[Untitled]

This 59-page interview is the transcript of a group of 1981 recorded interviews on “Cataloochee: Life in a remote mountain valley.” The manuscript was collected as part of the Cataloochee History Project that collected photographs, stories, and oral histories about families who lived in the Cataloochee Valley. Today’s Cataloochee Valley is within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. While, in general, the Great Smoky Mountains region was sparsely populated, the Cataloochee Valley remained an exception. By 1900, the population of Cataloochee had grown to 1,000 residents living in hundreds of log and frame homes.

. ~·· .. RECORDING of "CATALOOCHEE--UFE IN A REM:Yl'E MOUNTAIN VALLEY" Program sponsored by the Friends of Haywood County (NC) Public Library Grace Episcopal Church, Waynesville, NC June 9, 1981 Dr. Gordon B. McKinney, Moderator Dr. Roy Carroll, Principal Speaker · Raymond E. Caldwell Mark E. Hannah Mary Davis (Mrs. Gldger) Palmer . Dr. Robert Woody Panelists Recorded by: David Dahlen Park Ranger at Cataloochee Speed: 3-3/4 IPS Playing time: Side 1 - 90 minutes Side 2 - 25 minutes LIPR· l?J ov l...ll' • '\. '- l GREAT SMOJ CAlDWELL Family members Toys School Recreation Herding stock First trip to Waynesville Raising bees Operating mill MARK HANNAH First match Starting fires Toys: wagon, whistle; whipS First wagon ride First train Affiliation with National Park Page 1 1-5 1-3 3-5 5-26 5 6 7 9 10 10-11 11 12-14 15-16 16-17 17 17-18 19-21, 21-24 21, 24-26 26-27 27-34 35-40 \ ___ ) Cataloochee CONTENI'S - contd MARY DAVIS (Mrs. Gudger) PAlMER Teaching in Cataloochee Number of students First day of teaching Schoo 1 routine "Baby sitting" Bear hunts Dr. ROBERT W ()()) Y Little Cataloochee Uncle Tyne Woody Home Other bui lciings Blacksmith shop Barns Grist mill Apple houses Lumber house Smokemouse Sheep house Italians Tobacco use Amusements Food Salting cattle Criticizing coming of National Pat:k · Spring, water supply Games Berea College Page 40-43 44-54 IN Rt:PL\' JI.EFEll TO: United States Department of the Interior NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Great Smoky Mountains National Park Gatlinburg, Tennessee 37738 N-0-T-I-C-E No part of this · recording or transcript may be quoted or used for publication except upon written permis&ion of the Superin-tendent of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. ·" (000) (009) Cata1oochee SIDE 1 (No. 1 of Cassette) DAVE DAHLEN Pa ge 1 Following is a presentation sponsored by the Friends of Haywood County, North Carolina, Library, and it is entitled "His tory Is People. 11 This particular program is concentrating on the Cataloochee valley history. BREAK Dr • GORDON B • Me KINNEY Thank you. A number of items that I need to bring to your attention, before we get into the main part of the program. I have ~een asked to request that all of the newly elected officers and all of the award winners BREAK Yogi Bear, had a very significant statement to make about the beginning of this type of program. He was.· receiving an award, and he wanted to express his appreciation to all of the people who made this award possible. But in his awn way of expressing himself he said he wanted to thank everyone who had made the evening necessary. (Laughter) Well. There are a number of people who have made this evening necessary. And I'd like to express the appreciation of the Friends of the I.J.brary, recognize s cme of these people and institutions. The first would be the North Carolina Humanities Committee. They are the people who are providing the basic funding for this meeting. And we have worked very closely with them on this program, and we appreciate very much their financial and other types of support for the prograQJ. Cata loochee Page 2: Now, the project steering comndttee has brought this all together. Chairman of the committee is Dr. c. J. Overbeck who you have already met. I am a member of the comndttee as well, but there are other members of the committee that I would like to have stand and be recognized at this time. The person that probably got you all here was our publicity director Peg Fry (Mrs. K. D.) Peg would you please stand. BREAK The financial officer that paid for all of this in one way or another is Larry Anmons. larry. BREAK Secretary who kept us all from running in about twenty different directions, all at the same time, Polly Ogden (Mrs. Fred). Polly BREAK The people on the comndttee who, par~icularly dealing with Cataloochee who understood their own heritage and the heritage of many of you, and helped the rest of us put this all together, Ernestine Upchurch (Mrs. Cecil) in the back. BREAK (James) Roy