North Carolina Newspapers

GREAT [SMOKIES! Typical Great Smoky Mountains Cabin. Prepared by National Geographic Society, WaahiDgton, D. C. ? WNu Service. THE 1,500 species of flowering plants that blossom before June X are spreading their color over the slopes of the Great Smoky mountains. Haze-shrouded, the Great Smoky mountains dominate the horizon of eastern Tennessee. Visitors often are amazed to And such lofty, wild, and unspoiled mountains straddling the Tennes see-North Carolina state line. In 1923, when public-spirited men and women of the two states or ganized to encompass soaring heights and plunging valleys in a national park, even the mountain eers, grandchildren of pioneers who had braved the arrows of cunning Cherokees, had not explored the whole area. Adventurous hikers who did in vade the mountains found the un dergrowth so thick in places that they had to chop their way through it with an ax. A few naturalists and surveyors visited parts of the Smokies. Hunt ers sought their quarry amid the stately trees and dense cover that sheltered bears, deer, and numer ous smaller animals. Revenue officers / occasionally tried to penetrate the wilderness, and lumbermen, with dynamite, axes and saws, pushed their roads and railroads only as far as the most recent cutting. To business men of eastern Ten nessee and western North Carolina, the Great Smokies long were a trade barrier. No road leaped the rugged ridge along which the state line rambles for 71 miles. Com merce east and west in this latitude ?till moves around either end of the mountains, but the "barrier" now is an asset as the Great Smoky Moun tains National park. Life There Was Primitive. A few years ago it took more than ? week to go to Knoxville and re turn to the cabins in the hills. In those days there was little rea son for the mountaineer to leave the mountains. A few sheep supplied wool for clothing and the mountain woman was an adept spinner and weaver. When cows and oxen became use less and were dispatched, shoes were made of their hides. Bears, deer, and birds, brought down with five-foot rifles or caught in traps, supplied the family meat platter. "Sweetnin' " was produced from sorghum. Nearly all the land in the Great Smokies was privately owned when the park movement was initiated. Arrangements had to be made for its purchase before the land could be turned over to the national park service for development. An inten sive money-raising campaign was planned. Private subscriptions ag gregated $1,000,000. Appropriations by the adjoining states brought the fund to *5,000,000. But this was only one-half the fund* required. The campaigners for many month* sought vainly for the other half. Then John D. Rocke feller, Jr., announced that the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Mem orial would match dollar for dollar any money raised in the campaign. in 1926 congress authorized the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountain* National park on condi tion that the citizens of Tennessee and North Carolina present 427,000 acre* of acceptable land in one sol id tract, the acreage to be equally divided between the two states. Of ficial* who had investigated were enthusiastic. "Nature is at her choicest there," they reported. Development of the area as a national playground began, and to day the thousand resident families have shrunk to about four hundred. Some *old their holdings outright and moved out of the mountains. Highways Are Being Built. ?F<w *1* yeant yjw _ggxp ropjSBV agencies under the supervision of the national park service have been building roads and trails and re stocking forest* and streams. The work is juat begun. Only sev enty miles of high-standard roads, twenty-five miles of secondary roads, and fewer than 800 miles of trail* have been completed. Yet for the last three years this Infant of our national park system, not yet dedicated, ha* been attracting more visitor* than any other of our 23 national parks. Less than a mile east of Gatlin burg, Tennessee, a white and green sign announces the boundary of the Great Smoky Mountain* National park. At the end of a long curve, a short distance beyond, the highway fork*. You (top and peer through the haze at the steep, tree-blanketed slopes of Mount Le Conte and Sugarland mountain, whoa* lofty summits are . often hidden in lowhanging clouds. There is only one modern road over the mountains between Ten nessee and North Carolina. It winds through the scanic valley of the West Prong of Little Pigeon river, crossing and recrossing the stream to the state line at Newfound Gap. The Chimneys, rugged twin peaks, thickly forested, stand like sentinels, guarding the bridge which carries the highway across the West Prong. From the bridge all the way to Newfound Gap the traveler is hemmed in by steep, wooded mountain slopes, unbroken except where a waterfall, too high above and too far away to be heard, gleams in the sun like a white silken ribbon as a mountain stream sweeps over a precipice toward the noisy river cascading below. At Newfound Gap along the state line the mountain top has been ex cavated and space provided for parking several hundred automo biles. Here the arboreal wonder land that is the Great Smokies spreads before you in both states. Down Into North Carolina. From this point the highway de scends into North Carolina along the Oconaluftee river, through the Qualla Indian