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The Brown, Avery, Carson Mountain MastersPre-War, War, Post-WarAndThe Browns of Garden City* 1877 - 1910byDr. W. Douglas CooperGreat Grandson of James D. and Hannah Brown AveryThe Brown Homeplace of Garden City*Note* The geographic area of interest for this paper concerns, before 1843, Old Burke, and, after 1843, McDowell Counties. The area of interest today is known as Pleasant Gardens. Before the arrival of a new area Post Office in J.E. Jimson’s Store, the area was, generally referred to as the Buck Creek Area. With the arrival of a local Post Office, the area took on the name of Garden City. The area name of Pleasant Gardens did not formally arrive until the late 1920s. However, when someone in modern times uses the term Buck Creek, and/or Garden City, and/or Pleasant Gardens, all three names point to a specific location in western North Carolina that today is known as Pleasant Gardens. Since this paper is a period piece, I will use the period name of the time being considered. See more about the name Pleasant Gardens in Appendix I. 1 PrefaceThe Carson House is a nationally advertised historic house and museum located in Marion, North Carolina. The House was the home of Col. John Carson and served as the McDowell County courthouse at the county’s inception. Today, the house is used, for visitors, as a backdrop to tell of the life and times of John Hazzard Carson and his children. The principle focus of the story covers a period of about 85 years (1790s to the end of the Civil War). Mildred B. Fossett’s seminal work, History of McDowell County, except for the fact that J.L. Carson’s widow and daughters lived there until the 1870s, has little to say about the House after that time. Fossett writes;“After the Civil War and the death of Jonathan Logan Carson the property was sold to John Seawell Brown.” “During the years that followed, ownership of the Carson House passed from John Seawell Brown to Romulus Brown and then in turn to W.E. Brown (incorrect), Thomas Morris, Will Gilliam, Ben Steppe, a realty company in Black Mountain, Albert Blanton, A.L. Finley, Mrs. A. L. Finley, Mrs. Maury R. Moore, Mrs. Moore did not wish to keep the property and it was placed on the real estate market in 1963.” 1963 began the quest to restore the House to what it has become today.Classic movie lovers know of the 1964 movie, The Yellow Rolls-Royce. The anthology film is about three owners of a yellow Rolls-Royce. A British diplomat buys the car for his French wife. A mobster’s girlfriend has an affair in Italy. An American woman drives a Yugoslavian partisan to Ljublijana on the eve of the Nazi invasion. The story approach to history is from the viewpoint of the car. While the people were, point in time, participants; players of a moment, the car was a constant of history. The car was the only player that could define the history to be told over time because it was the only constant. In writing this paper, The Yellow Rolls-Royce movie was much on my mind.From childhood, I remember my great grandmother, Hannah Brown Avery, very well. The house, today referred to as the Carson House, was bought by her grandfather John S. Brown and served as the Brown homeplace for over 33 years until it was sold to Thomas Morris by Hannah’s mother Delia in 1910. In my childhood, Hannah referred to the house as “The Old Brown Homeplace” and referred to our relatives in the Buck Creek area of McDowell County as “The Browns of Garden City.” To the grand children of John S. Brown, the house was referred to as “grandfather’s house.” The Brown family played an important role in the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. They were an integral part of the development of what is today called “Pleasant Gardens.” Under the name of “The Browns of Garden City” the House saw additional important history of McDowell County taking place. In this paper, I will try to expand the history of the House to include the more than 33 years of my family’s contribution.2 IntroductionAfter the American Revolution, conditions in the new nation’s Back Country of counties, such as Old Burke County in North Carolina, gave rise to a special socio-economic group of entrepreneurs described as “mountain masters.” John C. Inscoe in his book Mountain Masters, Slavery and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina, writes of the characteristics of this group. Inscoe makes the point that during the early 19th century, affluent mountaineers, such as those in Old Burke County understood that landholding and agricultural production alone were not viable options for wealth accumulation. Wealth accumulation for “mountain masters” would require the development and management of innovative combinations of land, livestock usage, slavery utilization and service products. For “mountain masters” wealth accumulation was rooted in slave-based business ventures in addition to slave-based agriculture. Two characteristics defined the “mountain masters.” First, all without exception were significant slave owners. Second, because of the transportation infrastructure of the North Carolina Mountains and the economic infrastructure of the Deep South, “mountain masters” had established strong commercial links and had formed an economic dependence on the single-crop economics of the Lower South. For the “mountain masters” of western North Carolina, the Lower South was South Carolina and Georgia, re transportation networks to Charleston South Carolina and Savanna Georgia. Contrary to impressions given by most post-Civil War histories, the antebellum populace of North Carolina’s mountains, such as Old Burke and the new McDowell Counties, in many respects, mirrored a thriving, productive, and even progressive society during the first 60 years of the 19th century.Each of the Mountain Masters defined themselves as a family by a plantation house called the family “home place.” In the early 19th century of North Carolina’s Old Burke County, to the east of Linville Mountain was Swan Ponds and Canoe Hill of the Avery family. To the west of Linville Mountain was the Brown family of North Cove, and as one moved south down the North Fork of the Catawba River, one came upon the Buck Creek Carson family. During the Antebellum times of the 19th century these three families were the quintessential “mountain masters.” Each had their family “home places.” The James Avery home place of Canoe Hill, and the Samuel I Brown home place of North Cove, have long sense gone with time. However, the Waightstill Avery home place of Swan Ponds and the John Carson home place of Buck Creek provide historical significance via the maintenance and restoration.Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as a historic house and museum is The Carson House of Marion, North Carolina. It is a state treasure. Built in 1793 by John Carson as an antebellum plantation house, through good times and bad, the house has endured additions and subtractions and survived for over 220 years. During the time of the western North Carolina “mountain masters” before the War, during the War, and the post-War survival, the old wooden timbers accumulated knowledge about many things. Oh, if they could tell! One of the stories that I would tell in this paper is about this Carson House. For over 33 years, the house that today is the Carson House of Pleasant Gardens was the Old Brown Home Place for the Browns of Garden City. This fact came to me early in life. During the early years of my childhood Hannah Adlaid Brown Avery, my great grandmother, was an important person in my life. For about 4 years of my early childhood, I was the only child living at Avery Station in McDowell County with both mentally alert great grandparents and grandparents. Avery Station was a railroad stop at a large farm owned by James D, Avery and wife Hannah Brown Avery. On the farm, in a separate house, my grandparents, Seawell and Madge Brown Avery, lived with my mother, Gladys Avery Cooper and me, Dougie. Everyone at Avery Station was a descendant, some in multiple paths, of Daniel II and Hannah Hollingsworth Brown, early pioneers in the North Cove section of Old Burke County. James D.’s path was through Daniel II and Hannah’s daughter Elizabeth Brown Avery. Hannah Adlaid’s path was through her grandfather, John Seawell Brown and 3his grandfather Daniel II. My grandfather, Seawell Avery’s path connected to Daniel II through his father, James D., and mother, Hannah A. My grandmother, Madge Brown Avery, connected through a brother of John S. Brown, Samuel II Brown and his grandfather, Daniel II. That left my mother and me with three different paths to Daniel II and Hannah Hollingsworth Brown. At Avery Station, James D. would say to me, “Dougie, we are all Browns.”My mother had a friend in Pleasant Gardens that we visited from time to time. She was a member of the Gibbs family, related to someone my mother called “Aunt Lettie.” Aunt Lettie’s name, mentioned at the dinner table, was a chance for Hannah to educate me in ways of family. Aunt Lettie was Hannah’s sister. She described Aunt Lettie as one of the Garden City Browns. That term used by my great grandmother, the Garden City Browns, has always stayed with me, and is the subject of this paper. Who were the Garden City Browns? How did they get there, and how did the Old Brown Home Place of my great grandmother Hannah [at one time, Hannah’s mother, Delia Brown, was the sole owner of the house] wind up being today’s Carson House? The thrust of this paper is a personal one. I am, from my mother’s side, deeply defined by the Brown and Avery families of Old Burke and McDowell Counties of North Carolina. My ancestors were intimate players of the history of these areas. General knowledge concerning the Carson era of Buck Creek exceeds that of the Brown era of Garden City. The Carson era was about the “mountain masters” of western North Carolina. The Brown era of Garden City was about the era of Southern Reconstruction. The former was, for some considered, a time of Romanticism, the latter, a time of survival. The Browns were both pre-War “mountain masters” and survivors of Reconstruction. To tell the story of the Browns of Garden City, one must look at both. During the times of the “mountain masters,” the Carson, Avery, and Brown families of Old Burke and McDowell Counties knew and interacted with one another. John Carson, Waightstill Avery and Daniel II Brown were all interacting “mountain masters.” Through the period of the Buck Creek mansion of John and J.L. Carson, through the period of the Brown Home Place of the Garden City Browns, to today’s historic house and museum, Carson House, the Carson, Brown and Avery families have always been, somehow, involved. The object of this paper is to call upon family knowledge and research to add additional insight to the history of the Buck Creek, Garden City, Pleasant Gardens, area and the old mansion that historically defines the area. In addition, at the end, it the wish of the author that the reader has a better understanding as to who the Browns of Garden City were.The Antebellum BrownsDaniel II Brown was born in Orange County (Randolph) NC in 1766. He married Hannah Hollingsworth in Randolph County in 1788. Soon after their marriage, circa 1788/89, they moved to the North Cove of Old Burke (the Portion of Old Burke that later, in 1843, would become McDowell County) where on October 17, 1789, their first son Samuel I was born. Between 1789 and 1812, Daniel II and Hannah produced nine children. From the early days of North Carolina’s Old Burke County, the Linville Mountain formed a natural barrier that separated the North Cove from most other areas of the county. Bounded by the Linville Mountain to the east and a series of mountain ranges to the west, the North Cove was split by the North Fork of the Catawba River and contained rich bottomland on either side of the river. In addition to rich bottomland for agricultural activities, the river provided a plentiful water supply to support a number of commercial projects. The Burke County Census of 1790 shows two Daniel Brown's. This fact adds some confusion to the interpretation of the tax records for the North Cove Daniel II Brown as it pertains to his personal property between 1790 and 1806. All indication leads one to the conclusion that, during this period, he was involved with various types of commerce (milling, tannery, etc.) as a means of capital accumulation for the purchase of land in 1806. It is clear that in 1806 Daniel II Brown of North Cove purchased 300 acres of land from Joseph Wilson in the Ashford area of the North Cove that lay on both side of the North Fork of the Catawba River for a sum of $900. This purchase constitutes what the 4family today calls the original home place. Samuel I Brown built a large “home place” on the Ashford farm prior to 1820. This house served as the North Cove Home Place by subsequent Brown generations before destruction in the 1916 flood. After 1806, it is clear that Daniel II and his son, Samuel I, acquired considerable acres in North Cove and Mitchell County via purchase and claim. A list of taxable Burke County property of Waightstill Avery of 1818 lists a Daniel II Brown as an assessor of a portion of Avery's property. This listing shows Waightstill Avery with land holdings of about 600 acres in the North Cove in 1818. Absent available data, it is highly likely that Daniel II Brown and Col. Avery were jointly involved with some of Daniel II and Samuel I Brown's land purchases and acquisitions. Reports from the Mc Dowell County Heritage indicates that Daniel II practiced a self-sufficient farm operation in which he produced a variety of cultivated crops and livestock. However, it is likely that Daniel II Brown's business activities contained significantly more diversification than reported. The Silas McDowell Papers (1816-1818 journal) in the paragraph where he is discussing the fortune that