Moody in the back. APPI.AlEE And the full time member of the committee, although she refused to accept that position, and especially probably because she didn't want to take any of the blame for what's going to happen tonight, (049) (065) Cataloochee Page 3 and who truly held all of this together as we fumbled around, Katherine Armitage, the library director. APPLAlSE The program tonight will consist of three parts. We will have a main speaker. We will have four commentaries by people who lived in Cataloochee at one time or another in their lives. And then we will have a slide show given by Dave Dahlen, this is not on the program, who is the ranger at Cataloochee now. 1 will give more formal introductions to these, some of these people as we go along. That's the basic order of business. After these presentations we :Will open up the floor so that you can ask questions or make comments, or tell some of the tall stories that 1 heard at dinner tonight from some of these people. 1 am sure that there is a great deal of history about cataloochee, and I have a feeling that I didn't hear any of it tonight. But I heard an awful lot of stories. And I hope that we can all exchange some of these stories as we go along tonight and enjoy the past of cataloochee, what it meant to the people who were there, and what it means to the rest of us who weren't there. Our main speaker this evening is Dr. Roy Carroll. Dr. Carroll is the ideal person to make our main address. He is the author of this particular publication right here, many of you may be fa~liar with it already, "Historic Structures Report, Utt le Gataloochee, North Carolina." He has told me that he will be finished with his writing on Big Gataloochee this August. And that another publication Cata loochee Page 4 on Big Cataloochee will be available in the relatively near future. So that Dr. Carroll is in a very real sense the academic specialist on the Cataloochee region of Narth carolina. He is a native of Arkansas, received his masters degree and doctorate in history at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, and has served as an Assistant Professor of history at Mercer University in Georgia. Afterwards, in 1965, he became .Professor of History and Chairman of the Depart­ment of History and Political Science at Armstrong State College in Georgia. 1969 he accepted the posit ion of Chairman of the Depart­ment of History at Appalachian State University. In 1977 he was ·appointed I. G. Greer Distinguished Professor of History at AS u. Since 1979 Dr. Carroll has been the Vice-president for Planning for the entire North carolina university system, and he is now in Chapel Hill carrying out those duties. He has a number of publications on historical material outside of Gataloochee. He is a very well rounded historian. When I invited Dr. Carroll up here to speak, I could hear him over the phone looking at his calendar. And he says "let's see Friday the 12th meeting with so-and-so and so-and-so," "meeting here," "meeting there." Cotmt. These of course are all academic meetings. And I spent a good part of my career attending those academic meetings, and having done so, my feeling that we are doing Dr. Carroll a great favor. (Lau~hter) Far three days, or at least two days, he will not be able to attend an academic meeting, this is a high point I think in almost anyooe's life. He has come however a long way. He left Chapel Hill at 6:00 this (106) (118) (U1) · Cata loochee Page 5 morning, drove all the way up here. And, is going to share ,with all of us -tonight his expertise on the Cataloochee region. Dr. Carroll. APPU\lSE Dr. ROY CARROLL I really came to the mountains to get cool. (Laughter) You not only fooled me on the weather I thought this was a library meeting. I know you're not all Episcopalians. (Laughter) Not that many Episcopalians in Haywood County. (Laughter) Being a Baptist I've never been too sure there are very many Episcopalians anywhere. (Laughter) And I'm sure where they are it's very very warm. (Laughter) (PAlS E) I came up here this afternoon and I very scientifically arranged the projector and the table and the screen so that they would all be in focus, and then Doris Hanmett moves the screen. (Laughter) So you will have to bear with us while we do a little technical work here to get everything pack in synchron­ization. I will ask Doris if she will to plug it in over there. BREAK - PAlS E I suspect a lot of you are from Cata loochee or you are descended from Cataloocheeans because they were very prolific folks. But for those of you who were not let me point out a few things on the map to you. This is the northern part of Haywood County, a part of Cataloochee township. Take off from Cove Creek and go up what used to be North Carolina 284 Qver Cove Creek Gap and you come into Cataloochee valley. This road right here. This is the Cataloochee (134) (145) · ·'·.