The valley watered by that prong of Richland creek, which rises in the balsams of the Great Divide and beech groves of Old Bald, is one of great beauty. It is quite narrow. The stream flows through its center, overhung with oaks, buckeyes, beeches, maples, black gums, and a dozen other varieties of trees, and fringed with laurel, ivy, and the alder; while at intervals cleared lands roll back to the mountains. Lickstone, with gentle slope, walls it on one side; a lofty ridge on the other, and the black front of the Balsams shuts off at its southern end all communication with what lies beyond, except by a steep winding trail and unfinished dug road over a mountain 5,786 feet in altitude. The road along the creek’s bank, upward from the place of nightly encampments, possesses all the charms of a woodland way. At places the umbrageous branches of monarch trees cross themselves overhead; beautiful vistas of a little stream, streaked with silver rapids and losing itself under the bending laurels, are presented at every turn; at intervals, branch roads wind away into some mountain cove; and here and there, disappearing into leafy coverts, are smooth-beaten by-paths, which tell of a log school-house back in the grove, a hill-side meadow, or some hidden lonely cabin. Wayside log cabins and a few frame farm-houses, all widely separated, are occasionally seen; the noise from a sooty blacksmith shop attracts attention; a weird mill rises amid the chestnut trees; while the roar of waters in its rotten flume awakes the landscape.
The most picturesque location for a house in this valley, is owned and dwelt upon by W. F. Gleason, at present United States commissioner for a portion of the western district. It is an old homestead site on the round top of a little hill, which forms a step, as it were, to the wooded mountain ridge towering above it. Before the front of the dwelling, 100 yards away, down the hill and across a level strip of land, runs the Richland around the edge of a chestnut grove which springs on its opposite bank. Through the shady grove, beyond the rivulet bridges, is the Richland road, up which the traveler will come, and (unless he notices the branch path and turns under the trees) which he will follow through woodland scenery like that described. From the door-yard of the commissioner’s unpretentious dwelling, a mountain-walled picture is presented. Old Bald, the Balsams, Lickstone, Wild Cat, Wolf’s Pen, and the ridge in the rear of the house, whose highest point is the Pinnacle, bend around the valley like the ragged-brimmed sides of a bowl with one rather deeply-broken nick in the rim through which are visible the purple fronts of the Haywood mountains. The valley view is too confined to be interesting, and only one cabin, the indistinct outlines of an old farm-house, and a few acres of cleared land amid the forests, are to be seen. It was at this sequestered country home where, for several seasons while sojourning in the Alleghanies, we made our head-quarters. Of the gorgeous sun-rises over Lickstone, witnessed by us from the low porch of the cottage; of the full-moon ascents above the night-darkened rim of the same mountain,—we might write with enthusiasm, but with perhaps too tedious detail for the reader.
During one of these sojourns, we roomed in an old frame house in the valley, distant about three hundred yards from the hill-side place just described. In the early October mornings, our way when going to breakfast, was along a beaten path through the chestnut grove, where the ground would be covered with nuts larger than any which ever find their way to the market. Those short walks in the bright, clear mornings are indelibly stamped in memory. Again the creaking, wood-latched gate of the unpainted mansion closes with a rattle; the great piles of waste mica around the shops gleam in the sunshine; the birds twitter in the green vines so heavily clustered in the buckeyes that the limbs of contiguous trees meeting, form overhead rich arbors for the passers beneath; the rough planks of the bridge across one smooth branch of the stream shake under our footsteps; the chestnut woods, turning yellow, drop their dry burrs in our path; the two long, hewn-top logs, with their crooked hand-rail, bridging one of the maddest and most musical of mountain streams, tremble as we run across them; the bordering alders sparkle with dew-drops; the frame farm-yard gate stands shut before us. Over this we leap and go chasing up the hill. If the family is still slumbering, a gun is taken from its stand beside the chimney; a whistle given for a dog, whose quick appearance, bright eyes, and wagging tail show his pleasure; and at the foot of the hill the black-berry thickets are beaten, until before the yelping dog a shivering rabbit bounds out in sight, whose race is perhaps ended rather abruptly.
For mountain parties both Lickstone and Old Bald offer exceptional attractions. The ascent of the latter peak and the character of the views from its summit are described in the sketch on bear hunting. Lickstone can be easily ascended on foot or on horse-back, and is admirably situated for the observer to bring within his ken the most prominent peaks of eight surrounding counties, and see unrolled below him a mountain-bounded landscape of beauty and grandeur beyond the power of delineation by poet or painter. Lickstone takes its curious name from a huge flat rock near the summit of the mountain, whereon the cattle-herders used formerly to place the salt brought by them to the stock which range the summit meadows. On the east slope are located valuable mica mines.
An interesting day’s journey, from Waynesville, is to and from Soco Falls. The road can be traveled over by carriage, and leads up Jonathan’s creek to its source. The falls are on the distant slope of the mountain, sixteen miles from the village. The headwaters of the Soco rise in a dark wilderness. At the principal fall, two prongs of the stream, coming from different directions, unite their foaming waters by first leaping over a series of rocky ledges, arranged like a stairway. Into a boiling basin, fifty feet below, the stream whirls and eddies around, and then, with renewed impetuosity, rushes down the gradual descent to the valley. By following down the road, the traveler will soon find himself in the Indian reservation.
THE JUNALUSKAS.
One mile from Waynesville, on the state road toward Webster, is a level and well-cultivated farm of about one hundred acres, forming a portion of the wide, cleared valley between the base of the hills, on one side, and the wood-fringed Richland on the other. It is the property of Sanborn and Mears, two young men who have lately moved into the mountains. With enlarged ideas on farming, they are bringing the naturally rich soil into a state of perfection for grain and grazing. A cheery, comfortable farm-house stands under the door-yard trees beside the driveway. Behind the house the ground rises gradually to the oak woods along the summit of the hill. In the front, visible from the doorway, is a wide-sweeping mountain prospect. The valley, broad, open, level, diversified with farms and forests, crossed by winding fences and roads hidden by green hedges, extends away for two miles or more, to the steep fronts of lofty mountains. It is these mountains which so enhance the picture, giving it, morning and evening, soft shadows, sunlight intensified by shooting through the gap between the Junaluskas and Mount Serbal, and a peaceful, pleasing slumber, like that of a noble grayhound at the feet of his trusted master. A portion of this prospect is given in the accompanying illustration.
From Waynesville to Webster, twenty miles distant, there was no regular hack or stage line running in 1882, but either saddle-horses or carriages can be obtained at reasonable rates in Waynesville. There are no scenes along the route that the traveler would be likely to retain in memory. Hills, mountains, woods, and farms fill up the way, with no particularly striking features. Dr. Robert Welch’s farm, about two miles from the village, is one which will not be passed unnoticed. The large, white residence, white flouring mill opposite, high solid fences formed from rocks picked from the roads and fields, and level lands of several hundred acres, make up a pleasant homestead.