Edward Williams (Daniel Brown's son-in-law) made in the tannery business supports this contention. In this paragraph, Silas Mc Dowell describes Daniel Brown as “a rich merchant of the North Cove."In telling the story of the Browns of Garden City and the Brown Home Place, the focus of the story must necessarily be on the descendants of Daniel II and Hannah’s oldest son Samuel I, and his wife Olive Cox Brown. In particular, emphasis must focus on the descendants of Samuel I’s second son, John Seawell Brown and his wife Rebecca Burnette Brown. Additional players re the story of the Browns of Garden City come into play from other of Daniel II and Hannah’s Old Burke children, for example the case of Elizabeth H. Brown. The third daughter of Daniel II and Hannah, Elizabeth H. Brown, provided an important linkage across the Linville Mountain that separated Old Burke and its North Cove when, in 1823, she became the wife of Squire James Avery. Squire James Avery was one of three children of the Reverend Isaac Avery, brother of Colonel Waightstill Avery of Swan Ponds. Squire James and Elizabeth had their home at Canoe Hill of Old Burke (nearby Swan Ponds) and produced nine children. A number of descendants of Canoe Hill and Swan Ponds have connections with the Browns of North Cove and Garden City and currently maintain a Brown/Avery family connection across present day Burke and McDowell counties. As the focus of the story of the Browns of Garden City gravitates, in the main, to the descendants of Samuel I and Olive Brown, in particular, the second son, John Seawell Brown and his wife Rebecca, one might ask, “what about Daniel II and Hannah Brown?” Why do we not consider them as part of the Browns of Garden City Story?Daniel II and Hannah Brown were pioneers in the establishment of the Methodist Church in the North Cove. A report of a 2nd Quarterly Meeting for the Morganton Conference held at Mount Zion on the 10th day of 1814 shows the Browns as contributors to the Conference and Daniel Asbury (one of the area's first circuit riders) being present. A History of the Methodist Church in the Toe River Valley shows "Brown's" as a point on the Morganton Circuit. This point is thought to be near or at the site of the cemetery where a series of buildings, over time, housed the North Fork of the Catawba Methodist Church in the North Cove for an undetermined number of years. Daniel II Brown's oldest son Samuel I and other members of the Daniel Brown family are buried on this site. The North Cove Avery and Brown families attended this church well into the 1930s when they and other attending families transferred their membership to the near-by Concord Methodist Church. Current members of the North Cove Brown family report that one of the founders of the Methodist Church in North America, Bishop Francis Asbury (no relation to Daniel Asbury), preached on the site of this still-standing church. Daughter Elizabeth carried Daniel II and Hannah Brown's commitment to the Methodist Church to Canoe Hill. Although his wife, Elizabeth was a devout Methodist, honoring the memory of his father, the Reverend Isaac Avery, an ordained Episcopal minister, Squire James Avery of Canoe Hill was one of the founders of the Grace Episcopal Church in Morganton, serving as chairman and secretary of the church vestry. The majority of the Canoe Hill children of James and Elizabeth Brown Avery found their way to the Methodist faith of their mother, Elizabeth. Two of Squire James' daughters married 5Methodist ministers. His oldest son Isaac Theodore was a Methodist who helped to build a frame building that stood as the Oak Hill Methodist Church. James' grandson, James Daniel, was later known for his role in leading the singing at the above-mentioned North Fork Methodist Church in the North Cove.The marriage of Squire James Avery to Elizabeth Brown was the first, but not the last, in a line of Avery-Brown marriages made possible by Daniel II and Hannah Brown. In 1823 James and Elizabeth were married at the home of her brother Samuel I. Two generations later the grandson of James and Elizabeth, James Daniel, followed the same Yellow Mountain Road across Linville Mountain, as his grandfather, to court and eventually marry, the great-great-granddaughter of Daniel II Brown, Hannah Adlaid Brown. James Daniel (J.D. as known) and Hannah (granddaughter of John Seawell Brown) raised their family on a large farm, once owned by Hannah Avery’s father, Romulus Walter Brown (oldest son of John Seawell Brown) in North Cove of what by then was Mc Dowell County. Squire James' grandson, J.D., brought the Burke County Avery name to the county of McDowell as a lasting part of the North Cove history when he completed a transaction with the Clinchfield Railroad that allowed the railroad to use a part of his property as a train station know as Avery Station. Although the station is now gone, the point along the railroad line is today referred to as Avery. Like many of the sons of Old Burke County at the time, the oldest son of Squire James Avery, Isaac Theodore (father of the above-mentioned J.D.) went to California during the 1850-53 period in search of gold. A letter received by Theodore in California dated September 1, 1852 from his father, James, tells of the death of his grandfather Brown, Daniel II Brown, on 17 June 1852. In the letter, James speaks of the details of Daniel II Brown's Last Will and Testament. He tells of the great plantation and other significant property and businesses that Daniel II Brown had accumulated in the North Georgia area. The letter also mentions the North Cove properties of Daniel II and the allocation of assets process re heirs. However, how did this pioneer of Old Burke end up as a wealthy planter in North Georgia? He was a quintessential example of a “mountain master.” In 1822, having firmly established several of their children with good marriages and property in the North Cove area, Daniel II and Hannah, along with two of their daughters and their husbands (Edward and Mary Brown Williams, Henry and Nancy Brown Conley) and their youngest son (James Hartwell Brown) became pioneers of the Sautee-Nacoochee Valley of North Georgia. Here (between 1822 and 1852), Daniel II and family acquired large quantities of land, build and operated corn and wheat mills, lumber operations, tanneries and other commercial ventures, in addition to maintaining large farming operations. Daniel II Brown’s 1852 death was preceded by Hannah’s death in 1844. Daniel II Brown is considered to be the founder of the town of Helen in North Georgia. Both he and Hannah Hollingsworth Brown are buried in the cemetery of the Nacoochee Methodist Church there. Daniel II and Hannah Hollingsworth Brown’s oldest son, Samuel I and his wife, Olive Cox, produced nine children between 1813 and 1835. It is fair to say, that with the departure of parents Daniel II and Hannah, two sisters and a brother, Samuel I Brown became the head of the Brown family of Old Burke County, located in the North Cove area, in 1822. He was 33 years old at the time. It is also fair to say that after 1822, the children of Samuel I and Olive Brown would define the future Browns of Old Burk and the coming McDowell Counties, including both areas of North Cove and Garden City. Samuel I and Olive both died in 1861 and buried in the Old North Fork Methodist Church Cemetery near the Old North Cove School.Born in 1814 and married to Rebecca Burnette of the Buck Creek area in 1840, John Seawell was the second son of Samuel I and Olive Brown. During the 1853 to 1863 period, John S. added hundreds of acres to the Brown family holdings via purchase and through entry and claim. In total, he was issued land grants from North Carolina of 2660 acres that were mostly near or adjoining Brown family holdings in North Cove. John Seawell and Rebecca’s North Cove home was located on his land located in the Ashford area. Here, they raised their children; farmed 350 acres of cultivated land, and maintained a significant amount of commercial “livestock,” and defined their residence until the mid to 6late 1870s. One should note that while the North Cove Browns referred to themselves as “farmers,” for example, the 1850 and 1860 Census lists Samuel I Brown as “farmer” and although he had four sons, only one son (Daniel R.) lists himself as “farmer.” Like all “mountain masters,” before 1865, “labor” on the Samuel I Brown “farms,” implied slaves. The 1860 Census Report lists Samuel I’s personal property, commonly meaning slaves, at $22,000; indicating a large number. Like his father Samuel I, John Seawell referred to himself as a farmer but it appears that his main interests lay in real estate, business and politics. These interests and incentives led to, at the appropriate time, his creation of what the author calls, The Browns of Garden City.The Antebellum CarsonsJohn Carson arrived in Old Burke County, North Carolina, sometime after 1773 and spent his entire life in residence there in the Buck Creek area of Old Burke County. He died in 1841 at 88 years of age, about a year before his portion of Old Burke became a new McDowell County, where his “mansion house,” for about two years, would serve as the seat of the new county. Samuel I Brown’s father Daniel Brown II arrived in Old Burke in North Cove, about 1788. Arrivals, such as John Carson and Daniel II Brown, at the dawn of American Independence, found “back country” counties, such as Old Burke, anything but uniform. Scots-Irish and Germans of very different cultural values were joined by a third group of English extraction, with a third set of values, moving west to join the migration searching for “good land.” Add a smattering of Welsh, Swiss, Dutch and English Quakers and one could describe the movements into the “back country” as chaotic. While some arrivals, such as John Carson and Daniel II Brown knew precisely what they wanted, in the move, the more general migration was more like the movements of a flock of sheep; where one goes, the flock follows, without knowing why. Among the chaos of population diversity, with the declaration of American independence, North Carolina opened its western lands for speculation in 1777 and by 1792 pioneer attention to land speculation via “grants and surveys” became particularly expansive. The story of the widespread land speculation in Western North Carolina at the turn of the 19th century is a less than well-known story. In additional to locals such as my Avery family ancestor, Waightstill Avery, non-resident land speculators such as the famous Robert Morris, of Revolutionary War financing fame, accumulated, in some cases, tens of thousands of western North Carolina mountain lands. Reports exist that a Tench Coxe of Philadelphia in 1796 had holdings in the range of one-half a million acres. By the 1820s, the heyday of land speculation in western North Carolina was drawing to a close. However, along with Waightstill Avery, both John Carson and Daniel II Brown had been at the right place at the right time, with the right “know-how” and in an economy whose fundamental assets started with productive land, all three men had accumulated large quantities of it.Sometime during the early 1790s (between 1793 and 1795) John Carson completed the first section of what has today become the Carson House [additions and subtractions from the original house took place over the house’s history.] In 1797, at the age of 45, Carson married Mary Moffitt McDowell and with his new wife and new house, tradition argues, incorrectly, the house and lands of Carson’s Buck Creek properties, per their beauty, took on the name “Pleasant Gardens.” However, the general usage of the term would have to wait until the late 1920s. Mary Moffitt McDowell was Carson’s second of two marriages. Across the two marriages John Carson produced 12 children. One of those children was Jonathan Logan Carson. About 1820, with the completion of the east-west road between Morganton and Asheville, John Carson began using his house as a stagecoach stop. About the same time, 1820, the house began being used as a polling place for the Buck Creek area and continued as such until into the 1840s. Under John Carson’s ownership, the house was frequently used for various public events, musters, and horse races. Over time, the house expanded to serve an increasing demand as both a community center and a private home. Stories are told of historical figures such as Davy Crockett, Sam Houston, and Andrew Jackson as frequent visitors of Carson’s home. It is told of these men winning and 7losing sums of money gambling on the horses that raced at the Carson Plantation. During the time of John Carson and his son, J.L. Carson, the Carson home served as a community building, a stagecoach inn, a general boarding house, the home of one or more taverns, a horse racing center and a private home for members of the Carson family. Here, the house exhibited the “spirit” of its owner as Carson House records support the memories of its visitors that for more than 60 years, “spirituous liquor” flowed freely within the mansion. Most of this flow was generated from the Carson Supply Chain that included corn production, milling, distilling and distribution. John Carson was licensed as a tavern keeper in Old Burke County as early as 1832. His “tavern inn” was known as one of western North Carolina’s most popular resorts. Travelers found the Carson House a place to refresh themselves with drink and/or as a comfortable place to rest for the night, or days at a time. As “mountain masters” the Carson family operated within a multiple business environment. John Carson’s main business was raising and trading livestock, pigs and cattle, for the caravans that stopped in Asheville on their way to Georgia and South Carolina. In addition, he was active in slave trading, buying and selling for the local markets. Jonathan Logan Carson was the chief beneficiary of his father’s will upon John Carson’s death in 1841. Among