~ .... ~ r ,..- ..._._'-'-4 .LVVt....lJ.CC::: Page 6 Ridge. Or Cataloochee Divide. And you come into this valley along Big Cataloochee Creek. One of the main tributaries of it is' Little Cataloochee Creek. Another main tributary is Caldwell Fork. This creek which was for a long time called "Indian Creek" is now called "Palmer Creek" on the maps of the park, because so many Palmers lived there once upon a time. Big Cataloochee then is one community separated by this ridge, Noland Mountain, separated by this ridge from Little Cataloochee. About 1836 or so, the mid-1830s, the first white families moved into Big Cataloochee valley. In 1929, '30, '31, '32, a century later, the Great Smoky Mountains Nationa 1 Park was created, and ~irtually all of the people in Cataloochee township were moved out. They lost their homes, they lost their land. Many of them, til they died, really felt that they were in exile. And in a very real sense they had been moved out the same way the Cherokee Indians had been moved out. They had no choice. I want to trace the, some of the development of that community on the map, and then look at all of Cataloochee township as a whole. The first settlers were the Caldwell family, James and Levi Ca !dwell. Who settled right here, about 1836. They came from Spring Creek over at Madison County. Another one of the families, which came in about the same time, but didn't stay, and came back in later was the Jonathan Woody family. Jonathan Woody's home is this right here. Another one of the early fallli lies, the George (166) Cata loochee Page 7· Palmer family. He and his wife and several of his children came up there in the late 1840s. He came out of Sandy Mush Creek area in Buncombe County, for no great reason to tell you the truth though I'm not sure Linton would tell you, because he was broke. He lost his farm. And the deeds and the records from Buncombe County indicate that from about 1843 to 1846 his small farm was up for sale because he could not pay the mortgage. He loaded his family in a wagon with all his possessions, and ended up in Cataloochee. Just above them, about 1839, a family had settled there the Hannah family, Evan Hannah who, had come up there from Fines Creek. He had .come with his wife Betsy, a house full of children, his father- in­law William Noland. The Nolands settled on the creek as well. About 1848 also, right here, Yotmg Bennett moved up there with his family. Started his homestead, stayed there for a time. Went back down into the Fines Creek area. And eventually caxne and stayed. So you have these families. You have Bennett, Hannah, Palmer, and here George Palmer's son Jesse Palmer, Levi and James Caldwell, and Jonathan Woody. By 1850, all except Jonathan Woody are living there and they are living there year round. The next generation. their sons and daughters, had moved over the ridge and settled here along Coggins Branch leading into Little cataloochee and here on the tributaries of Lit.tle cataloochee. George Palmer's daughter Ruth married a man named Jack Vess, 1850. He bought this place, in 1853. Was where Will Messer lived when the park was formed, where Ola School was , Ca ta lo oc bee Page 8 and the post office. John Jackson Hannah, Evan's son, marr~ed and moved here about 1857. A small log cabin. Levi Caldwell's daughter Harriet Elizabeth married a man named Dan Cook who came over here from Spring Creek in Madison County. And Dan and Harriet moved here about 1856. Just north of them, Young Bennett's son Creighton who married Levi Caldwell's daughter Louisa Matilda bought a homestead just north of the Cooks. The Cook property eventually ran all the way to the top of the ridge here, and just beyond it eventually settled here was another Palmer, George Peyton Palmer. Pete George as he came to be called later. So you've got a second generation of people clustering over in Little Cataloochee. That small number of families continued to multiply. Newcomers continued to come in. Clustered there. Closely knit. Tightly dependent upon each other. Bound together by affection, by blood, and by sheer necessity. Clustered on the tributaries of Big Cataloochee Creek and Little Cataloochee Creek. By 1929, when the park began to buy the property, the red dots show you how many homesteads and families were there. Here's the schoolhouse. Little Cataloochee schoolhouse. And Ola post office, Little Cataloochee Baptist Church. Down here Cataloochee school, and Palmers