Newspapers / The Franklin Press and … / June 26, 1925, edition 1 / Page 3
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i PAGE TWO the Tuckascige Ford and No. 7 ter minating not far 'from the Shallow Ford on Tennessee river. There was some sort of lottery in assigning this work to ) the respective captains' militia companies. This work was done without compensation and for the public good. That first Board of Magistrates did not 'believe in any class distiction in their demands for public service. I find in the records of that first court an order appointing ' Joshua Roberts, the most prominent member of our local bar, the overseer of one, of our roals. "The Courts of .Plea's and Quarter Sessions of that day as they were called," writes Dr. Smith, "were regu lar jury courts, and I give the names ' of the first venire summoned to serve" as juorors, for the June term fol lowing: ' 1. Wynier Siler. 2. Jonathan Whiteside. 3. Jacob Hice. 4. Wm. Cochran. 5. Benj. Johnston. 6. Wm. McLure ' 7. Peter Ledford. 8. Martin Norton. 9. John Lamm. " 10. John Addinglon. - 11. Matthew Davis. 12. James Whittaker. 1J. Henry Addington. 14. Micheal Wikle. 15. Wu. Welch, Sr. 16. Samuel Smith. 17. Geo. T. Ledfprd. ' 18. Ebenezer Newton. 19. Joseph Welch. 20. Luke Barnard. , 21. George Dickey. . 22. Zachariah Cabe, ' 23.. Mark Coleman. 24. Lewis Vandyke. ' 25. Thos. Love, Sr. 26. Marc hAddington. ' , 27: Jacob Trammel. . . ' 28. John Dobson. J ' 29. Andrew Patton. 30. George Black. 31. Isaac Mauney. ' .. 32. John M. Angel. 1 . 33. John Gillespie. 34, Joseph Chambers. ,, 35. John Howard, 36. Jacob Siler. "At the first court for Macon xcounty the court appointed the fol lowing named persons commissioners i whose duty ' is should be to draft 'plans' and specifications for a court house and jail for the cdunty of Ma con and diretcing them to advertise the letting out the same to the lowest bidder at the nef term of the court , (June following, viz.: Jesse R. Siler, ,,homas Kimsey, Luke BarnardMark on .n: When Bill Cunningham parted out in the merca Exceedingly small. r 7,; ' ; ; The other fellows elevated their smelling organs and laughed, i "Oh, Bill," they said, "he's bit off more than he can chew. Oh, well " But Bill Cunningham has grown. V From the smallest store in Macon County a few years ago, he now has the biggest. And he continues to grow, day by day, month by month, year by year. Just like Mr. Finney's turnip. . " - , For Bill Cunningham has built his business on the solid foundation of VALUES. ' Unmeetable and unbeatable values. ' He does it by buying right, and selling at a short profit. He realizes that ten dimes today are better than a dollar tomorrow. And gets the dimes. . BilFCunningh can be found at his store. He beats any Catalog in the world. And -: ' .V-7,7 7-77; 7.' 7 'HE;$ETS ON JULY 4th THE CASH STORE Coleman, James Whittaker1, Aaron I'inson, John Bryson, Sr. I find in the minutes of the June term of the court for 182!) that the contract for building the court house was awarded to Col. David Coleman at three thousand eight hundred dollars, with Gen. Thomas Love and Zachariah Cabe as securities for -the faithful performance of the contract. At the same time the contract for building the jail was awarded to Col. Benjamin S. Brittian for twenty-nine hundred and ninety-five dollars, who gave as securities for the perfomance ot fhe contract, Joseph Welch", Jeremiah R. Pace and John Hall. The . masons who undertook the brick work of the court house were Samuel Lyle and Dr. T. T.. Young, of Washington county, Tennessee." Here is interesting information as regards taxation, as gathered from Dr. Smith's history. "I find in the minutes for March term, 1829, with a court house- and jail to build, this order: Ordered by the Court, that the State tax be p0 cents, and fifty cents on the poll for public buildings 22 pents on each poll, for to defray county charges 5 cents for weights and measures on each 300 dollars value of land equal to one poll" .'. Time Have Changed . As a mark of the change in senti ment which has taken place since the time of the organization of the county, it is interesting to note that the first official act of the County Court, after organization, was the issue of a permit to an applicant to retail liquor at his store. An interesting and amusing anec dote of the organization of the coun ty is that told about Mr. Silas Mc Dowell, who, in some capacity, was appointed to draw all the forms for the organization of the new county, for the courts and officers, eac, There being no printing presses anywhere in this country at that time, Mr. Mc Dowell, of course, found it necessary to write all the required, forms with ren and ink. He sat at his desk all iiight, and toward morning having finished his forms, all of which began "State of North Carolina, County of Macon," he laid his head on his desk and went to sleep. His wife called him at breakfast- time, and, half sleep, het dropped into his chair, and started in his accustomed reverent voice to say grace. His tongue, how ever.unconsciously spoke the words he had been writing all night "State of North Carolina,, County of Macon, etc" . i I WIL L SELL SUGAR AT.: . .. . .. To) 2) in r THE FRANKLIN PRESS The Period of Settlement The period from 1830 to 1860 may well be termed the period of settle ment of Macon, for it was during those years that the gradual process of settlement took place. Slow cer tainly, but more the less surely. A settlement that was sound and permanent, one which laid well, the foundation of a well balanced town and county. It is rather Nniversally held concep tion that the greater number of the early setters of Macon came into this section from North Carolina counties to the east of us and while a consider ublc number did come from the east ern counties, Buncombe and Haywood a great number also came in from South Carolina through the Walhalla Rabun Gap gateway. With the coming of 1835 came the removal of the Cherokee Indians west of the Mississippi. , At the time a considerable number of. these at that time were still located in Macon county being scattered all along the Nnntahala river. General Winfield Scott who was distine to .become fa mous later in the Mexican war sent at the head of a body of troups ta attend the removal of the Indian and he established a port on the Nantahala where Aquone now stands. The Brownlow Incident During the early years of the fa mous Brownlow incident took place. Brownlow who is best known in his tory as : "Parson" Brownlow, the fa mous "Reconstruction ' Governor" of Tennessee, was sent to Macon by -his church as pastor of the Franklin cir cuit in 1832. Those were days of in tense religion prejudice and demoni national controversy and it is not at all surprising that Brownlow soon found himself at daggers point with the Baptist preacher in this section. The Baptist preacher was Rev. Hum phrey G. Posey. .''"'