More Smoky Mountains #62

“Cove” in the Smoky Mountain vernacular is a relatively flat valley between mountain ridges. Cades Cove is spectacular for its natural and cultural treasures. Access to the cove is by the 11 mile, one-way Cades Cove Loop Road. In 1900 about 125 families used the dirt Cove road to travel around the community. There are a number of ‘treasured stops’ along this route, each with its own story to tell. So come with us as we traveled along this gentle step back to a simpler, tougher time in these “hills and hollers”:









John Oliver Place – This is one of over 70 historic buildings in the park. John Oliver arrived in the cove prior to 1820 and bought this land in 1826. It remained in the family until the National Park was established more than 100 years later. This split log construction was typical of the time. The notched corners required no nails or pegs, gravity holds them together. Chinks (open spaces between the logs) were filled with moss and mud and the chimney is held together with mud mortar. Everything was made by hand on the place, from the place.






Primitive Baptist Church – Established in 1827, a log building served the church until 1887 when it was replaced by the current building. Official church correspondence tells why the church was closed during the civil war: “We the Primitive Baptist Church in Blount County in Cades Cove do show the public why we have not kept up our church meeting. It was on account of the Rebellion and we was Union people and the Rebels was too strong here in Cades Cove. Our Preacher was obliged to leave sometimes, and thank God we once more can meet.”





Methodist Church – Methodists were not as numerous as Baptists in the Cove but they managed to establish their church in the 1820’s and also met in a log structure until 1902 when J.D. McCampbell built this church in 115 days for $115. Notice that this church has two front doors, not because this church followed the tradition of some that men sat on one side and women on the other, but rather that J.D. borrowed the building plans of another church that did divide its congregation.



Missionary Baptist Church – A group, expelled by the Primitive Baptist Church because they favored missionary work, formed this church in 1839. It too resumed its meetings after the Civil War and after several of its congregation had been expelled for being Confederate sympathizers. The current building dates from 1915 and operated until 1944.



Elijah Oliver Place – Elijah, son of John Oliver was born in the Cove in 1824. He married and returned to the Cove after the Civil War to buy this property and raise his family. This fairly ‘large’ house also had a “stranger room” added to the front porch to accommodate overnight guests. The modern barn was relatively new when the property was bought for the National Park in the 1930’s. Nearly all buildings were of log construction until the 1870’s when nearby sawmills were established to saw logs into lumber.






Grist Mill Area - The grist mill is on its original site, whereas the other buildings were brought from elsewhere in the park or, in the case of the blacksmith shop and visitors center, built recently using old techniques.

Blacksmith Shop
Cantilever Barn

John P. Cable Grist Mill


Smokehouse
Corn Crib
Barn
Sorghum Press


Dan Lawson Place – Built in 1856 this home boasts a brick chimney, unusual for the time and locale, but more so because it is made of bricks made on site.



Tipton Place – Col. “Hemp” Tipton had this house built in the early 1870’s and his daughters, “Miss Lucy” and “Miss Lizzie”, both school teachers in the Cove, lived there.




Carter Shields Cabin – George Washington “Carter” Shields was a wounded Civil War soldier who never really returned to the Cove until 1906. He purchased this lovely spot but only lived here about 11 years.


We loved this whole deeply rich natural area and stayed for more than a week to just mellow and take in the ambience. Even though this is the most visited National Park in the nation with over 9.5 million visitors a year, we found people were respectful, quiet and perhaps even a little reverent here.



I guess we just couldn’t quite get enough of the scenery so off we went to another area called Roaring Fork to drive another scenic loop and photograph more old buildings and stuff. I sure hope you aren’t tired of all of this yet.

This is a deep forested area just outside of touristy, tinsel town Gatlinburg, TN. A quote from the Roaring Fork guide will help us set the tone. “In the moments ahead, the forest will close in around you, spreading over the road and creating a mood of isolation - a serene detachment from the hurried pace of the highways.” That is an apt description of what happened. You could feel the quiet drop like a curtain of velvet as the tall green walls of vegetation invited us into their world. Chestnut oak, white oak, yellow poplar, magnolia, maple and tuliptree are a few of the members of this rich and varied community. As we drove and periodically parked to photograph items we became aware of the underscore of living noises-drone of bees, cicada songs, frog calls, buzzing flies, trickles and tumblings of the creeks. Bud Ogle must have understood this when he built his place.