Chapel. A post office over here at the Palmer home. And a post office here at Nellie. And by that time down on Caldwell Fork, at the bottom of your map, another schoolhouse which had been built in 1924, and the beginnings of a church there, a Baptist church which was j (196) (197) Cata loochee Page g· meeting in the schoolhouse. Those dots represent several hUndred families. Who had to move when the park was formed. Pause The heads of the families: By the U.S. census records, in 1850, these names appear. Some twenty-four households. I have my doubts about three or four of them. About the Allisons I think they are still in Jonathans Creek though you can't be sure from deeds or from the census, Loy a 1 Ba 11 was over at Mt. Sterling north of Cataloochee. Henry Barnes a young man twenty-one years old. And to indicate the influence of the Caldwells he married a Caldwell. one of the Not James and Levi's families but nevertheless/taldwells from down in Jonathans Creek or Fines Creek. Young Bennett. Here's Henry E. Caldwell who is the son of James and a brother of Levi. These three families. Thomas Ca ldwe 11 I'm not sure of. He is lis ted in the census between these houses so you'd think he was there but I'm not sure about that. Albert . Coggin$ was there as a tenant. Again came out of Spring Creek, Madison County. The Franklin family haQ. ' come up from Tennessee. Incidentally Franklin was married to a gir 1 named Sarah Grooms and you see her faJPily showing ten years later. Here's Evan Hannah. William Jenkins or Norris Jenkins as he was known he also married to a Caldwell. Elizabeth Mcintyre, a widow, who was there from Fines Creek. She is there with two sons but she is not there long, she moves out. She is next door and. living in a cabin that belongs to the Palmers, George Palmer. George Messer who is there briefly, he lived most of the time in (220) Cata loochee Page lD Jonathans Creek but evidently had come up here and had gotten a homestead but eventually moved back and you don't find him again til about 1880 back up here. The Noland family, William Noland of course is the father-in-law of Evan Hannah and Thomas is married to Betsy Hannah. Evan's wife. You've got George Palmer. His son John. And then three Wi lliamsons. The census says Williams but the records, the wills and the other records indicate Williamsons either s-e-n or s-o-n. Both of these, Andrew and Elijah, were sons of Eleanor, she's a widow forty-nine years old. And both of the sons are down on Jonathans Creek within the next four or five years. But you've got that many names and that many family names. Fairly certain in 1850. By 1860 you see the, the new people who have come in. Some stayed and some didn't but what is striking is how many went and didn't stay. Only seven of these family names here which was about 1850 are sti 11 there in 1860 and only these same seven plus one more are there in 1870. Some real turn-over of people in that Civil War period. Because they suffered the same kind of dislocations and depredations a lot of people did in the mountains from raiders and other kind of guerilla activity. Some of them find their farms devastated. Young Bennett's home was burned. His young daughter, sixteen years old daughter named -Sophronia, that's a wonderful name, Sophronia whipped one of Kirk's R.aidexos when Q.e ca.me to their home. I'm not sure whether she whipped him before they burned the house or afterwards. (Laughter) If she whipped him first I can (238) Cataloochee Page 11 understand why he burned it. She hid the trunks and the va~uable possess ions and plenty of some Confederate coins. The Ca ldwells, some of them were killed. Levi Shelton who married to a Caldwell was killed. Billy Caldwell. Levi Caldwell himself, captured by the Raiders in 1864 he eventually got back home, in ill health, he died late in 1864. His father James died in late 1866. In fact by 1870 many of the heads of the families here are dead. Loyal Ball had died • James Ca ldwe 11 had died • Levi Ca ldwe 11 had died. Levi Sutton had died. This is his widow Sally or Sarah. You see it spelled Sutton and sometimes spelled Sitton, it's the same, same name, census man changes it from time to time. 1870 you have hardly ·any more people than you had in 1850. But those were the first families. Out of the family names that appear, in those years, there are some seventeen names which I call the old families. That is you can find them there either in the census records between 1850 and 1870 or you can find them in the tax lists of 1~66, '67, . '68. Those old families you see listed here, still there in 1900 • . This is the surname or the family name caldwell which