicable, and leads to the highest summit.
Agriculture.—The mountain counties, Ashe, Yancey, Buncombe, Henderson, Haywood and Macon, do not appear to have adopted fully those modes of culture which are the best suited to their soil and climate, and which are likely ultimately to prevail. For this two reasons may be assigned.
1. The great amount of travel, through the counties of Ashe, Henderson and Buncombe, (but especially the two last,) between the Atlantic states and the West, has created a demand for the different kinds of grain, and given a direction to the industry of the population of those counties, which but for the circumstance mentioned, would be neither natural nor profitable. The roads have consumed all the corn that could be raised. The practice of the farmers living near the roads, which will answer very well for them, (especially if somewhat more attention be paid to the cultivation of the grasses), may be expected to have an under influence in the remote parts of those counties.
2. The families by whom these counties were settled, were from below the ridge, and carried with them into the mountain region, the kind of husbandry to which they have been accustomed in the warmer and drier parts from which they came. It is only gradually that men change the habits and practices of their earlier days. This influence of custom is exhibited on the northernmost range of counties in North Carolina, along the Virginia line, where the culture of tobacco prevails much more extensively than a little farther south, where the soil is equally well adapted to the growth of that noxious weed.