John Carson’s children, J.L. Carson had his choice of many of his father’s tracts of land and properties. It was Logan, as J.L. was known, and his 2nd wife, Mary, who assumed ownership of the Carson House in about 1841 and continued to operate the Carson businesses, as his father had done before. John Carson had kept his businesses during the time Logan was growing up there. Logan understood the businesses continued them as the head of the Buck Creek Carson family. In addition to the Carson businesses, Logan’s holdings in the Buck Creek area in the 1840s and 1850s included about 3000 acres of lands, with about 500 acres in cultivation. Like his father, Logan raised hogs and cattle for market. In addition, in the 1850s and 1860s, Logan operated grain mills both for his own and commercial use. Although Carson employed laborers for specific jobs, like his father’s operations, the great majority of work was performed by large numbers of slaves. In 1842, the state legislature formed a new McDowell County out of Old Burke and a small portion of Rutherford Counties. In the absence of a county seat, it was defined that the county court would be held at the house of J.L. Carson until the time that a proper court house could be built. On March 13, 1843, the initial meeting for the county was held with twenty-eight magistrates involved. These magistrates included J.L. Carson and John Seawell Brown, an important member of the North Cove Brown family and future player in the story of the Browns of Garden City. One of the first acts of the new McDowell court on March 13, 1843 was to license the sale of “spiritous liquor” at the house of J.L. Carson for the term of one year. Two months later, on May 17, 1843, J.L. Carson deeded 63 acres to the chairman of the court, as the site for the town of Marion, east of current Pleasant Gardens, as the location for the new McDowell County seat. The Antebellum AverysLike the Brown family of North Cove and the Carson family of Buck Creek, the Averys of Swan Ponds and their cousins of Canoe Hill fit the role of “mountain masters.” Here, the Carsons and Browns joined with the Averys to additionally demonstrate examples of Inscoe’s “mountain elite” economic, and political elite social class. Inscoe writes:“The economic and political elite of North Carolina’s mountains consisted, for the most part, of a prosperous, ambitious, and progressive middle class of business and professional men. Most of these men were landowners who engaged in a widely diversified agriculture, as they wheeled and dealed like expectant capitalists in a credit-fueled, free enterprise, profit oriented economy.”The head of the family, Waightstill Avery felt that land and slaves were the key to future family wealth accumulation. Like other “mountain masters” across all of Avery family Burke County one could 8observe, saw mill, grist mill, tanneries, and river ferry and toll road operations. Slaves could be found as holding roles of skilled blacksmiths and wheelwrights. Here, the example of Daniel II Brown and family founding of Helen Georgia (between 1822 and 1852) is relevant. The model of family acquisition of large quantities of land, in concert with the business integration of building and operating grist mills, lumber operations, tanneries and other commercial ventures, in addition to maintaining large farming operations would fit well Inscoe’s portrayal of “mountain masters.” This approach during antebellum Old Burke and McDowell counties well defined the Averys, Browns and Carsons as “mountain masters.”Antebellum Education, Agriculture, Slavery and Politics of North Carolina’s MountainsDuring the first third of the nineteenth century, the entire state of North Carolina was often referred to as the “Rip Van Winkle” state. The name called attention to the backward, undeveloped, condition of the state and the, seemingly, indifferent attitude of its people to its condition. It is fair to say that during the first third of North Carolina’s nineteenth century, except for a relatively small number of privileged families, who provided for their own education, the great mass of people of North Carolina had little interest, collectively, in education. On a random walk through the state, of all the people one would encounter, more than half would be illiterate. Most visible to the North Carolina traveler during the early part of the nineteenth century was, except for privileged families, the relative lack of wealth of the state, compared to its South Carolina and Virginia neighbors. In direct opposition to the “Rip Van Winkle” designation, “mountain masters” were committed to education for themselves and their children. The Avery family is an example. There is good reason to believe that the Morgan Academy, privately supported by the Avery family, operated continuously in some form from 1784 until the War began in 1861. Academies such as the Morgan Academy, funded by “mountain masters” for their children and friends of the family cut across the western mountain areas. The backward and unattractive nature of North Carolina as defined by the “Rip Van Winkle” reference was firmly grounded within its general economic and political infrastructure, or lack thereof. Pre-War of 1861, agriculture was the predominant occupation of the North Carolina people. The state was almost entirely rural with little-to-no means of transportation for farm output or for communication and information flow among people within the various areas of the state. For both free white and slave labor-based farming, agriculture was based in primitive methods of cultivation that maximized the use of crude tools, little fertilization and an ignorance of methods of soil conservation. With poor tools and a lack of knowledge about scientific farming, crop productivity was low and the soil became poorer year by year. While the State had much in the way of forest and mineral resources, rank-and-file ignorance of how to utilize those resources effectively, was minimal. The state’s collective ignorance about land management and scientific methods for agriculture forced the poorer family farmers into a continuous search for new lands to cultivate and provide for the subsistence of the family. Ignorance of scientific methods for resource development and farming, and a lack of transportation infrastructure, precluded, for all but a few, the ability to accumulate wealth from natural resources or from surplus agriculture for much of the state’s economy. The problems of transportation infrastructure cut across the total economy of the State, tending to sectionalize and isolate the people of the state from economic progress. North Carolina contained no large trading city and not many merchants. Merchants bought their goods in South Carolina, Virginia, and in the northern cities. Capital for manufacturing in the state was little to non-existent. Little-to-no money was available to purchase manufactured goods by the common people of the State.The agricultural output of Old Burke County reflected both the diversity and the productivity of the settlements. In the absence of a single cash crop, the range of crops grown was wide and diverse. Mountain apples made up a substantial part of the output. Grains such as corn, buckwheat and rye dominated the cultivated fields. Farm manufactured-by-products such as cheese, butter and molasses 9played major roles. More than any crop produced, livestock dominated agriculture and served as a primary source of economic exchange. Beef and Hog production both on the hoof and in meat product form played a major role in mountain economics. Cattle drives and Hog drives to the cities of South Carolina and Georgia were central to western North Carolina economics. The western North Carolina mountain and valley areas provided meat products to the Lower Southern States, who were using their resources in the single-crop production of cotton. Asheville North Carolina was the center of north-south livestock drives into South Carolina and Georgia for the North Carolina western counties. These drives created area demands for livestock and corn to feed the animals on their drives to market. In particular, this demand for beef and hog production created a significant derived demand for corn production as food for the animals. In fact, if western North Carolina farmers had a cash crop, it was corn; corn for human consumption, corn for animal consumption and corn in liquid form. Small and large farms produced corn for internal uses and surplus corn for surplus uses that provided economic exchange currency. As profitable as corn was for human and animal food, its most profitable use may have been in liquid form. In 1810 there were 106 distilleries in Old Burke County producing about 20,000 gallons of whiskey and brandy each year. The vertically integrated supply chain of corn production, corn milling, and whiskey production and distribution made many a back-woods family very wealthy. Consistent with its agricultural-based economy merchants and stores were needed to market any farm surpluses and provide items not available on the farm. A typical store owner or merchant would head south once or twice a year, loaded with smoked meats, tanned hides, feathers for beds, apples and other fruit and multiple other products to be traded for items to be sold in his local store. Some store owners worked through agents, combined with other store owners in the local area sharing trips, or just hired wagon masters to make trips for them. In many cases the profession of store owner and post master went together. In general, Mountain economies were economies of credit and barter. Money was a scarce item for all. One of my Avery family relatives, Isaac T. Avery, told his brother-in-law in 1824 “made enough corn to do me, perhaps can make whiskey to pay for my salt, sugar and coffee and perhaps pay my taxes, but money is as scarce as I ever knew it.”Less than 10% of the mountain populace owned slaves. However, that 10% controlled the social, economic and political development of western North Carolina, and 90% did not. However, the non-slaveholding, white majority, in a rural mountain economy, with important ties, as providers of a food supply to the cash-crop intensive planters of the Deep South, saw the mountain elites as advocates of common regional interests, rather than a separate planter class. “Mountain masters” were accepted by the 90% as worthy of trust and within that trust accepted their socio, economic, and political leadership as their own. Once established as a “mountain master” his sons, sons-in-laws, and near relatives, soon found their way into leadership roles in the rapidly expanding new society. “Mountain masters” were heavily represented in both state and local government. Waightstill Avery was North Carolina’s first Attorney General. His sons and grandsons between 1777 and 1865 were ever-present in the legislative process both for Burke County and the State. During 77 sessions of the General Assembly between 1777 and 1865, an Avery served 17 times, 5 times in the Senate and 12 times in the House. Consistent with their role as commercial farmers, most “mountain masters” favored, government sponsored, internal improvements. In particular, they favored internal improvements that would benefit their wealth creating prospects. These included, better statewide systems of transportation via roads and railroads. Waightstill Avery, post-Revolution, came into Old Burke County as a Federalist. His family, in the main, remained Whig until, events leading to the War caused, William W. to become a Democratic leader for Succession, breaking away from the family’s Whig tradition. In general, most “mountain masters” like the Carson and Brown families joined with the Avery family as supporters of Whig political views.Cooper summarized the pre-War conditions of Education, Agriculture, Slavery and Politics of North Carolina’s Mountains in his work on The North Cove Valley.10It should be noted that for western mountain slaveholding families, this ownership enjoyed the consistent support of fellow mountaineers. Slavery was accepted by non-slave owners because slaves were considered “property” and non-slave owners saw the protection of general property rights, something worth supporting and, later, fighting for. In addition, for most non-slave owner’s, black slaves were considered by their peers and their Church as inferior beings. Thus, the mountain economies saw an expanding economy based on black slavery as a very acceptable condition. The mountain planter economy was firmly rooted in the capital of land and slaves. A planter’s stock of wealth was defined by the quantity and quality of his land and personal property which included the quantity and quality of his “stock” of slaves. Unlike the slave economy in the Deep South, there was no, well-defined, cash crop like cotton [with respect to the above mention of corn] in the mountain economy. Thus, the institution of slavery was more creative in the western N.C. mountains. Slaves could be trained for a multiplicity of professions other than in the fields. Slaves could be carpenters, black smiths, artisans, or a multiplicity of professions. They could be used to work in tanneries, mills, lumber, or a variety of other planter businesses. Or, they could be leased to operations that needed their labor, like building roads, railroads or the University of North Carolina, with rents returned to the owner. Farm products and the surpluses created by the farm via animal products, food, etc. generated working capital to expand into other businesses that could exploit the cheap labor of black slaves. In this way, a small number of slave owners were able to accumulate significant wealth if not in money terms, but in the terms of “property.” The economic system was such that non-slave-owning Yeoman farmers were economically dependent on the planter system to meet many of their family needs. In addition, the yeoman