has been spelled C-o-1, Colwell or C-o-1-d Coldwell. Conard which occasio~lly in the census is Conrad. Cook, Grooms, Hall, Hannah, ~md Harrell or Harold, Hopkins, Jenkins, Leatherwood, McGaha, Messer, No land, Palmer, Sutton, and Woody. These seventeen families account for 86 of the households out of the 137 households in the Township; they account for 505 persons out of 764 there. So there is a lot of the growth of Cataloochee which comes simply from the size of (250) (263) 'ca ta louchee Page 12 the families of those people who settled there, besides just the migration of people who came in. To indicate something of the migratio~ and where there. The total population in 1850 was about 140, maybe 147 at the most if you count all the names I have on the other list; then 161, 198, it nearly doubled within the next ten years to 391 and then 764 in 1900. In fact between 1870 and 1910 when there was something over twelve hundred people in Cataloochee, cataloochee Township, there was a six-fold increase in the population. So what you had in cataloochee was not a stagnant sort of mountain community but a - very thriving flourishing kind of community. Growing. You see the origin of the people, ~t of them native North Carolinians in each of the censuses, the next largest group from Tennessee as you would expect and then a scattering from other places, one man from Pennsylvania, in the course of this period, one man from Georgia, two from South Carolina, one from Canada, one from England, but most of them North carolinians. In age distribution you see gradually that the population is getting a little older. It's a more settled and stable community obviously. And you are finding more people by 1900 who are past fifty years of age. Most of the occupations as you would suspect they were farmers, they were lis ted as farm laborers or day laborers, or if they were housewives or daughters of the family list.e~ as keeping house or domestics, but beyond those which account for most people you have a smattering. You have a carpenter a couple of times. A man (l. 76) ,,,. 'ca.ta loochee named John Mull who was a mechanic and a carpenter living with Levi Caldwell in 1850, for example; a chair maker named Alfred Rains who moved in there later from Tennessee. Four ladies who called them­selves dressmakers, by occupation in 1900; one grocer up on Big Creek; one lady who calls herself a midwife but there are at least three midwives in there Betsy Hannah being the best known one and then Mark Hannah's mother I think after that. One master named Hall and many of you know who that is. And a teamster, that Canadian named John Ewart who lived up on top of the ridge between Big Cataloochee and Little Cataloochee. So what you essentially have is a rural community, simple in its economy, and because it's simple in its economy you don't find any distribution of wealth. You don't find any great radical social differences between the people, obviously some better off and some worse off. And if you look at the next chart you see something of the nature of the society. Most of them are farmers. Those who owned their farms you see in the first three rows, 18 of them in 1860, 44 of the.m in 1880 and 67 of them in 1900. It's interesting most of those are old families. They are not the newcomers. More of the newcomers are renters. The farmers who rent the farm that they're on, nearly doubled between 1860 and 1880 but it remains fairly stable. The largest growth is in those people who rent a house and they are day laborers for somebody else. Most of them are migrants but not all of them. Some of them are younger sons and yotmger daughters of ,~ · - (291) ·cata loochee Page 14 families that are there. The good land is gone. There's not enough land in Cataloochee to provide security and prosperity for each succeeding generation. And you divide it up among your heirs and then your heirs divide it up among their heirs and you make provisions for all your sons and daughters and the good land is gone. More and more of the young men have to leave the valley. Some of them go for an education. Some of them go to seek their fortune. Some of them go because they fell in love, a lot of them. But they had to leave the valley. They could not stay there and raise their families. And it's striking that among those people there in Cataloochee by 1900 that the average size of the farm is getting smaller and smaller. Simply because of that successive division of property among heirs. And the increased number of tenants and day laborers that you see reflect some of all of that. There's one grocer as we said, one teamster. There are these for whom no occupation is