On the main thoroughfare, one mile from the hotel, is the village of Arden, laid out a few years since by Mr. Beal. Upon completion of the Spartanburg and Asheville railroad, it will be the intermediate station between Hendersonville and Asheville. At present both village and hotel are dependent upon the daily stage line.
The visitor to Arden hotel will find it a pleasant home-like place. Its surroundings are beautiful, but not grand. It will be found an agreeable place to rest and enjoy the comforts of wholesome country living. A large percentage of the company the past two seasons came from the coast regions of South Carolina.
Hendersonville is the hub of the upper French Broad region. This prosperous village, the second in size west of the Blue Ridge, is situated on the terminus of a ridge which projects into the valley of the Ochlawaha, and overlooks a wide stretch of low bottom lying within a circle of mountains. When the county was formed in 1838, a point on the river six miles distant was designated as the site of the seat of justice, but a more central location was generally desired, and accordingly the law was amended two years later and the seat removed to Hendersonville.
The town has a cheerful appearance. The main street is wide and well shaded by three rows of trees, one on each side and one through the center. Several of the business houses are substantially and artistically built of brick, giving the stranger a favorable opinion of the thrift and enterprise of the merchants. A number of handsome residences give additional evidence of prosperity.
The population of Hendersonville numbers about one thousand. Seventeen stores transact the mercantile business, and five hotels keep open doors to the traveling public. As in all resort towns, private boarding houses are numerous. The moral and educational interests of the community are ministered to by churches, a public school, and an academy of more than local reputation.
There seems to be a harmony of effort among the citizens to make the stay of strangers pleasant, by furnishing them both information and entertainment. Several mountains in the vicinity afford extensive landscape views. “Stony,” four miles distant, commands the whole Ochlawaha valley and a wide sweep of the curving French Broad. The country embraced within the view from Mount Hebron is more rugged and broken. A good standpoint from which to view the village, valley, and bordering mountains is Dun Cragin, the residence of H. G. Ewart, Esq. Thirteen miles of plateau and valley intervene between that point and Sugar Loaf; Bear Wallow is about the same distance; Shaking Bald twenty-five miles away, and Tryon twenty-one. A part of the view is represented by the illustration on page 135.
Sugar Loaf mountain, one of the most conspicuous points seen from Hendersonville, has associated with it an historical legend of revolutionary times. The Mills family, living below the Ridge, were noted tory leaders. Colonel Mills and his brother William were both engaged on the royalist side in the battle of King’s Mountain. The former was captured, and afterward hanged by the patriot commanders at Guilford C. H. The latter escaped, with a wound in the heel, and made his home in a cave in the side of Sugar Loaf, living on wild meats, and sleeping on a bed of leaves. There he remained till the close of the war when, his property having been confiscated, he entered land in the French Broad valley, and became one of its earliest settlers. In the cave there are still found evidences of its ancient occupancy—coals, charred sticks, and bones.
Hendersonville is reached by two routes—by stage, from Asheville, and by rail from Spartanburg, on the Air Line. The latter road, the usual course of travel from the south, in making the ascent of the Blue Ridge, does not circle and wind as does the Western North Carolina; but its grade, at places, is almost frightful. One mile of track overcomes 300 feet of elevation. One bold, symmetrical peak is in view from the train windows during most of the journey, and from several points of interest in the upper valley. Tryon mountain may be styled the twin of Pisgah, and both, in shape, resemble the pyramids of Egypt. From Captain Tom’s residence, in Hendersonville, both may be seen, in opposite directions. Tryon preserves the name of the most tyrannical and brutal of North Carolina’s colonial governors. It was his conduct, in attempting to destroy the instincts of freedom, which precipitated the Mecklenburg declaration of independence in 1775.
The Spartanburg and Asheville railroad at present terminates at Hendersonville. It is partially graded to Asheville, and there is some prospect of its early completion.
The attractions of this section of the grand plateau of the Alleghanies, was made known to the coast residents of South Carolina about the year 1820. Four years after that date, Daniel Blake, of Charleston, pioneered the way from the low country, and built a summer residence on Cane creek. Charles Bering was the founder of the Flat Rock settlement, in the year 1828, and made a purchase of land, built a summer residence, about four miles from the site of the present county-seat and near the crest of the Blue Ridge. His example was followed by Mitchell King and C. S. Memminger, Sr., a year or two later. The community soon became famous for refinement, and the place for healthfulness of climate and beauty of scenery.