families, though not in wealth, but in family and friends were often significantly connected to the planter families. Thus, were supportive of the existing systems that ruled their lives. Within this environment, it was the policy of planter families to intermarry and, for at least one of the family, to be involved in law and the political system. It was common practice to send a son to a college that would prepare him for a career in the local or state political system. Thus, having control of the economy, the legal system and the accepted message to the population, a small number of slave-owning families maintained a dominate role vis-a-vie the direction of the mountain populace decisions and conditions. The American Civil War (1861-1865) was the result of these decisions and conditions!The politics of the antebellum North Carolina starts with the fact that under the constitution of 1776 wealthy land owners controlled county and state governments. Each county was ruled by a county court whose members were appointed for life by the governor of the state. The state’s General Assembly made the laws and elected all state officers. No one could sit in the Assembly or be Governor or vote for a member of the Senate unless he was a landowner. To a large extent the politics of the State dependent on county location within the state. For much of the 19th century North Carolina tobacco, slave-based, planters believed that the government of North Carolina should be simple and cheap. It was the government’s role to maintain the status quo for the state’s “haves” and let the “have-nots” of the state fiend for themselves. This was to be accomplished by strict adherence to the Jeffersonian philosophy of government inaction practiced by the Republican (Democratic) Party of the 1804-1835 period. During this period the Republican (Democratic) Party grew in strength in North Carolina until 1815 when it assumed unchallenged political control of the State. The tenants of the Jeffersonian philosophy, as practiced in North Carolina during the period, was that while state government had the responsibility of protecting life and property, it should have little-to-no role in taxation for the purpose of building transportation, public education or any other public infrastructure that might upset the status-quo. In opposition to this political policy the Avery, Brown, Carson and other western North Carolinians the most vital political issue was state aid for internal improvements (infrastructure.) Improvement in transportation of all types, roads, turnpikes, railroads, etc. dominated North Carolina politics during antebellum years. The Whig’s strong endorsement of government funding for transportation projects, their desire to link the western mountain areas with the rest of the state and the South, were of constant political interest within the confines of the Avery, Brown, Carson and other “mountain masters” thoughts. 11WarThe raid on Harpers Ferry, and its approval by many northerners, called attention to all southerners of the degree of northern hostility to slavery. A slave uprising was among the prospects feared by all southerners. With this event, southerners began to interpret actions of the North as “insane elements attempting to contrive war directly on the South.” Harpers Ferry inspired western Carolinians to consider the advantages and disadvantages of disunion with the North. William W. Avery [the same person who was instrumental in the establishment of McDowell County, and was a candidate for governor of North Carolina in 1858] had by 1858 abandoned the Whig Politics of his family in favor of a leadership role in the state’s Democratic Party. Early on, W.W. Avery was a spokesperson for Succession. The W.W. Avery leadership position became significantly important in the 1860 presidential election year. The Democrats met in Charleston S.C. in April 1860 with W.W. Avery heading the Committee on Resolutions that presented the Party Platform to the Convention. In his position, W.W. Avery stood firm on making congressional protection of slavery in expanding territories a part of the Democratic Platform. When the report was ultimately voted down by the Convention, Avery and the report supporters walked out of the Convention. Those who remained could not agree of a presidential candidate, effectively splitting the Democratic Party. The split of the Party was instrumental in the Republican opposition of Abraham Lincoln winning the presidential election with 39.82 percent of the popular vote, viewed by the Democrats as the Abolition candidate, leading to southern succession. In May of 1861, Governor Ellis called a special session of the North Carolina General Assembly without submitting the question of calling for assembly of a convention to the voters of North Carolina. The Convention contained 147 men. This special session was for the purpose of calling for a convention that would take North Carolina from the Union to join the other secession states. The people of North Carolina had previously turned down, by a popular vote, the question of calling a convention for the purpose of even discussing secession. At the Convention there was no effective opposition to the fact that North Carolina would leave the Union and join the Confederacy. The only opposition among the convention delegates was as to the process that would be followed. Thus, one hundred and forty-seven men spoke for the nearly two-thirds of one million, non-slave, population of North Carolina as their actions, or non-actions, took these people to war. The North Carolina Convention of May 1861 was, in the main, reacting to President Lincoln’s call for troops that could be used for the purpose of halting the “rebellion” of the seceding states. Lincoln was not an abolitionist. Lincoln did not like slavery but he did recognize its constitutional right to exist in the current states. Lincoln did not much care for abolitionists; he was more interested in the preservation of the Union, with or without slavery. With his call for troops he was willing to take the Union to war for the preservation of that Union and for no other purpose. Under the Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States, the May 1861 Convention of North Carolina elected two delegates to represent the State at large with the Confederacy. One of the two was W.W. Avery.Jonathan Logan Carson, wife Mary, and their two daughters watched from the Carson home as the western mountains entered the war on the side of the Confederacy. On the day of Secession, the Common Man of the western mountains could, likely, with a strong argument, have convinced one to choose one side or the other in the coming war. As the Deep South states followed South Carolina’s lead, mountain unionists expressed doubts about their own participation in a confederacy dominated by a “cotton oligarchy.” Despite their close association with and economic dependence on South Carolina, western North Carolinians had little sympathy for the situation South Carolina had put itself and with it, North Carolina. Mountain residents found offensive the subtle means by which South Carolinians sought to pressure their business acquaintances in the mountain counties. For many western North Carolinians, the policy goals of the “cotton oligarchy” for slavery expansion was particularly objectionable. However, in the end it was economic, social, and political dependence on their Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia neighbors that dictated the path of western North Carolinians to the Confederacy. It was a 12tragic and bitter war for most of the Confederacy. Logan and Mary Carson had but two daughters in 1861 and no sons to lose in the war. Also, the Carsons were fortunate in that, until 1865 the Buck Creek area had heretofore, essentially, been untouched by union troops. The history of the Carson home place tells of the April 1865 invasion of the home by union troops. Here, the invasion was followed by troops taking whatever valuables they could find. Logan Carson, who was considered old by the union troops, was not physically harmed, neither were the two women and two girls in the house. Damage at The Carson home was relatively minor. However, across the Confederacy the South had and was doomed to suffer from its war failures. At the end, the state of North Carolina lay prostrate. A catastrophic war had worked massive hardship and destruction on the State that would require many decades to overcome. Across all classes, massive wealth and savings had been destroyed and poverty had visited both rich and poor. Wealthy families, who prospered with relative lives of plenty before 1860 were little-better off after the war than the state’s small subsistent farmers. The stock price wealth of slaves had been reduced to zero. Real property had been destroyed in battles and raids. Land, railroads, factories, public and private buildings, bridges, and roads were either destroyed, worn out, or in critical need of repair. Money raised by loans and taxes in support of the Confederate mission was exhausted. Individuals and institutions who had lent funds to the “cause” would never be paid back and were ill prepared to face maintenance requirements for upkeep of what property that remained. Little to no gold or silver remained in either public or private hands and Confederate paper money had no value. In the absence of slaves, tools, and other productive inputs, the value of even workable land and other real property was significantly reduced. More than 40,000 of North Carolina’s white population had given their lives in the War. Other multiple thousands had been injured or damaged by disease, lack of food and/or unspeakable living conditions. There was great fear among the white population of North Carolina as to the future release of about 350,000 former slaves on a poverty-stricken land. A good number of the white population believed that they were about to be punished by God for sins of bad judgment. Fear for the future of North Carolina was all pervasive. Was the condition that North Carolina found itself on the morning of April 12, 1865 God’s Judgment? Why did the state arrive at this point? Did this outcome have to be? What went wrong? Across all these questions it was understood that the Old North State had become the victim of a great catastrophe and its recovery would be a long and painful process. Jonathan Logan Carson died in 1866, at the age of 59, leaving his wife Mary and his two daughters to face the post-war trials to come. The Carson Mansion Becomes the Brown’s Garden City HomeplaceAs the Civil War ends, Jonathan Logan Carson dies in 1866 at the age of 59. With the coming of the 1870s, a new environment arrived for “mountain masters,” a new culture, a new era was born that would change the nature of western mountain economics, society and politics. It was time for change, a time for rebuilding, a time of Reconstruction. Jonathan Logan Carson and John Seawell Brown were sons of two of the western “mountain masters,” John Carson and Samuel I Brown. In 1866 Logan Carson was dead and John Seawell Brown was alive and well at the age of 52. Daniel II and Hannah Hollingsworth Brown’s oldest son Samuel I and wife, Olive Cox, produced nine children between 1813 and 1835. It is fair to say, that with the departure of parents Daniel II and Hannah, two sisters and a brother to Georgia, Samuel Brown became the head of the Brown family of Old Burke County, located in the North Cove area, in 1822. He was 33 years old at the time. It is also fair to say that after 1822, the children of Samuel and Olive Brown would define the future Browns of Old Burk and the coming McDowell Counties, including both areas of North Cove and Garden City. Samuel and Olive both died at the beginning of the War in 1861 and are buried in the Old North Fork Methodist Church Cemetery near the Old North Cove School. John Seawell, the second son of Samuel I, was born in 1814 and married Rebecca Burnette of the Pleasant Gardens community in 131840. During the 1853 to 1863 period, John S. added hundreds of acres to the Brown family holdings via purchase and through entry and claim. In total, he was issued land grants from North Carolina of 2660 acres that were mostly near or adjoining Brown family holdings in North Cove. John Seawell and Rebecca’s North Cove home was located on his land located in the Ashford area. Here, they raised their children, farmed 350 acres of cultivated land, and maintained a significant amount of livestock, and defined their residence there until the mid to late 1870s. One should note that while the North Cove Browns referred to themselves as “farmers,” for example, the 1850 and 1860 Census lists Samuel I Brown as “farmer” and although he had four sons, only one son (Daniel R.) also lists himself as “farmer.” It is understood that labor on the Samuel I Brown “farms” before 1864 was done mostly by slaves. These were pre-War “mountain masters.” The 1860 Census Report lists Samuel I’s personal property, commonly meaning slaves, at $22,000; indicating a large number. Like his father Samuel I, John Seawell referred to himself as a farmer but it appears that his main interests lay in real estate, politics and business. John Seawell had achieved some measure of political success by the 1840s. For the most part, during the 1835 to 1850s, the Avery families of Swan Ponds and Canoe Hill, the Browns of North Cove, and the Carson family of Pleasant Gardens were Whig in their politics. As antebellum “mountain masters” the most vital political issues were associated with state aid for internal improvements (infrastructure.) Improvement in transportation of all types, roads, turnpikes, railroads, etc. dominated their Whig political actions. John Seawell had taken an active role with William W. Avery in the State Legislature re the creation of McDowell county. He had a leadership role in determining the county boundaries, and in 1843 John