A moderate hike to Grotto Falls took Cokie along a trail shaded by large American beeches, silverbells, maples and huge rhododendron trees. Unfortunately she was about two weeks early as they were just budding out.












A short drive and we topped out on a crest and started down into the cooler, moister Hemlock forest where evergreen rhododendrons dominate the understory. Nearby the old cornfields of the Clabo Farm are now overgrown with tuliptrees. You can begin to hear the spring at the head of Roaring Fork. We followed the old road down the mountain and into the remains of the tiny community of Roaring Fork, home to some two dozen families at its peak. They sought the few level plots of land in these wrinkled hills and tried to clear the boulders out for a little subsistence farming. The remnants of the homesteads they wrested from the forest are preserved here such as:

The Jim Bales Place with its corn crib and barn.


Ephraim and Minerva Bales managed to raise nine children and small crops of corn and potatoes at their home. The outbuildings here are somewhat frail because it took so much effort to wrestle the logs for construction up and over the boulders. The corn crops were probably so small they barely filled the corn crib anyway. The small barn was only big enough for one milk cow and a mule. All the buildings had to be braced against the fierce winds that howled down these mountain hollers. And underneath it all was the sound of Roaring Fork; like the forever rocks and the steepness of the land, it was a part of the life here.






Alfred Reagan was a different kind of farmer because he had other skills and talents he put to work for the benefit of his family. He was a good carpenter and a blacksmith as well, so he fixed and repaired things for the community. As the family grew so did his businesses, including a store and finally a tub mill on the creek. All these enterprises were built by Alfred and showed the quality of his work, especially the house. It’s a ‘saddlebag house,’ the two halves hanging from a central chimney. The corners were clean and tight enough to allow the split-log walls to be sheathed with fine, sawed board paneling and painted in the three available colors carried by Sears Roebuck and Company. You could sort of feel a different energy here and although the house and mill are all that remain of this neat, trim, successful homestead, you can appreciate the differences in the lives of these two mountain families.






We leisurely followed Roaring Fork on down the mountain, stopping to record its varied moods and scenes. Water and light play throughout this world, sustainers of life and creators of beauty, an endless story of continuity and renewal. Shortly we broke through into the world of cars, houses, power lines and pavement, the trappings of civilization. But I for one was glad we had gotten lost for a few moments in the mist. It gave us a chance to regain some of our strength and calm from original sources.




We then left the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and drove to Big South Fork River Recreation Area near the Tennessee/Kentucky border. It wasn’t until we were driving into the campground that it dawned on us that we were coming up on the Memorial Day weekend! (Cokie & Kae so rarely look at calendars or clocks anymore!) Our chances of getting a non-reservation campsite were slim to zero, but lucky us, there had been a cancellation for one night. We took it and the ranger’s advice to check the next morning to see if there were other cancellations. There were and we got to stay for five days waiting out some storms and traffic.This is an unbelievably beautiful hardwood forest with so many growing and blooming plants. We discovered the “Umbrella Magnolia”. The leaves averaged 20 inches long and Cokie followed one gigantic blossom, over 13 inches across, as it opened its splendor for us over the course of three days. What a Treat!






We encountered another tree and blossom we loved. It is quite common in these mountain areas and was utilized extensively by early settlers because of its very straight truck and even grain. It is called the yellow poplar. Of course it is the colorful flowers we most enjoyed.



So all in all, I believe these mountains are one of the most enchanted places in our country and that every red-blooded American dog or person should visit here. There is so much to see and so many of the traces of our forefathers. The Smokies are just part of the Appalachian Mountain chain that runs from northern Alabama to the Quebec Province of Canada, and are part of the Blue Ridge Mountains that stretch from Georgia to southern Pennsylvania, so there is a lot of territory to enjoy! However there seems to be a special magic here that reaches deep inside of a being. Kae tried to capture that elusive sense of the place with a poem:

Shaconage

Silently the blue mist embraces the
Grayed, broken billion year old peaks.
Those same shaded grays are echoed
In gnarled grandmother tree trunks and
Reflected in crystalline blue waters.

A thousand shades of spring-kissed green
Define treed walls along old rutted roads.
Mist and silence dance together here
In wooded glens alive with myth and memories,
Remnants of times and lives gone by.

Silence settles like forest soil, creation of
Endless eons of weather and wear.
The ancientness here is as palpable
As the misted air - heavy with being,
Waiting out the endless march of years.

Kae Grimes
May 2008