Watauga County
The Beginning
by Steve Sudderth
A Land of Uncommon Beauty
What did Watauga County, North Carolina, look like 1200 years ago? The scenic view was very different from what we see today. Buffalo and elk migratory trails crisscrossed the land between the piedmont areas of east Tennessee and western North Carolina. Chestnut tree forests covered over twenty-five percent of the mountain ridges, and when they bloomed in the spring, the mountains appeared to be covered in snow. It must have been breathtaking. Because the forests had not been cleared for homes and fields, there were tall canopies of old growth forests under which grew grass instead of underbrush, creating long vistas. Mountain laurel thickets and rhododendron grew in tangled masses along some of the ridges, creating an explosion of colorful blooms in late spring and early summer.
Brook trout were found in abundance in the streams, and bass in the rivers. In addition to migrating buffalo and elk, other species of animal wildlife such as wolves, cougars, foxes, carrier pigeons, quail and ruffed grouse were in abundance as well as the current bears, whitetail deer, rabbits, grey squirrels, and foxes that we find today.
The views were spectacular. Bishop Spangenburg said in 1752, while standing on top of a mountain in Blowing Rock, that he and his party “saw hundreds of mountain peaks all around us, presenting a spectacle like ocean waves.” The Spanish and the French explorers called the mountain range from Alabama to Maine the Apalaches, and the English called it the Allegheny Mountains. Locally, the section in and around Watauga County was called the Blue Ridge Mountains because of the color of the mountains as viewed from the Piedmont.
The Earliest Inhabitants
The people who inhabited this area during the time known as the Appalachian Summit Woodland period (900–1800 AD) is only partly known. One permanent palisaded village that was abandoned around 1200 AD has been discovered at the intersection of the Cove Creek and the Watauga River. Numerous campsites, caves and small family farms also have been discovered around Watauga County. Chisca, Yuchi, Tutelo, Iswa/Catawba, Shawnee and Cherokee are names of some of the peoples that either lived or traveled here. Some of the migratory trails were turned into trading paths, and the largest and most prominent one was identified by the Spanish Explorer Juan Pardo in 1567, and first mapped by the French Geographer Guilaume de L’Isle in 1700. It was later named the Old Cherokee Path which came through Watauga County on what is now the Old Johns River Road, and onto Valle Crucis, then up the Cove Creek to Trade Tennessee.
The Long Hunters and Herders
By the mid 1760’s, long hunters from the piedmont of the British colony of North Carolina had penetrated the Watauga region, which was then part of the Granville District. In December of 1752, Moravian Bishop Augustus Spangenberg, led by scout Gentleman John Perkins, explored Watauga and left the first journal of what the Watauga Area was like, as referenced above. In 1763 the British Government created the Proclamation Line that separated the Indian Nations from the British Colonies along the eastern escarpment of the mountain range along what we know as the Eastern Continental Divide in hopes of avoiding additional Indian wars. This Proclamation Line angered colonists who wanted more land, and was one of the causes of the Revolutionary War. Some of the known names of long hunters that crossed the Proclamation Line were Daniel Boone, Jesse Boone, William Linville, Rubin Coffey, Richard Greene, and Benjamin Howard. Daniel and Jesse Boone stayed at a cabin built by Benjamin Howard, who had a small plantation in the Happy Valley area of today’s Wilkes County and who brought his livestock up to pasture in what is now the town of Boone. A few settlers also crossed the Line, but at great risk.
The Watauga Association
By 1771 James Robertson had followed Daniel Boone on a long hunt, but had left the Boone Party of hunters and developed a homestead in what is now Elizabethton, Tennessee. He had been involved with the Regulator Movement, and after the Regulators were defeated in the Battle of Alamance, he led a group of disenfranchised settlers through what is now Watauga County along the Boone Trace to settle the Watauga Valley area of Elizabethton.
In 1772 Robertson, John Sevier and John Carter leased a large tract of land from the Cherokee Nation Chiefs that included a large part of what is now Watauga County. The settlers formed the Watauga Association for the purpose of self-government. Because they were outside of the North Carolina Colony boundaries, they had created the first autonomous government in Watauga.
In 1775 the Transylvania Company, led by Judge Richard Henderson and Daniel Boone along with the Watauga Association, signed a treaty and purchased the land that had been leased from the Cherokee Nation. This caused trouble with the royal governors of both North Carolina and Virginia. A year following the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the new State of North Carolina recognized the transaction and the area was incorporated into the state as the new county of Washington. Since 1753, parts of the area we call Watauga County has been a portion of Rowan, Surry, Burke, Washington, Wilkes, Ashe, and Caldwell Counties before Watauga was formed in 1849. (Most of Avery County, the last county to be formed and number 100, was created out of Watauga in 1911.)