reservation, toward Asheville and Bryson City, North Carolina gateways to the park. Southwestward from Newfound Gap, the Skyway, one of the high est highways in the country, is tak ing shape. It has been completed nearly to Clingmans Dome, the loft iest peak in the Great Smokies. Ultimately it will wind forty miles over and around peaks along the state line until it reaches the west ern end of the park, affording amaz ing vistas of jumbled mountains and billowy valleys. Portions of the Sky way are already 6,300 feet above sea level. It is along the trails that the hiker meets isolated mountain families in their cabins, end stumbles upon the remnants of abandoned mills that not long ago ground out the moun taineers' "turn" of cornmeal. Nearly everything one observes in and around a mountain cabin is homemade. Trundle beds, high backed chairs, spinning wheels, and looms are usually heirlooms. One of the first known white men to study the wonders of the Great Smoky mountains was a botanist, William Bartram of Philadelphia, who climbed among these heights about the time patriots in Indepen dence Hall signed the Declaration of Independence. After him came other botanists who hove found the mountains their paradise, one of the largest and last vestiges of the na tive forest that swathed the hills and valleys of colonial America. Orchids and Ferns. So diversified are the wild flowers of the Great Smokies that visitors from many sections of the country find species that grow abundantly in their fields and woodlands among others that are fare to them. Twen ty-two orchids find a natural habitat in these rugged and well-watered mountains; there are 50 kinds of lilies; 7 of trilliums; 22 of violets, and 5 of magnolias. The native wild orchids, while not so large as the more familiar cul tivated species, have all the exqui site form and dainty coloring of their "civilized" cousins. Like many other plant families in the Smokies, the orchids are found throughout a long blossoming sea son. Certain species make a bold debut in the very early spring; oth ers appear reluctant to yield sway to chilly autumn. Ferns range from the most deli cate, with lacy fronds, to the most hardy types. There are lush car pets of mosses and lichens of many varieties, and hundreds of mush rooms and other fungus species range from almost microscopic sizes to the large and showy vari eties, many of which are prized edi bles. Here tfie eatawba ~ rflodoSenffroh " is at its best. In late June and July its white and purple blossofns cover whole mountain spurs, fleck sweeping slopes, and envelop trails and streams. Mountaineer* call rhododendron and laurel thickets "slicks" and "hells." Indeed, the plants grow In such tangled masses in some areas that only wilderness animals can get through them. Huggins Hell, covering about five hundred acres, is one of the largest rhododendron and laurel thickets. It was named for Irving Huggins, a mountaineer who sought to drive his cattle from one mountain to an other. On the way he was trapped in the Huggins Hell area. It took him several days to find his way out. Mountaineers avoid the "slicks," identified by such colorful names as Devil's Tater Patch, Dev il's Courthouse, Woolly Tope, r Breakneck Ridge. ... -i ? . ? --.I JOSEPH OF THE NEZ PERCES THE LEADER OF A LOST CAUSE By ELMO SCOTT WATSON PEAK of "The Leader of a Lost Cause" and one's mind naturally turns to that knightly gentleman and soldier, Robert E. Lee, and recalls the gallant strug gle which he and his men in gray carried on against M almost overwhelming odds back in 1864-65. But ] America produced another to whom that title may 1 appropriately be given and he deserves to be hon ored for the very same reasons that Lee is held in such high esteem by his fellow-Americans. His name was Joseph and he was chief of the_Nez Perce Indians. It does not detract in the least from the fame of the Virginian to place alongside of him in our pantheon of the truly great this red-skinned warrior from the Oregon country. And, if we can be lieve the testimony of those best competent to judge ? the army officers who fought against both? it is not rating Joseph too high to place him there. In their opinion, his military genius was of the same high order as Leg's. In fact, the Nex Perce leader has been compared favorably to the greatest generals of all time and frequently referred to as the "Red Napoleon." Except for the fact that this is e tribute to him as a military leader, giving him such a title is scarcely com plimentary to the Indian. For it is doubtful if anyone would say the Corsican was distinguished for the nobility of his character. But Chief Joseph was ? and in that respect he again deserves a place beside Robert E. Lee. The deeds of the Confederate commander have been the theme of many a historian and more than one biographer has told his life Story. The deeds of Chief Joseph have been recited many times by historians of our Indian wars butit was not until recently that a full-length word portrait of him has appeared. It is "Chief Joseph ? The Biography of a Great Indian," written by Chester Anders Fee and published by Wilson-Erickson of New York. A Victim of Injustice. "A great man makes history for his people." says the bi ographer in his first . chapter. "There have been great men in the world who have preserved the names of their peoples from oblivion: Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce was among them. His life is history, not only for his own Nez Perce, but for white Ameri cans as well. We feel shame for the part we played in that his tory, and yet take pride in the fact that it was this country and no other that produced Jos eph. Let his life be known and recognized for what it was. It is the only way justice can be done for the? wrongs he and his people suffered at our hands." And Col. C. E. S. Wood, who served in the campaign against the Nez Perces and who has written an introduction to the book, says: "Although this book is the tale of a military genius and the thrilling and tragic ad ventures he shared with his peo ple, its chief virtue Is a moral one. It shows in one concentrated example the measure of the jus tice dispensed to the natives of the New World by our civiliza tion. Until 1877 the Nez Perce In dians boasted truly that white men's blood had never been shed by them. Their reward was dispossession, exile, bullets and disease, and all because the rul ers of white men ? politicians ? re garded their favor as less valua ble than that of a hundred or so white land-grabbers with votes." ? ? * When Lewis and Clark reached the Northwest they found the Nez Perce roaming over the vast re gion in Idaho, Oregon and Wash ington which includes the valleys GEN. NELSON A. MILES of the Snake, Salmon, Clearwater and Grande Rortde rivera. In 1855 Gov. Isaac I. Stevens of Wash ington territory made a treaty with the Nex Percea confirming their title to their ancestral home, but in 1863 by a new treaty with the tribes of the Northwest the lands of the Net Percea were greatly reduced. fbe only signer of this treaty for the Nez Perce was a chief named Lawyer whose following included only about a third of the whole tribe. Among the 38 chiefs who declined to sign the treaty was one called Old Joseph. He refused to live on the pro posed reservation and continued to occupy the fertile territory, especially the beautiful Wallowa valley, which his people loved most of all. When he died in 1872 he bequeathed to his son, Young Joseph, (whose Indian name was Hin - mah - too - yah - lah kekht ? "Thunder Strikes Out From the Water"), his love for the Wallowa valley and his op position to giving it up to the encroaching whites. During the next four years there was constant friction be tween the settlers and the Indians and in nearly every case the whites were the aggressors. In dian women were insulted; In dian cattle and horses stolen and in several instances peacable Indians were murdered. Finally a commission, which had been appointed to investigate the troubles between the settlers and the Indians, decided in 1876 that all the Nez Perces must go on reservation assigned to them and Gen. O. O. Howard, commander of the military department of the Columbia, was ordered to carry out the commission's decision. An Advocate of Peace. After several councils at which Chief Joseph protested in vain against the injustice of the order, he agreed to give up his beloved Wallowa valley and go on the reservation at Lapwai, Idaho. n 1 ? : CHIEF JOSEPH OF THE NEZ PERCES Even then he was resolved to make it a defensive war and not an offensive one. He conceived the bold plan of fleeing with his people to Canada, fighting only if the white men barred his road to freedom. On June 16, 1877 he set out on that epic retreat which won for him his right to be in cluded among the great captains of history. Before him was a task which, as we look back on it now, seems an impossible one to have ac complished. It was the task of transporting a whole tribe, men, women and children, over a thousand miles or more of the roughest country on the North American continent and breaking through the lines of military bar rier which were certain to be The Land Over Which the Nex Perce Fought and Fled. borne 01 the chiefs wanted to make war on the settlers, but Joseph answered them, "No, let my people be quiet. It is too much to do. Better to all live at peace, alive, than for some to lie dead. Do not begin any war. My people, I love you too well to lose you . . . We have our griev ances against these white people, but war will only bring more." So he held the more hostile element in check for awhile. Then on a June day 70 years ago the inevitable happened. In the band of Chief White Bird was a young warrior named Wal-lait-its whose father had been killed by a white man in a dispute over land. During a council on June 13 an old warrior taunted Wal-lait-its thus: "You are so brave! Why don't you go and show it by killing the man who killed your father?" So Wal-lait-its persuaded two other young braves to go with him to the ranch on the Salmon river where lived Richard Divine, the white man who had killed his father. "With them as they rode they carried the destiny of seven hundred Nez Perce." The three warriors lay in wait for Divine as he came out of his cabin and shot him down. Next they killed three more settler* working in ? hayfield. Then they started back for their camp and ? They galloped madly up to a ledge where four chiefs sat in consultation. Wal-lait-its leaped from his horse and cried, "Why do you sit there like women? The war has already begun. See this One horse. See this rifle, this saddle, these clothes. I am mad. I have killed the man who killed my father. Get year horses and eome on. There is plenty of everything if yon only work for it." Inflamed by their