Seawell Brown was among the first group of magistrates appointed for the new McDowell County. As early as 1843 Brown, as a member of the first group of magistrates appointed for the new McDowell County, found himself and family sharing a common society with the prominent families of the Buck Creek area. While Brown lived in North Cove, he had business interests in the Buck Creek, Marion areas, and frequently traveled either with friends and/or with family visiting within the areas.J.L. Carson died without leaving a will. Much of the John and J.L. Carson properties were ill defined. Thus, beginning in 1866, scores of separate claims against his estate were filed over a several year period. Property sales to meet claims took place in 1866 and 1867. In 1867, 13 tracts, of undetermined sizes, of J.L. Carson lands were sold in Burnsville and Yancey County. The Yancey County total was 1440 acres. Multiple tracts of undetermined sizes in McDowell County were sold to multiple parties, including tracts sold to John Seawell Brown. In 1866 John Seawell Brown, acting as administrator in the estate settlement of his father, Samuel I made a number of claims in the name of his father against the estate of J.L. Carson. It is unclear the exact nature of lands and property that resulted from the claims. However, a number of Carson properties re the claims of Samuel Brown were involved and added to the holdings of John S. Brown.In 1872 Brown and family still lived in North Cove but it is known that during the 1870s he and his family moved to the old Carson homeplace before owning it in 1887. In the 1866 and 1867 settlement of the J.L. Carson estate, Mary Carson, J.L. Carson’s wife, retained the “mansion house,” its lands and out buildings. In 1870, Logan Carson’s wife, Mary, was 54 and her two daughters were, respectively, 17 and 14. At some point during the 1870s, Mary’s daughters married, became independent of the “mansion house,” allowing Mary to move into the town of Marion, where she lived out the rest of her life. It was at this point the family of John Seawell Brown of North Cove became the “Browns of Buck Creek,” and later, with the arrival of its own area Post Office, the “Browns of Garden City.” The John S. Brown family took possession of Mary Carson’s “mansion house,” its lands and out buildings, first via rent, about 1877, and then ownership in 1887. The Brown Family of Garden City was preserved by three generation of the John Seawell family. As late as 1905, when the old Carson homeplace house was owned by Romulus Walter’s widow, Delia Bobbitt Brown, the grandchildren of John Seawell continued to refer to the house as “grandfather’s house.”14John Seawell Brown was described in a North Carolina Government “Assembly Sketch Book” as “one of the most influential men of his county. In addition to his farming and commercial interests, from 1860 to 1868, he served as chairman of the McDowell County court. He was involved, for a time, with the construction of the Western North Carolina Railroad through McDowell County in the late 1860s and 1870s. His move into the Pleasant Gardens area coincided, roughly, with his first election to the state legislature. In 1876 he was elected to the House of Representatives where he served a single term. In 1885, he was again elected and served another single term in the North Carolina Senate. As owner of the former Carson homeplace, as the Carson’s had done before him, Brown continued to use the structure as an inn or boarding house, serving travelers from Morganton to Asheville. This venture continued as a thriving business until the more efficient and effective Southern Railroad between Morganton and Asheville became available. John S. and Young, for a number of years, leased land from the Carson family to operate a grain mill before purchasing the land where the mill was located on Buck Creek called “the mill tract.” After purchase, “the mill” remained a part of John Seawell’s operations until he died in 1893. Brown and Young maintained a license as merchants in the Marion area of McDowell County dating back as early as 1877. The John Seawell and Rebecca residency of the old Carson homeplace lasted from about 1877 to about 1893, a period of about 16 years. The property stayed in Brown hands for an additional 17 years, a total of about 33 years. During the period, the Brown family took on the name of the structure as the Brown “homeplace” and it was the Brown “homeplace” that defined the group of Browns know as the Browns of Garden City.Post-War Reconstruction and John S. BrownMy great-grandfather, James Daniel Avery (known as J.D.), as a child, was an Avery of Burke County in the mountains of western North Carolina. As a man, he became the husband of John Seawell Brown’s granddaughter, Hannah Brown Avery. Like the Browns of North Cove, the Avery family of Swan Ponds and Canoe Hill, on the east side on Linville Mountain, was one of some standing and influence in pre-Civil War North Carolina. The North Cove Browns and the Swan Ponds, Canoe Hill Averys had been involved with land and family connection going back to the Post Revolution time of Daniel II Brown and Waightstill Avery. In addition, William W. Avery and John Seawell Brown had been important figures in the founding of McDowell County from Old Burke in 1843. As “mountain masters” the Browns of North Cove and the Averys had between 1835 and 1960 been important in Whig-based western North Carolina politics. However, leading up to the Civil War, having turned against Avery family Whig family politics, William W. Avery had served as a leader of the Democratic Party succession movement. After succession, both the Averys and Browns became firm for the Confederacy. Born into the Avery family in July 1861, J.D. arrived just in time for the first Avery male’s life to be taken in that War. His uncle Henry Harrison Avery was dead at the age of twenty-one after participating in the war’s first battle at Bethel Church Virginia. Out of a total of eight Burke County Avery males of an age to join the ranks, the deaths of five of that number were directly attributable to their service to the Confederacy. One of the numbers that survived the War was J.D.’s father, Isaac Theodore Avery, who as a member of the Burke County Home Guard, was involved with a number of local actions re the continuing fear of Kirk’s Raiders, who in one of the actions killed William W. Avery. As J.D. told it, “By the grace of God, at the end of the War in 1865, my three sisters and I were alive and well with our parents.” However, for the next twenty years, (1865 to 1885), the Theodore Avery family would learn how to survive the peace and the Reconstruction that followed the War.Like my great-grandfather I was a war child. But for me, World War II was far away, there were no Kirk’s Raiders to burn our houses and barns, and I did not feel to be in harm’s way. During much of the time between 1941 and the day J.D. died in 1950, I was safe on our large North Cove farm called 15“Avery Station.” During his last years before his mind became cloudy, he would sit on his front porch in his favorite rocker, chew Brown’s Mule tobacco, and read his Bible. He was an educated man with a keen mind who had made himself somewhat of a biblical scholar. Between the years 1945 and 1949 I would take a chair on that porch and we would talk. We would talk about the Bible and he would tell me stories about his youth. He would tell me stories about the Averys and Browns, and about his perceptions of the War. Sometimes, about mid-day, he would get his walking cane and we would extend our conversation with a walk to the creek and back; a branch of the North Fork of the Catawba River, along which the farm land of North Cove’s Avery Station was bounded. As a child J.D.s remembrances, at the time, only gave forth impressions. However, in maturity, these childhood impressions, overlaid my understanding of Brown and Avery family history as it unfolded to me within the confines of my scholarly research. As a child I only knew that the grandfather of my great grandmother, Hannah Brown Avery, was an important politician in the mountains of western North Carolina. Only in adulthood could one put John S. Avery and the Browns of Buck Creek and Garden City of the 1870s to 1910 in proper context. My G3 grandfather, John Seawell Avery, was one of a number of western North Carolina politicians that was assigned with the duties of dealing with post-War Reconstruction.Isolated as it was within the hills, mountains and valleys of western North Carolina, the families of these areas furnished men and supplies for the Confederate Army. A few sons joined the Union Army. For both sides, those that returned from the War went back to their land and property, or what was left of it, and attempted to start over. Most of the slaves that had been freed by the Union victory, for a time, stayed with their former owners as freeman labor or as tenants. In form, much of the mountain economy attempted to remain as it had been. The emphasis on livestock, corn, and other grains, the production of animal products, the production of whiskey, brandy, etc., and the importance of stores and merchants in the economy, all of the parts of the economic engine before the War, though damaged, were there, except for the concept of pre-War slavery. After the War, the distribution of land in North Carolina remained largely unchanged from its pre-War state. Proposals for redistribution of land to the freemen by the national Republican Party had not reached fruition by the end of Reconstruction. Whereas most of North Carolina’s pre-War wealth was in land and slaves, most post-War wealth was defined in terms of land and the ability to access enough labor to make the land productive. Before the War, planters used their stock of slaves to produce farm and commercial output. After the war, these planters now had to purchase labor, in one form or another, to put land into production and activate commercial activities. War devastation had forced significant numbers of pre-War small white farmers into a landless state of economic slavery that was little different from that of the black freemen. Before the war, North Carolina contained a large number of yeoman farmers. These Yeomen, in the main, used family members to produce a subsistence level of farm output. Because of their ability to subsist by their own means, these yeomen could act, if they wished, as an independent political force in North Carolina. However, no longer being able to subsist by their own means under post-War conditions, large numbers of small, independent, pre-War farmers were forced into a similar tenant environment as the black freemen. Thus, poor whites and blacks came into competition for employment and tenant opportunities and, once attained, in many cases, similar levels of economic slavery. After Reconstruction in North Carolina, yeoman farmers joined the ruling Democratic Party in opposition to the party of Reconstruction, the Republican Party. However, during the 1875–1900 period, convinced that the Democratic Party was unresponsive to their economic problems, yeoman began to find common issues of support with the Republicans, both black and white. During the 1888 to 1898 period the fusion of yeomen and Republicans, more and more, held the political advantage over the “progressive” Democrats. In addition to the expanded social programs that had been passed in earlier legislative sessions, the 1895 Fusion controlled legislature took a bold step that was to unite business opposition to the Fusion movement and contribute to its ultimate defeat. In order to generate less regressive tax revenues for North Carolina, the 1895 Fusion controlled legislature revised the state tax code to include the taxing of corporations and their investments, including stocks and bonds at their 16value. In addition, professional licensing fees were enacted. This same Fusion controlled legislature took a second bold step that would, also, contribute to its ultimate defeat, as it approved a return of the election of local officials to the counties and townships. No longer would the legislature appoint local officials. In eastern counties with black majorities, the results of home rule were frightening to the white minority rule that had previous political control over its black population. In 1896, Fusion elected Republican Daniel Russell as Governor and the Republicans and yeomen had control over both houses. The humiliated Democrats had but one agenda in 1897, to win back the state, regardless of the means required. The 1898 election results showed the effectiveness of the campaign of terror carried out by a para-military group calling itself the Red Shirts in the eastern part of North Carolina where blacks had traditionally voted in large numbers. The North Carolina Legislature of 1899 was overwhelmingly Democratic. However, one more important step was needed before Josephus Daniels could claim the state “redeemed.” Robert Winston, Aycock’s friend at the University and future law partner spoke with unusual candor about Aycock’s feeling that “one more fraud” was necessary to remove the black man from politics. Here, Winston was referring to the suffrage amendment that was passed by the white supremacy Democrats in 1900 that, in effect, disenfranchised the North Carolina’s black voters. Black voters in North Carolina would have to wait for more than sixty years before they would again have similar influence as they had in the 1890s. Future leaders of the State, would brag about their participation in the white supremacy campaigns of 1898 and 1900 that allowed the Democratic Party of North Carolina to be unopposed for most of the 20th century. John S. did not live to see the ultimate takeover of the State by the Democratic Party having died in 1893. However, he was described by family as a good “stable, moderate” Democrat.After the death of John S., within the post-1902 North