.' From denominational argument these men descended or ascended, as yod will, to personal dislike and arru sation. Brownlow was a bitter writ er and on one occasion wrote Posey a twenty-four page letter which is to day a part of the court records of the county. In this letter Brownlow made certain statements in which he. accused Posey of questionable rela tions with certain of the at the time more fragile members of the flock. Posey considered the, statements 1U belous and indicted Brownlow and he was tried and found guilty by a jury. Fine was imposed upon him and the record's shows that it was paid by J. R. Sil'.er. - ; , V. Mr. Siler, however, appears not to mi twmsy& -1 MirTiip have paid the cost for execution was made by the sheriff for them on "1 Dun Mare, 1 Bridle, Saddle and Sad dle Bags," sold for $65.50-proceeds into county fund $53.83." There is a story extent, which has it that , there was later a civil suit brought against Brownlow over this matter and that he. left Macon be tween suns in order to escape sum mons but no record of such action appears. It is however fairly well established that he was given another horse by his earlier benefactor, Jesse R. Siler. Taxes in 1835 In comparison to present day Ma ori ounty the conditions existing in 1835 ere interesting. In that year the total taxes collected were $1157.98. J. R. Siler was the largest taxpayer. He paid the magnificent sum of $26.25. That, it s. well to remember was paid on property. which today in clude half of Franklin and a good-she? of the entire county. Thos. Love, with $24.20 ran Mr. Siler a close sec ond. Masonic Lodge The local Masonic lodge known as the Junaluskee Lodge was organized and chartered in 1852. J. T. Siler was Worshipful Master. The first petition for .membership in this lodge was that of Maxwell R. Slagle, who's petition for degrees was received .shortly after organization, was ac cepted and the degrees were con ferred. Macon County in the Civil War With the outbreak "of the war . be tween the States the men of Macon county took up the burden of war. Like all other mountain counties, sen timent was divided over the issue but it is to the credit that they showed remarkable tolerance and forbear ance at the time when the whole com munity sat on a veritable powder keg. Macon had never been a very large slave holding county although per hap from the early days of its set tlement some slaves had been owned. Majority of the citizens were not slave owners, however, and . there were some who could not agree upon the question of slavery and se session. In short they were Unionists and quite a number of them left Ma con during the war. About 168 of these residents of Macon, are known to have entered the Union army. These people must not be consider ed renegades nor traitors They merely believed in the Union rather than in state rights, in freedom rath er than slavery, and frankly could see no reason why they should fight for preservation of slavery, an institu PER POUND rMT?n n nr . FRANKLIN, N. C. JUNE 26, 1925 tion which did not affect them and with which they were unconcerned. After all the states, at the time, meant very little to a geat number of moun tain people, isolation and lack of ( transportation facilities leaving far Western North Carolina alnjost a region to itself. The great majority of the people of, Macon ' were however strong in their loyalty to the state and support- a ed with every ' resource, the-strug- gle of the Confederacy. Often male citizenship. Macon gave more than a .thousand to the South, ont of adult' , male population of less than 3000 over V 1000 went into the Confederate army. Seven companies, of soldiers were organized in Macon county for the service with the Confederate army. . The first to go and that which saw largest and hardest service was that which became Co. H. 16th N. C. Man- . try. It was coffi.manded by Capt. T.. M Angel, the junior officers being jas. Cansler, Lst Leiu't. C. L. Robinson 2nd Lieu't. and W, McD. Allman, 3rd Lieu't. ...'.'- . This company saw service through out the entire war being attached to the army of Northern Va. under Lee. It surrendered, rather what was left of it, surrendered at Appomattox. The other companies were: Co, S. 9th Calvary-Capt. T. P. Siler. Co. H. 65th Calvary- Capt. J, T Siler, Co. B. 29th Inft. Capt. A. W.-.Bell. Co. I 39th Inft. Capt. J. G. Crawford,: Co. D. 62nd Inft. Capt. R. M. Henry, Co. C 65th Inft. Capt J. W. Dobson. We shall not attempt in this sketch to go into details of service seen by any of these. Enough is said when it is noted that over 50 per cent of the men going into sev vice became casualties. This means that over half of the enlistment were cither 'killed or wounded a terrible ' sacrifice in a cause for a small slave . holding county in which there was not a positive slave sentiment. The cause of the matchless response to the call of . the States lies in the inherent patriotism of these men, their love of their freedom, the free dom of the mountain and valley, their undying love of liberty as pos sessed through local government, which liberty they conceived to be en dangered and emperiled by outside "SJ invaders. It must be recalled that the men of Western North Carolina were op posed to secession but were ready to fight in defense of their land and sec tion , to die in. opposition to any. in- A vader of their homeland or violater of their common rights. 1 The period of settlement might be said to have well closed by the end 'ot
The Franklin Press and the Highlands Maconian (Franklin, N.C.)
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June 26, 1925, edition 1
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