example, oth er war parties also set out to gain revenge on the white men. Joseph was absent from camp at the time. When he returned he found that all his work for peace was undone. The die was cast. His people were committed to war. thrown out to intercept him. But if Joseph recognized the fact that he was leading a forlorn hope, he gave no sign of it as he inarched away toward White Bird canyon at the head of his people. Joseph's First Victory. General Howard acted prompt ly upon hearing of the murders of the settlers. He began concen trating troops at all strategic points to surround the Nez Perce. The first engagement took place on June 17 when Captain Perry and a small body of troops at tacked Joseph's camp in White Bird canyon. Displaying unex pected military skill, Joseph laid a trap for Perry and all but anni hilated his command. After this defeat General How ard took the field himself and the chase was on. The story of Joseph's mp :terly retreat and the way in v.-hich he outwitted, out fought and outmarched the troops commanded by General Howard, Colonel Sturgis of the Seventh cavalry and others has been told in detail many times. It need on ly be briefly summarized here as follows: The Nez Perce leader was encumbered with women and children whom he refused to desert and allow them to fall into the hands of the soldiers, as heTniBht have-dune seveial times -- to facilitate his flight. His fighting force never at any time exceeded 300 warriors. Yet with these han dicaps he fought eleven engage ments, five of them pitched bat tles, and he lost only one. In the other six skirmishes he killed 126 and wounded 140 of the 2,000 sol diers who were on his trail at one time or another with a loss of 151 killed and 88 wounded of his own peiople. Then, having left his pursuers . far behind, he stopped 50 miles short of his goat-the Canadian line ? in order to give his weary people a chance to rest. He did not know of the approach of Gen eral Miles and a fresh force until his camp in the Bear Paw moun tains in Montana was attacked on the morning of September 30. For five days the Nez Perce lead er and his little band, greatly outnumbered, withstood the at tacks of Miles' soldiers. Finally artillery was brought to bear up on the defenders and on October 4, Chief Joseph realized that his was a lost cause indeed. His speech as he surrendered is his toric: I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Tu-hul-hil-sote (the medicine man or "dreamer" who had urged him to go to war) is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men now wh^say "yes" and "no" (vote in the council). He who led the young men (Alikut, his brother) is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people ? some of them ? have run away to the hills and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are ? perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find; maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs, my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever. A Broken Promise. Chief Joseph kept his promise. He never fought again ? and this despite the fact that he later experienced even greater injus tice at the hands of the white men than he had ever known be fore. General Miles promised him that he should be returned to Idaho. But the government, (those "politicians" listening to the "white land-grabbers with votes") repudiated that pledge. The captives were sent to Fort Leavenworth first, then to a res ervation in Indian Territory. It was an unhealthy place for any one and for these Indians, ac customed to the high altitude of their mountain home, the hot malarious lowlands were a veri table valley of death. Chief Jos eph protested that his people would soon be exterminated. Gen eral Miles repeatedly demanded that the government keep faith PARD with his honored foe. But it was not until 1885 that the Nez Perces were allowed to return to the Northwest and then they were sent to the Colville reservation in Washington, where further troubles awaited them. For the next 20 years Chief Joseph remained as their leader in trying to adjust to a new mode of life. At one time during this period a white woman visitor showed him a picture of himself taken shortly after the war (it is the portrait reproduced above). He peered at it intently for a moment, then said, "That man died long ago." No doubt, he was right. But his biographer records that "he fell suddenly dead on September 21, 1904. Some say it was of a broken heart." C WnUra Hnnvapcr Union. HoiWMd % 9 Questions When Scaling Fish. ? A dull knife will be found best when scaling fish. ? ? ? Topping for Sandaes. ? Extract ed honeys make excellent toppings for ice cream sundaes. ? ? ? When Meat Appears Tongh Add a tablespoonful of vinegar to the stock or water in which it is cooked, and simmer slowly. * ? ? Cleaning Unvarnished Wood. ? A solution of soda and warm wa ter will remove grease from un varnished wood. ? ? ? When Food Is Scorched. ? Place the pan containing the scorched food into a large pan of water and the food will lose its burned flavor. ? ? ? To Clean Varnished Floor. ? Clean off well with steel wool and benzine and, when thoroughly dry, re-varnish. ? ? ? To Remove Lettering. ? W hen making tea towels or the like from cotton sacks, soak the sacks for several hours in kerosene be fore washing, to remove lettering. ? ? ? 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