Carolina Democratic Party, conservatives and liberals fought for control of the State. The majority conservatives represented the new rising, business class, gentry, whose interest were associated with maintaining North Carolina as a cheap labor state for both business and agriculture. These controlling conservatives were, in the main, the political winners from the 1898-1902 white supremacy campaigns that successfully disenfranchised the black voter. The liberal wing of the state’s Democratic Party was sympathetic to the needs of small farmers, industrial labor interests, and the general education, health and welfare issues of the common people of North Carolina. These interests were to be financed by imposing on businesses a greater share of the tax burden of the State. However, these interests were not to reach fruition as Democratic Party conservatives controlled the political agenda for well over one-half of North Carolina’s 20th century. Cheap textile mill labor from marginal subsistence farmers moving into the mills and a cheap supply of tenant and “cropper” labor for large agriculture, such as cotton and tobacco producers, was the policy of North Carolina after 1902. Small, marginal, subsistent farms, such as many in the western mountains, were in harm’s way. Predatory land speculators, and government taxes, smaller family sizes, were all at play re the mountain economies. Many of the commercial farms that were the properties of the families of the antebellum “mountain masters” were still viable as productive operations at the turn of the 20th century. Many would be viable up until the Flood of 1916 when new decisions would have to be made. Over time within the 20th century the mountain economies of the pre-War times did fade from view.John S. Brown entered the post-War Reconstruction period having served as an officer in the “Home Guard” during the War. His oldest son, Romulus W. served in the Confederate Cavalry, ending the War as a 1st Lieutenant. By the 1880s, John S. had accumulated a significant portion of former Carson land, including the old Carson homeplace, for himself and his family. From the early days of Daniel II, the Browns had taken care of their own re land. Starting from original tracts in North Cove, Brown’s lands extended into surrounding Counties, and with John S., into the Buck Creek area. The Brown family “sold” properties to each other; it would be hard to tell if deed transfer prices were ever met within family “sales.” For example, our Avery Station farm lands were “purchased” from Hannah’s father, Romulus W. on the proviso that her family would provide corn to support the family whisky distillery operations. The land ownership in Garden City among Brown family members was of a 17similar, “take care of our own” variety. The post-John S. ownership of former Carson lands passed on in a “take care of our own” variety, in different proportions, depending upon need, to the various children and grandchildren on John S. and Rebecca Brown.1238250109220John Seawell and Rebecca Burnette Brown(1814-1893) and (1820-1892)020000John Seawell and Rebecca Burnette Brown(1814-1893) and (1820-1892)The Family of John Seawell and Rebecca Burnett BrownDuring the 1843 to 1862 period John Seawell and Rebecca produced seven children that lived past the age of three. See Table I. All of these except two, Dollie Electra and Edwin Seawell, would have come of age in their North Cove residence before about 1877, when the John S. and Rebecca family residence moved to the Pleasant Gardens area and the story of the Browns of Pleasant Gardens began. In 1877 the oldest son, Romulus Walter was 34, John Calhoun was 33, Samuel Augustus,29, and the oldest daughter, Olive Rebecca,25, Dollie Electra,17, and the youngest son Edwin Seawell,15. Willard Burnette had died in 1874 at the age of 18. Because all of John Seawell and Rebecca’s children, except for two, had developed independent family lives of their own, the 1877 move from North Cove to the Buck Creek area only directly affected the two children, Dollie Electra and Edwin Seawell. Only the youngest daughter, Dollie Electra, and the youngest son, Edwin Seawell, lived as children in the John S. and Rebecca Brown former Carson homeplace. From Table I one can see that Romulus Walter, John Calhoun, Samuel Augustine, Olive Rebecca were respectively, 34, 33, 29, 25 years of age. All were married and had developed family situations of their own. Only Dorothy Electra “Dollie” and Edwin Seawell at 17 and 15 years had not yet established themselves independent from their parents, John S. and Rebecca Brown. Of the John S. and Rebecca Brown children, Samuel Augustine Brown (1848/1919) was the least visible of the Browns of Pleasant Gardens. Samuel A. was educated at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pa. and became an important surgeon in several venues of America. He married Clara Cross in Portland Maine in 1876. When Clara Cross died in 1889, he married Susan Ward and spent time in Sioux Falls, South 18Dakota. In 1908 Dr. Brown took into his home orphaned children of his brother Rev. John C. Brown. The remaining children played different roles as Browns of Garden City. Romulus Walter, “Dollie,” and John Calhoun Brown, along with their parents John S. and Rebecca, were the most visible Browns of the Garden City community. However, though located in Bridgewater North Carolina, Olive Rebecca’s close ties to her sister “Dollie” allowed her and her children to keep close family ties with the community. These Browns and their children represent the three generations of Browns of Garden City.3086100462280383540025273041338502590802127250449580307340044323042862505080Buck Creek00Buck Creek2279650163830Today’s Pleasant Gardens00Today’s Pleasant Gardensright1238250Catawba River00Catawba River4997450596900490855011938005175250120650019104775548640John SeawellRebecca Burnetteborn18141820died18931892married18401840John S.Rebecca B.Location BirthsAgeAgeNorth Cove1841Hannah AdelaidHannah Adelaid was 2 when Romulus Walter was 2721North Cove1843Romulus Walterborn, she died at 3, Romulus Walter was 12923North Cove1844John CalhounHannah Adelaid dies, John Calhoun was 03024North Cove1848Samuel AugustusRomulus W. 5, John C. 4, Samuel A. 03428North Cove1852Olive RebeccaRomulus W. 9, John C. 8, Samuel A. 4, Olive R. 03832North Cove1854William EnglishOnly lives 1 year4034North Cove1856Willard BurnetteRomulus W. 13, John C. 12, Samuel A. 84236Olive R. 4, Willard B. 0North Cove1860Dorothy ElectraRomulus W. 17, John C. 16, Samuel A. 144640WAROlive R. 8, Willard B. 4, Dorothy E. 0WARNorth Cove1862Edwin SeawellRomulus W. 19, John C. 18, Samuel A. 144842Olive R. 10, Willard B. 9, Dorothy E. 2, Edwin S. 0North Cove1865War RecoveryRomulus W. 22, John C. 21, Samuel A. 175145Olive R. 13, Willard B. 9, Dorothy E. 5, Edwin S. 3P. Gardens1877Move to PGRomulus W. 34, John C. 33, Samuel A. 296357Olive R. 25, Willard B. (died 1874), Dorothy E. 17Edwin S. 15Once removed to Pleasant Gardens John Seawell and Rebecca Brown will live 16 & 15 more years, at the Carson House. 00John SeawellRebecca Burnetteborn18141820died18931892married18401840John S.Rebecca B.Location BirthsAgeAgeNorth Cove1841Hannah AdelaidHannah Adelaid was 2 when Romulus Walter was 2721North Cove1843Romulus Walterborn, she died at 3, Romulus Walter was 12923North Cove1844John CalhounHannah Adelaid dies, John Calhoun was 03024North Cove1848Samuel AugustusRomulus W. 5, John C. 4, Samuel A. 03428North Cove1852Olive RebeccaRomulus W. 9, John C. 8, Samuel A. 4, Olive R. 03832North Cove1854William EnglishOnly lives 1 year4034North Cove1856Willard BurnetteRomulus W. 13, John C. 12, Samuel A. 84236Olive R. 4, Willard B. 0North Cove1860Dorothy ElectraRomulus W. 17, John C. 16, Samuel A. 144640WAROlive R. 8, Willard B. 4, Dorothy E. 0WARNorth Cove1862Edwin SeawellRomulus W. 19, John C. 18, Samuel A. 144842Olive R. 10, Willard B. 9, Dorothy E. 2, Edwin S. 0North Cove1865War RecoveryRomulus W. 22, John C. 21, Samuel A. 175145Olive R. 13, Willard B. 9, Dorothy E. 5, Edwin S. 3P. Gardens1877Move to PGRomulus W. 34, John C. 33, Samuel A. 296357Olive R. 25, Willard B. (died 1874), Dorothy E. 17Edwin S. 15Once removed to Pleasant Gardens John Seawell and Rebecca Brown will live 16 & 15 more years, at the Carson House. John Seawell and Rebecca Burnette Family Time Table I20Romulus Walter and Delia Bobbitt BrownRomulus W. married Delia A. Bobbitt on May 10, 1868. Together they raised their family in the North Cove area on lands where the father of Romulus, John Seawell Brown, had farming and commercial operations before moving his remaining family from North Cove to the Buck Creek area in 1877. Throughout the 1870s, and 1880s, Romulus and Delia lived in North Cove in the old Brown house build by his grandfather, Samuel I Brown. In addition to active applications of advanced practices of farming, Romulus developed a water powered roller mill for processing corn and wheat on the North Fork of the Catawba River, and a licensed whiskey distillery on a water way called Still House Branch. The vertical integrated supply chain of corn and wheat production, milling and whiskey production from the base grain, provided significant profits for the Romulus Walter Brown family. In 1900 one of Rom and Delia’s sons, Henry Seawell, bought the North Cove farm from his father, after his marriage to Mary Jane English in 1889. Upon the sale, Rom and Delia moved to the Buck Creek section of McDowell County. In addition to farming Brown land in the area, Romulus Walter improved and operated the roller mill on Buck Creek that his father, John Seawell and the Carson family had operated. The mill, originally designed to only mill corn, was expanded to produce both corn and wheat flour. The expanded mill was known as the Brown Wheat and Corn Mill. Farmers came from Old Fort, North Cove, Yancey County and surrounding areas to have their wheat and corn ground. Demands on the mill were such that it operated on both a day and night schedule. In the early part of the 20th century, W.E. Patton purchased property from the Brown estate and operated the mill with the retained earlier name, The Brown Wheat and Corn Mill.In 1900 Rom and Delia and their youngest son Benjamin lived in the Marion Township of McDowell County. It is likely they moved from North Cove when they received full interest in the Garden City homeplace of the John S. Brown property in 1898 and sold their North Cove property to their son, Henry Seawell in 1900. Here, it is important to note that Rom and Delia did not attain full ownership of the of the John S. house until, by various deed transfers, within the extended John S. Brown family, they took full ownership of the house and property. Until fully owned, Rom and Delia were bounded by others within the extended family and property settlement as to use of the property. In 1900 Romulus Walter’s occupation was listed as miller and owner of the Brown Wheat and Corn Mill. It is not clear whether he and his family took immediate residence in the John S. house or a brick house adjacent to the what had become known as the Brown homeplace. In his tribute to Fate and Belle English Brown (News Bulletin, June 23, 1999) Ted Braswell Jr. writes: “The story is told that Peggy Brown’s grandmother was about to deliver the triplets (the doctor knew there were more than one, but had not detected three). There was a rainy spell a few days before she was expecting the “big event” so Peggy’s grandfather moved Elizabeth into one of the small brick houses that stood on the eastern banks of Buck Creek, so the doctor would be able to be with her if the creek was too high to cross.”It is known that W.E., “Billie,” Brown’s family moved to Garden City in 1895 and lived on Brown property for about 16 years (1895 to 1910). Gladys Avery Cooper, grand-daughter of Rom and Delia’s oldest child, Hannah Brown Avery, has noted that Rom and Delia did live in the Garden City Brown homeplace before the unexpected death of Romulus in 1905. The 1900 census lists Romulus’ family as living in “a household separate from but living adjacent to his oldest son William and his family.” The census report does not indicate, in 1900, in which house each lived. Given two residences “separate but adjacent” on the John S. property, the remembrance of the author’s mother, Gladys Avery Cooper re Hannah Brown Avery, is that W.E. and Lizzie, initially, lived with their 3 children in the adjacent brick house. After the 1989 settlement of ownership, Rom and Delia lived in the John S. house between 1898 and Rom’s unexpected death in 1905. Upon Rom’s death in 1905, W.E., and wife “Lizzie,” moved into 21the John S. house with Rom’s widow, Delia, where they continued to live during the 1906 birth to the famous triplets until the Brown’s Garden City homeplace was sold in 1910. Delia died in 1911. Table II shows the time process of Romulus W. and Delia B. Brown’s children. Romulus Walter and Delia Bobbitt Brown(1843-1905) (1848-1911)Romulus Walter and Delia moved their family to the John S. Brown House of Garden City in 1898. Their two daughters, Hannah and Laetitia were, respectively, 29 and 26 years old. Their three sons, William E., Henry S., Walter, and Benjamin were respectively, 25, 23, 18, and 14 years old. Henry S. Brown and wife, Mary English, had returned to North Cove in 1898, where they would remain for the rest of their lives. Hannah Adelaid had married James D. Avery in 1888 and established residence on a large farm in North Cove that would be known as Avery Station, where they would remain for the rest of their lives. Of the 4 remaining children, Laetitia, William E., Walter, and Benjamin, all would be considered part of the Garden City community during the years 1877 to 1910. Tables I and II above define the 3 generations of Browns in the Garden City community from the time of John Seawell and Rebecca’s entrance from North Cove, through the relevant children and grandchildren of 1877 to 1910. These are what my great grandmother, Hannah Brown Avery, called the Browns of Garden City.22center520700Romulus WalterDelia Bobbittborn18431848died19051911married18681868Romulus W.Delia B.Location AgeAgeNorth Cove1869Hannah AdelaidHannah A. 02621North Cove1872Laetitia Hannah A. 3, Laetitia 02924North Cove1873William E.Hannah A. 4, Laetitia 1, William E. 03025North Cove1875Henry S.Hannah A. 6, Laetitia 33227William E. 2, Henry S. 0North Cove1880WalterHannah A. 11, Laetitia 8, William E. 73732Henry S. 5, Walter 0North Cove1884BenjaminHannah A. 15, Laetitia 12, William E. 114136Henry S. 9, Walter 4, Benjamin 0Pleasant Gardens1898Move to PGHannah 29, Laetitia 26, William E. 255550Henry S. 23, Walter 18, Benjamin 14 Once removed to Pleasant Gardens Romulus Walter and Delia Brown will live 6 & 12 more years, re the Carson House. 