American Revolutionary War in the High Country
The Revolutionary War period in Watauga County saw only one skirmish. It occurred on April 22, 1781 on Riddles Knob in the Meat Camp Township. Col. Benjamin Cleveland, a Patriot who led the militia of Wilkes and Surry Counties, was captured at his farm in the Old Fields on the South Fork of the New River by a group of Tories led by Capt. William Riddle. Joseph Calloway, who was with Col. Cleveland, escaped capture and rode to Wilkesboro to notify Cleveland’s brother Robert. Col. Cleveland was taken to the Wolf’s Den on Riddles Knob. The Tories’ plan was for Col. Cleveland to write passes for them before they killed him. The next morning, Robert Cleveland led a group of Patriots to the Wolf’s Den where they ambushed the Tories and rescued Col. Cleveland. The Tories scattered and were later captured and hung from the Tory Oak at the old Wilkes County Court House.
Robert Cleveland and his men wanted to terminate their neighbors who were Tories, especially those who were prominent in the area. Benjamin Howard was such a man. He was descended from the Howards of Great Britain and was wealthy by the standards of his time period in the backwaters of Happy Valley in today’s Wilkes County. He pastured his cattle in what today is the town of Boone, and built a cabin for his herders and any hunters who wanted to use it, including his neighbor and friend Daniel Boone who lived only a few miles from him on the Yadkin River. In fact, his chief herder, Burrell, guided Boone to the cabin and hosted him and other hunters. When Howard realized that Cleveland was hunting him and planned on hanging him, he hid up on what today is called Howard’s Knob, a tall cone-shaped mountain overlooking the town. Cleveland and his men hit Howard’s little daughter, Sally, with a switch, and tried to make her tell where her father was, but this brave little girl refused to tell. Howard, who probably realized that he would lose his extensive lands if the Patriots won, changed his mind, and became a Patriot himself. Sally grew up to marry Jordan Councill, thus becoming a founder of the Town of Boone and the county.
Captain William Lenoir from Fort Defiance led patrols in the southern part of Watauga during the war to disrupt bands of roving Tories who had hidden out in the mountains, thereby preventing them from organizing raids. He was very successful in this mission in that only one raid on the Moore farm in the Globe area of Caldwell County was reported. With the end of the war, many settlers began to come to Watauga since the restrictions imposed by the Proclamation Line were now null.
Early Settlers
Richard Greene came with his two brothers, John and Jeremiah. Richard, who had a hunting cabin at Cooks Gap years before the war, sold it to Nathan Horton for two bear skins and four deer skins before Richard settled in Blowing Rock. All three brothers served as Patriots during the Revolution and had lived in the Jersey Settlement in today’s Lexington, NC.
Jordan Councill, David Miller, William Miller, Ebenezer Fairchild, Conrad Elrod, Jesse Boone, Jesse Coffey, William Gragg, Dr. Ezekiel Baird, Cutliff Harmon, Edward Moody, Joseph Mast, Hiram Wilson, James Todd, Robert Shearer, Solomon Presnell, John Moretz, John Holtzclaw, Benjamin Dugger, John Pennel, Richard Isaacs, Benjamin Ward, and John Trivitt are a few of those rugged pioneers who came to Watauga County to make their home before 1810.
After 1800, roads were improved making transportation easier. Agricultural products were sent to markets as far away as Charleston, S.C. Along the streams and rivers, mills were built to serve the slowly increasing population, and Jordan Councill built a store and opened Watauga County’s first post office in 1823. Jordan Councill, Jr. expanded the store’s operations by the mid-1840’s.
Watauga County is Formed
Because what today is Watauga County was primarily in Ashe County, the county seat was in Jefferson. It was a major undertaking for everyone in the region to get to court and conduct business. In 1848, an effort was led by State House Representative Reuben Mast of Valle Crucis, Jordan Councill, Jr., Ransom Hayes, Benjamin Councill, Sr., Alexander Greene, and State Senator George Bower to create a new county. The bill to create Watauga County was passed in 1849.
The location of the county seat was debated. Some citizens wanted it to be in Valle Crucis and some wanted it at the Old Muster Grounds east of Councill’s Store. Ransom Hayes and Jordan Councill, Jr. pledged to donate 25 acres each for the location of the Court House, and their generous offer was accepted. This location is now the center of downtown Boone, the county seat, and the commercial center of Watauga County.
More history articles will be added to this site and our hope is that you will share your family history and events that are memorable to making Watauga County home.