shown. But you get something again of the development of the community and the changing ·pattern within it. It clearly was a society dominated by the men. If you look at the heads of the families, in each succeeding census, you'll see most of the heads of the families fall between twenty and forty. Most of them are male. Only one female is head of a household this year. Then there are four, then suddenly there are nine, most all of them widows but not all of them. Some of them unmarried. And then you have in 1900, overwheLmingly male heads of the household. That's to be expected. (297) cataloochee Page 15 But when you look at some details about the women in the society you're in for some surprises. In 1900: 115 mothers. They'd borne 615 children, an average of five or six each. Suddenly one of those children has died; 544 of them still living. Out of that 115 mothers, 37 of them had lost children. That's a surprisingly low figure. Given the fact you don't have doc tors and hospitals and pediatricians. Just one year my understanding (Laughter) But 78 of those mothers all of their children were still living. They've not lost any. You see the size of their families, a number of mothers with one child or two or three or four or five or six as I said most of them fall somewhere in this range on the average. But there were some with thirteen, some with twelve, eleven. The largest family I've found in there was Evan Hannah's household in 1880 there are nineteen people living in two rooms. Jesse Falmer He wasn't far behind. once had seventeen in his house though.~he number of married women reporting no children, twelve. Of that twelve three of them had just gotten married. Three others had been married two years or less. The age when they married, twelve of these women had married between ages ten and fourteen. Thirty-seven of them between fifteen and seventeen and so on. The average age, the median age I suppose to use the right statistical term, was about nineteen, which is older than most people would suspect. Interest-ing enough: when you go back up here and see there are 71 children who died, nearly two-thirds of those children who have died were children of these twelve mothers. The two who had married when -. ·;; ·"!T'·'~~"~:'n':';::!;ft~'!"- •~:· "'>!"-'"'~..:- . .:. , ca ~ a 1oocnee Page 16 they were ten years old, one had had eight children living and seven who had died, the other had seven living and seven dead. Most of the rest of them if they married twelve or thirteen or fourteen they had six or seven living, six or seven dead. But one of the girls who married when she was thirteen had, 1scuse me, one of them had been married when she was ten years old had thirteen children and all of them still living and she was thirty-six at the time. Her name was Sutton, the Suttons were healt;hy. (Laughter) The age of the husband when married: you see they are older, and in fact the median age for them is about twenty-one almost twenty-two. But I was struck by the, by the number of mothers who had all the children living. Those midwives must have done something right. They knew how to take care of those babies. And it really is a startling statistic. Good mothers too that's right. Somebody said helpful fathers. (Laughter) When is Father's Day? Coming up. (324) Let me go this way first. The Caldwells. Let me go back I skipped one. I don't blame Doris for that one I just skj.pped one. (328) Here are the first Caldwells. James married to a lady Mary> I don 1t know her last name. Their son Levi married ·to Mary Ann Nailan. Sometimes the census says N-a-i-1-i-n-g, sometimes N-e-y-1-a-n-d, but the most frequent spelling in those years was put here. A daughter whose name I don 1t know. Their son Henry who moved into Cataloochee wHh them and his wife Matilda. They eventiJally moved out. A daughter againwhos.e name I don't know.- The son Reuben 'l ..• ~K • (333) (342) (344) ·CaUJlooch ee Page 17 who l ived there for a time, he was there in his father's ho~ehold when they moved up there and then moved out, Alfred, the same way who married a young lady named Elizabeth Boyle. And then Louisa. on the Woody side. This is Johnathan and this is a misprint, that ought to say Halinda I would blame that on my secretary Hugh except I proofread it I wouldn't blame her for it. Malinda Plerraoons. And then the son William who didn't come into the valley with them. A daughter Martha Jane. Son known as Tyne, James Valentine bor~ on Valentine's Day 1846, married first Louisa Matilda Caldwell Bennett, Creighton Bennett's widow, and later Laura Hannah. Susanna Woody who married Harrison Caldwell, that's William Jarvis Harrison Caldwell, who