00Romulus WalterDelia Bobbittborn18431848died19051911married18681868Romulus W.Delia B.Location AgeAgeNorth Cove1869Hannah AdelaidHannah A. 02621North Cove1872Laetitia Hannah A. 3, Laetitia 02924North Cove1873William E.Hannah A. 4, Laetitia 1, William E. 03025North Cove1875Henry S.Hannah A. 6, Laetitia 33227William E. 2, Henry S. 0North Cove1880WalterHannah A. 11, Laetitia 8, William E. 73732Henry S. 5, Walter 0North Cove1884BenjaminHannah A. 15, Laetitia 12, William E. 114136Henry S. 9, Walter 4, Benjamin 0Pleasant Gardens1898Move to PGHannah 29, Laetitia 26, William E. 255550Henry S. 23, Walter 18, Benjamin 14 Once removed to Pleasant Gardens Romulus Walter and Delia Brown will live 6 & 12 more years, re the Carson House. Romulus Walter and Delia Bobbitt Brown Family Table IIJohn S. Brown’s Death and TransitionJohn S. Brown died in 1893. His wife Rebecca preceded him the year before. Upon his death he left large quantities of Brown land and properties to his heirs. The Brown properties included large acres of both cleared and uncleared land, various cottages upon the land, a corn and wheat mill whose output was important to the community, a number of business interests and the Brown Homeplace (the former Carson homeplace.) These properties required management. Upon John Seawell’s death, his oldest son, Romulus Walter, became the head of the John S. branch of the Brown family with oversight responsibilities for Brown properties. Throughout the 1870s, 1880s, and early 1890s, Romulus Walter lived and farmed in North Cove where he and 5 hired black laborers cultivated some 200 acres. He was 23a pioneer in the application of scientific crop and livestock agriculture production methods. Like his father along Buck Creek, He established his own water powered corn and wheat mill (roller mill) on the North Fork of the Catawba River. Unlike his father, Romulus W. established and ran a licensed whiskey distillery on a water way called Still House Branch. The mill and distillery integrated with internal and external grain production gained significant profits to supplement the crop and livestock production. In 1893 the two daughters of Rom and Delia Brown were married and developing lives of their own, Hannah Brown Avery in North Cove, and Laetitia Brown Gibbs in Garden City. Two sons Walter and Benjamin, 13 and 9 respectively, were still within the Rom and Delia home. Two additional sons, William E. and Henry Seawell, 20 and 18 respectively, were about to begin families, William E. with Elizabeth Ray of Yancey County, and Henry Seawell with Mary Jane English of North Cove. In 1893, Romulus W. and his family was well established in North Cove.John S. and Rebecca had three sons in addition to Romulus Walter. In 1893 Samuel A. was a successful surgeon far removed from North Carolina. John C. was a preacher in the area pursuing God’s work and a third son, Edwin, was little involved in family matters. The oldest daughter, Olive Brown Tate, 41 years, was a resident of Bridgewater N.C. Romulus Walter’s best contact with Garden City Brown issues was the second daughter of John S. and Rebecca, Dorothy Electra “Dollie.” In 1893 Dollie, 33 years, was a highly intelligent, energetic, mother of one son and five girls with a 6th girl on the way. She was married to a doctor, Virgil Butt. In 1893 Dr. Butt was about to be divorced from Dollie, about 1894, when he removed himself to Bakersfield in Yancey County, where he remarried and sired 7 additional children, leaving Dollie to fiend for her 7 children on her own. Between the years between the death of John S., 1983, and when Rom and Delia moved to Garden City, 1898, Dollie assumed a leadership role with Rom in the management and oversight of things Brown in Garden City. During the 1893 to 1898 period, who lived in the Brown Homeplace, described as “Grandfather’s House” by the children of Dollie, is an open question. During this period Romulus Walter’s son Henry Seawell and his wife moved to Garden City to farm Brown lands and operated the corn and wheat mill that his grandfather had owned and operated since Carson times. It is likely that during this time, Henry S. and Mary Jane lived in the House along with others who oversaw the day-to-day matters of the facility. It is known that Dollie’s older children from time to time would stay, under supervision, at “Grandfather’s House.” The management of Garden City Brown properties during the 1893 – 1989 period was a significant undertaking. A number of farm land tenants were chosen and operations overseen. The mill operations were on-going and required employees and management. The affairs of Brown cottages and the Brown Homeplace required maintenance and management. These were only the most obvious of Brown property management needs that Romulus Walter faced.Cora Lou Butt Lewis was one of seven children of Dorothy Electra “Dollie” Brown and Dr. Virgil R. Butt. Cora Lou was born in 1892. In her remembrances, A McDowell County Childhood in the late 1890s, Cora Lou give great insight to this post-John S. Brown period of the Browns of Garden City. In her article, Life Once Centered around the Old Mills, Mildred Beedle Fossett quoted Melvin Patton, a resident of Garden City, as saying, “Four things were necessary for the survival of early settlers in this area in the 1700s and 1800s.” “They were (1) a mill to grind meal for making bread, (2) a blacksmith shop to make and repair farm implements , (3) a country merchant to give credit to the farmers until crops were harvested, and who would purchase country produce, which provided income for the residents, (4) a doctor who could be called into isolated sections of the community at any time day or night; with medicinal herbs and roots to combine with whiskey or brandy to combat illnesses.” In her memories, Cora Lou gives a child’s eye view of each of these four.24 “Buck Creek ran through our farm with a big dam which was used for a grist and flour mill.” This would have been the Brown Wheat and Corn Mill that had been owned and operated by Cora Lou’s Grandfather John S. Brown and her Uncle Romulus W. Brown after him. Upon the death of Romulus W. Brown in 1905, W.E. Patton purchased the Brown Wheat and Corn Mill and properties, continuing to operate with the same name of Brown Wheat and Corn Mill.“Mr. McCormack and his blacksmith shop were not very far from our house.” George McCormick was a well-known blacksmith and miller. Since about 1901, he lived in a house near where Lake Tahoma is now located. At that location he operated a corn mill of his own for about 5 years. During that time, he also worked at the Brown Wheat and Corn Mill.“Our village Garden City began to grow when Mama sold a farm to Mr. J.E. Jimson from Mitchel county.” “Mr. Jimson built a store building with a porch that sold general merchandise as did our friend and neighbor Garrett Patton. We now have 2 stores. They are just across the road from each other.” The two stores were located on what is today the Lake Tahoma Road. The Pattons and Jimesons maintained a close relationship that led to marriages among their children. J.G. “Jimmie” Patton rented the Clear Creek property from the Browns. His rental fee was to clear one acre of land per year for the owner.“My father (Dr. Virgil R. Butt) was a doctor known throughout McDowell County for his skill and brilliance.” “He had the finest horses to be had and the handsome Dr. Butt with his fiery steed was recognized and welcomed where ever he was over the countryside.” [However, this is the same Dr. Butt that after the birth of his 7th child, divorced Dollie Brown, moved to Bakersville, N.C. where he harried and fathered another seven children. Dollie did not remarry. She died in 1907 when Cora Lou was 15 years old.] Medicinal herbs, roots and bark were stored at the old mill. There was a steady market for local herbs, roots and plants. The Pattons continued business relations with the S.B. Penick Drug Company well into the 20th century re health care medicines.Dollie Brown had received a large amount of land as the daughter of John S. Brown. In the absence of her husband Dr. Butt, she was surrounded by a number of tenants and helpers around the home and farm, both white and black, former, Brown slaves. “Uncle Harvey” was “one of grandfather’s” former slaves who stayed on with him after the slaves were freed and then came to us when Grandfather died,” from Cora Lou. “He had a wife and several children and lived in a cabin on our farm. He was very devoted and I think he would have risked his life if necessary, for one of us children, we loved him.” Cora Lou speaks of her love for “Ma” and “Pa” Ellis and their three children. The Ellis family were tenants who lived on Brown land but treated each other, land owner and tenant, as one family. In addition to the Ellis tenants, the Johnson family tenants had 16 children who lived on the land. All of the family, the parents and 16 children, worked their portion of the land. Cora’s sister, Bertha and her husband, Mr. Bird, had “colored” tenants who had two boys called Jim and Lige. In 1893, the end of the War was only 28 years in the past, many of the pre-War Brown slaves still maintained a presence as freemen with their former Brown masters. Cora Lou tells of the adventures of her older sister Caddie.“Caddie, would often go to grandfather’s house. Caddie was the greatest adventurer in the family. She delighted in taking our dog, Max, and wandering all around the mountains for miles around and riding all the horses and also an unbroken colt. She had some very narrow escapes but she never saw an animal she feared the least bit. She stayed down at grandfather’s a great deal and they did not allow her 25to go to the servants’ quarters. But, in the evenings when they would gather around the fire, Caddie would pretend she was going to her room and go to bed, but instead she would slip down to hear the servants talk. The colored people were very superstitious and would turn on their best ghost stories with all the fire and brimstone accompaniments until she would become so frightened, she would be shaking in her shoes as she went to her room and then be too frightened to sleep. By the next night, however, she had calmed down and was ready to go back for more excitement.”Buck Creek ran across Dollie Brown’s land with a big dam used for the Brown Wheat and Corn Mill. Dollie’s house rested at the foot of Cemetery Hill. Cora Lou remarked that, “Grandfather and Grandmother Brown were buried there with many other relatives, in later years.” “From Cemetery Hill one could see cattle grazing in the pastures, men plowing in the fields, smoke curling from the kitchen chimneys where meals were being prepared on a wood range.” Cora Lou had cousins Delia, Dora and Nell Gibbs who lived on an adjoining farm.” Their mother was Lettie Gibbs (mother of 11 children) and sister of Hannah Brown Avery. Lettie, Laetitia Brown, married Harrison Gibbs. They farmed Brown land that was adjacent to Dollie Brown land. The Gibbs house, like the Jimson and Patton stores, was located on present day Lake Tahoma Road. Cora Lou’s school house was located about one and one-half miles from Dollie’s house. Before 1903 only one schoolhouse in the area held classes 2 months per year. Rev. Alonzo Sorrels, pastor of the Clear Creek Baptist Church began the Clear Creek Academy where in 1903, Mrs. C.S. Nanney opened the first term of the Academy to many students including three of Dollie’s children. The Dollie Browns were baptized members, and active supporters, of the Clear Creek Baptist Church, which later became the Pleasant Gardens Baptist Church. During the 1880–1890 period, the residents of Clear Creek organized into a viable congregation. Dollie gave land for a church and joined with her family. In 1897 Brown property, adjoining present Pleasant Gardens Cemetery became available and the Church relocated. The first post office in the area was the Buck Creek Post Office and Dollie Butt, wife of Dr. Butt and daughter of John S. Brown was the post mistress. Later, the Buck Creek post office was discontinued and moved to J.E. Jimson’s Store. The Federal postal inspector gave the new post office the name the “Garden City Post Office.” It should be noted that while the area took on the name “Garden City” per the name of the Post Office, it was not until the late 1920s that the name Pleasant Gardens was formalized for the area and its infrastructure.Around 1898 the affairs of Brown property in Garden City required the presence of Romulus Walter. Around this time, he sold his North Cove properties to his son Henry Seawell Brown who returned from the Buck Creek Brown property to take ownership of his father’s property. At this point Romulus W. and wife Delia Bobbitt Brown moved to Garden City and took up residence in the Brown Homeplace on Buck Creek (Carson House.) There, Romulus W. was involved with local management of Brown properties and, in particular, took up the management of the Brown Wheat and Corn Mill which he would continue until his unexpected death in 1905. These events were verified by my great grandmother Hannah Brown Avery, the