is this man's son. Louisa is his daughter. Nancy J. or sometimes the records say Nancy A. and I'm not sure, Nancy A. may be more accurate. Lucinda E. An4 Stephen L., Uncle Steve Woody that most of you who lived up there knew, who married Mary Elizabeth Palmer who is Fate Palmer's daughter we\11 see in a moment. And Robert Jackson or Jack Woody. And then Rebecca Woody. In one census she's called Rachael I don't know whether she only had Rachael or another Rachael but Becky Woody is what most people knew for her name. PAlEE The first Palmers. George Palmer married Polly Starrett, her father was Alexander, they were neighbors over in Sandy Mush in Buncombe County. A son William who left in 1841 'to go to Mexican . war. Written in the family Bible is a really painful statement (353) (355) (357) . ca ta loochee Page 18 written apparently in his mother's hand that said "this day! William Palmer left for Mexico," And they never saw him again, I think he ended up in California. Ruth Vess who married Jack Vess or Vest V-e-s-s is the most common proununciation, in 1850 and they settled there on Little Cataloochee, Julia Carolina is in the household and stays there til she dies in 1878. John Alexander who married Minerva Caldwell I don't know what Caldwell from Jonathan Creek or Finelj Creek but eventually he moved back down to Fines Creek he didn't stay this decade, Polly Ann who married Allen Noland from down on the mountain, Jesse Palmer or Jesse Richardson who married Mary Ann Rogers or Polly Ann Rogers. And their baby son George Lafayette who became Fate Palmer or Uncle Fate Palmer who married Nancy Jane Caldwell and Nancy Jane Caldwell is this man's daughter. So you've got the first generation. Now we're not going to read all these names and identify all of them and tell you who they married, but I want to indicate something of the size of the family. The original George Palmer's baby son George Lafayette and Nancy Jane Caldwell had these children~ one, two, three, four, five in the 1860s, one, two, three, four, five in the 1870s, and two in the 1880s. Jesse Palmer his brother and Polly Ann Rogers or Mary Ann Rogers, have these, two in the 1850s, six in the 1870s, and four more in the 1870s, in 1860 and 1870. Then on the 'i...c!vi and Mary Ann Caldwell these children. Now almost all, well in fact all of these stayed (369) {373) in the valley except this daughter Mary. She was born in 1864 and from everything I can gather she must, her mother must have been carrying her when Levi died. And she shows up in the first census in 1860 and then does not appear again. I think she must have died young. The family record says nothing else about her. Not all of these stayed in the valley to be sure. And not all of these. This is a son Jesse, married 1-----1 in 1873 and from what I can gather died about two years later. But I put him in here because by her obit ua.ry as we 11 as by the records and the census ret urns by 1900 the reports that she has twelve children all but one living, and her obituary later says she's that she had twelve children and one those, this is the only one I can account for/named Jesse Lewis. And the Woodys you saw a moment ago. For Jonathan's family. Now what I'd like to do for a few minutes. And we can have the lights on if you will. · Is to really concentrate on two men and tell you something about those two men to give you some idea of Cataloochee and the development of the township particularly Big Cataloochee itself. Those two men are George Lafayette or Fate Palmer and his brother Jesse. From those two, all of the Palmers were descended. Those two brothers who stayed in the valley. Fate Palmer was born in 1836. When his father died in 1859 he was not quite twenty-four years old. But here he was, his oldest brother had left. He had a widowed mother fifty-nine, an tmmarried sister living in the household, Julia who is thirty-four. A young cata l cwche'e Page 20 I man named Henry Mcintyre, the son of that widow Elizabeth Mcintyre. And a young mulatto servant named Nancy Casey. I've only found two blacks or two mulattoes in the whole hist_ory of Cata loochee, one in the household of that Henry C., Henry C. Caldwell that I showed a moment ago and this Nancy Casey. I don't know who she is. She doesn't appear again. Before the end of that year 1860, Fate married Nancy Jane Caldwell. There were few people to work on the place as brother Jesse had already married had already set up his awn household, up on Indian Creek. He had to face the dislocations and the deprivations of the Civil War. The cash value of his farm was cut in half between 1860 and 1866 by the records. His brother Jesse suffered the