oldest daughter of Romulus and Delia Brown, and sister of Garden City’s Lettie Gibbs, to my mother Gladys Avery Cooper, a founding member of the Carson House restoration project. It is known that W.E., “Billie,” Brown’s family, with wife Elizabeth Ray, moved to Pleasant Gardens in 1895 and lived on Brown property for about 16 years (1895 to 1910). There were two residences, the Brown Homeplace and a Brick cottage that generates uncertainty about which of the two houses Billie and Lizzie lived in, when they moved from North Cove to Garden City in 1895. They may have started in either of the two houses. Gladys Avery Cooper, grand-daughter of Rom and Delia’s oldest child, Hannah Brown Avery, has noted that Rom and Delia did live in the Carson House before the unexpected death of Romulus in 1905. The 1900 census lists Romulus’ family as living in “a household separate from but living adjacent to his oldest son William and his family.” The 26census report does not indicate, in 1900, in which house each lived. Given two residences “separate but adjacent” on the Carson House property, the remembrance of the author’s mother, Gladys Avery Cooper re Hannah Brown Avery, is that W.E. and Lizzie, initially, lived with their 3 children in the adjacent brick house. After the 1989 settlement of Brown property ownership among the John S. heirs, Rom and Delia lived in the Carson House between 1898 and Rom’s unexpected death in 1905. Upon Rom’s death in 1905, W.E., and wife “Lizzie,” moved into the Carson House with Rom’s widow, Delia, where they continued to live during the 1906 birth to the famous triplets until the Brown Homeplace was sold in 1910. Delia died in 1911. First cousins Cora Lou Butt Lewis and Hannah Brown Avery agree with this account when Cora Lou recounts, “When I was 13 cousin “Lizzie” Brown gave birth to triplets, they lived in Grandfather’s home on the banks of Buck Creek. Uncle Rom who lived there with Aunt Delia had died unexpectedly the previous year.”Through the Carson and Brown period, the “old mansion dwelling” experienced additions and subtractions. Serving as a “community house” under John and J.L. Carson, the house served different requirements than under John S. Brown. It served even more different requirements when the house no longer served the function of a public boarding house under Romulus W. Brown. After John Seawell’s death in 1893, and various Brown children lived in the house, the long ell built on the rear of the house by J.L. Carson in 1856 was no longer needed for boarders and was torn down. Edie Y. Dewey wrote Mary Greenlee to describe her childhood memories of the house. Edie was the daughter of Fatima “Fannie” Tate [the daughter of Romulus Walter’s sister Olive Brown Tate] and Fannie’s first husband Eddie Young. Edie and Cora Lou were close childhood friends (Edie was born in 1891, Cora Lou in 1892) and often visited “grandfather’s house” in their adventures. In her letter to Mary Greenlee Edie recounts, “I was there when the old man painted the living room. I was there when the wing of seven rooms was torn down and I was there when the triplets were born.”Elizabeth, Lafayette and Edwin27The story of the Browns of Garden City could not be told without including Delia Bobbitt Brown’s sisters Laura, Dora and Lena. William H. Bobbitt and wife, Laetitia Burrows Bobbitt came to McDowell County in 1868 where William H. established himself as a merchant. His family entered McDowell county with previously accumulated, considerable wealth. There were 4 Bobbitt daughters. Laura married Dr. B. A. Cheek, Dora married Joseph C. Brown, Lena married B.B. Price and Delia married Romulus W. Brown. William, James, John and Plummer were Bobbitt brothers of the 4 daughters. Once Rom and Delia removed themselves from North Cove to Garden City, Delia’s sisters and their families played prominent roles in Brown affairs. Cora Lou remembers,“I remember a rather long visit mother made to the home of her girlhood friend, “Aunt Lena Price.” She was no blood relation but we called them Aunt Lena and Uncle Bruce and the relationship really existed in heart if not in blood.”Aunt Lena was the aunt of Rom and Delia’s daughter Lettie Gibbs. Aunt Lena lived to be 91 years old, although in later years confined to her home on Lake Tahoma Road. Delia’s sister Dora had a special Brown relationship. Whereas the Browns of Garden City traced their heritage back to Daniel II Brown’s son Samuel I, Dora’s husband, Joseph C. Brown traced his Brown heritage back to Samuel I’s brother William. Joseph C. Brown (1835/1924) played an active role in the early development of Marion as a civil servant, business man, and supporter of the First Methodist Church of Marion. Laura’s husband, Dr. B.A. Cheek was a prominent doctor in Marion. All 4 of the sisters and their families should be considered important members of the story of the Browns of Garden City.Within the same week in 1905, three tragedies swept the Browns of Garden City. First, Cora Lou’s sister, Norma Sparks at, 17 years of age, died of childbirth. Second, Cora Lou’s sister, Bertha’s husband, Mr. Bird, was hit by a train and after some weeks died on July 22, 1905. Third, Cora Lou’s uncle and head of the Garden City Brown Family, Romulus Walter Brown, died suddenly. It is argued within the family that Dollie Brown never recovered from these events and died at the age of 47, in 1907, leaving 15-year-old Cora Lou and 13-year-old Hartley without parents. Romulus Walter died from a fall and a blow to the head. In a letter from Dollie to her daughter, Bertha, dated July 4, 1905 Dollie says, “Romulus has been very sick. He fell off the porch at his place of business [Brown Wheat and Corn Mill] was unconscious, speechless for 2 or 3 days. Ben, Billy and Walter [Rom and Delia’s sons] stayed with him alternately. Uncle Harry told Mrs. Ray [Lizzie Brown’s parents] that he was partially paralyzed so I don’t know what ails him. He is a very sick man and I fear is not out of danger.” Romulus Walter Brown died, July 20th, 1905.Three of Romulus W. and Delia Brown’s sons, William E. “Billie,” Walter J., and Benjamin C. married daughters of the Thomas Burdette and Henrietta Burton Ray family, who had moved from Yancey county and acquired adjacent lands to the Buck Creek lands of the Browns. William E. “Billie” (1872/1947) married Elizabeth “Lizzie” Ray (1875/1933). Walter J. (1880/1931) married Norma May Ray (1887/1908). Benjamin C. (1884/1960) married Mamie Ray (1885/1910). Both Walter J. and Benjamin C. remarried after the Ray sisters died early in 1908 and 1910, respectively. Walter J. and Norma May Ray are buried on the Brown “Cemetery Hill.” Norma May’s sister, Mamie Ray, is also buried there but Benjamin who lived for 50 more years remarried a second wife, Kate Franklin, and found his way to be buried in Kentucky. Dorothy Electra “Dollie” died in 1907 and is buried on her beloved Brown Cemetery Hill. Delia Bobbitt Brown died in 1911 and joined her husband Romulus Walter on Brown Cemetery Hill. The head of the Garden City Brown’s, Capt. John Seawell and Rebecca Brown command a central burial location on Cemetery Hill.28Brown Cemetery HillOn December 15, 1910, Delia A. Brown sold an unspecified number of acres of Brown lands and property to a Thomas Morris. The deed specifically mentioned the “Old Mansion Dwelling,” also known as the “Brown Home Place.” Morris also bought a nearby tract “beginning on the banks of the Catawba River near the Iron Bridge” from W. E. and Lizzie Brown. In 1905 William’s wife, Lizzie, had purchased a 25-acre tract of land from her H.A. and T.B. Ray parents that was adjacent of the Delia Brown property. The deed defines the purchase as “beginning at a stake in the middle of Buck Creek, in the line between J.S. Brown’s heir and the Brick House tract, and runs up and down with said Buck Creek. In 1905 “Lizzie” Brown held ownership to a Brick house and 25 acres of land along Buck Creek. W.E. “Billie” Brown and Lizzie Brown continued to live in the Garden City area on the Lizzie 25-acre tract, after Billie’s mother sold the house in 1910. Lizzie died in 1933 and is buried in the Concord First United Methodist Church Cemetery in North Cove. Billie served on the McDowell county board of elections between 1908 and 1912 and as a county commissioner in 1910. In 1933 and 1935 he was the surveyor for McDowell county and returned to North Cove where he died in 1947. There, he was buried beside his darling Lizzie. One of their famous triplets, Lafayette, Fate Brown, is buried in the same cemetery.End Note20066007620Today’s Historic Carson House4000020000Today’s Historic Carson House29My great-grandmother Hannah Avery always referred to the Carson House as the “Old Brown Home Place” in Garden City. Except for an occasional mention by Hannah, the topic of the “Old Brown Home Place” in Garden City was not much discussed during our 1940s family times. It was just an old house that seemed to be important to my great grandmother, Hannah. It was not until the 1960s, when interest in restoring the Carson House and developing a museum of history project, did my mother, Gladys Avery Cooper, call upon her close relationship with her grandmother Hannah, re the Brown component of the house and lands of John Carson. As the restoration project and strategy, to provide period furniture and fashion re the restoration, moved forward, many questions about the place of the Pleasant Gardens Browns came into play. Hannah Brown Avery was the granddaughter of John Seawell Brown and the oldest daughter of Romulus Walter Brown and wife Delia. She, like my mother, Gladys had a keen sense of history. A number of household items of Hannah and J. D. Avery were gifts of Hannah’s mother; the period piano, the period sofa, the chest of drawers, the flatware, etc. One began to wonder, how many of these items spent some time in the Carson House when it was the “Brown home place.” Finding answers to these and a multitude of other similar questions became a passion for my mother, Gladys. Using her notes and close family knowledge, the focus of this paper is to look at the Carson House restoration project through the eyes of Brown ownership during the 1870s to 1910 portion of The History. Given, today, the renovated Carson House is a North Carolina state treasure, that fact gives one pause, as former owners, to stop and think about the house and lands at an earlier time. I have a number of items that Delia gave to Hannah to start house-keeping, when she was married to my great grandfather J.D. Avery, but that bit of information was never passed between my mother and me, so there is uncertainty that the Items never left the North Cove area during Rom and Delia’s moves. However, the thought that they once resided in the Brown homeplace of Garden City always intrigues me.Sources:The History of a North Carolina County, Burke by Edward W. Phifer, Jr.Mountain Masters, Slavery and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina by John C. InscoeNorth Carolina Planters and Their Children 1800-1860 by Jane Turner CenserThe Carson House of Marion North Carolina, A Historical Research Report by Michael R. HillA History of the Methodist Church in the Toe River Valley, Methodist ConferenceMcDowell Heritage, North Carolina edited by Joanne S. JohnstonThe Heritage of Burke County, 1981 by Burke County Historical SocietyLife Once Centered Around the Old Mills by Mildred Beedle FossettA McDowell County Childhood In the late 1890s by Cora Lou Butt LewisA Tribute to Fate and Belle English Brown! By Ted R. Braswell, Jr.The North Cove Valley by W. Douglas CooperMultiple Records, Notes and Family Remembrances by Gladys Avery CooperThe Other Side of the River, The Struggle for the McDowell County Frontier, by Ann Landis SwannHistory of McDowell County by Mildred B. FossettPersonal Experience and Oral History of My Family, W. Douglas CooperMultiple Other Personal Family Sources3031Appendix IThe “Pleasant Gardens” Name as I understand it.The 1880 Census of McDowell County includes 10 townships. There is no “Pleasant Gardens” listed in the Census. John S. Brown who is living in the Brown Homeplace at the time is listed within the Marion township, as are other members of his family. The name “Pleasant Gardens” was the name that “Hunting John” McDowell gave to a small brick house that he and his 2nd wife, Ann Evans Edmisten, gave to their home. About 1760, “Hunting John” McDowell migrated to North Carolina. John first intended to settle at Swan Ponds, about three miles above “Quaker Meadows” in Burke County, but never occupied the property, and later sold it to Waightstill Avery. Instead, he selected the Buck Creek area of what is now McDowell County and called his home place, “Pleasant Gardens.” Later, in order to differentiate two Joseph McDowell cousins of Indian and Revolutionary war fame, one was designated Joseph “Quaker Meadows” McDowell, the other, Joseph “Pleasant Gardens” McDowell. “Quaker Meadows” and “Pleasant Gardens” defined the homeplaces of two different branches of the McDowell family. Joseph “Pleasant Gardens” McDowell and his wife Mary Moffett inherited “Pleasant Gardens.” The story is told that upon the death of Joseph “Pleasant Gardens” McDowell, and marriage of his widow, Mary Moffett McDowell to John Carson [of Carson House], Mary wished to bring the “Pleasant Gardens” name to her new home with John Carson. However, John Carson continued to refer to his house as “Garden Hill.” The general community area was considered to be the “Buck Creek” area of what later became McDowell County. Upon the establishment of a Post Office in the Buck Creek area, the name of the area took on the name “Garden City.” This is the name that the Browns of my great grandmother’s era knew as the area of residence of the “Old Brown Homeplace.” The name for the Buck Creek Community area did not universally take root until the late 1920s. ................
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