History
North Carolina Rhododendron Festival: Roots and Twigs
The beautiful Rhododendron flower is celebrated worldwide. These celebrations include festivals in Port Logan, England; Edinburgh, Scotland; Muroji, Japan; Taranaki, a bit south of New Plymouth, New Zealand: Florence, OR; Me, CA; Plymouth, MA; and tad closer to home,...
The Civil War – A Series of Three Stories
Off To War, 1861 A series of three Civil War Stories published in the Mitchell News-Journal in 2011 By Pat Turner Mitchell Most of us have heard of an ancestor who fought in the War Between the States. Farther south people call it the War of Great Unpleasantness. Most...
Mitchell County’s Reverend Stephen Morgan Greene
Stephen Morgan Greene was born March 22, 1838, to Joseph S. and Mary “Polly” Collis Greene in the Greene Cove area on Cane Creek, Yancey County at the time and now Mitchell. He was named Stephen Morgan after his uncle Rev. Stephen Morgan Collis, his mother’s brother....
Mitchell County and the May Fresh of 1901
David Crockett described the flood of the Nolichucky in 1791 as “the second epistle to Noah’s fresh.” Most likely, since the Toe River feeds the Nolichucky and Cane Creek feeds the Toe River, the folks in what’s now Mitchell County also had to deal with high water....
Church of the Brethren Conference at Brummetts Creek 1913
The Church of the Brethren traces its roots back over 300 years to 1708 in Germany. The first congregation in America was at Germantown, PA, in 1723, but the denomination’s missionaries soon spread its beliefs elsewhere. The Brethren “mother church” on Lower...
March 1993 – The Storm of the Century
On March 12, 1993 snow began falling on a Friday afternoon. By Monday, March 15th, the Storm of the Century had dumped upwards of between 3 and 5 feet of snow on the region. The storm formed in the Gulf of Mexico and at its height, the storm stretched from Honduras to...
School Days on Beaver Creek
One-room schools, with many grades in that one room, were once the norm in this nation; they lingered a long while in the mountain South, which struggled economically in the decades following the Civil War. Even after the move to tax-supported high schools was made...
Mitchell County for Me
As Americans, we show our patriotism through the singing of the national anthem of the United States called the Star Spangled Banner. As North Carolinians we also want to show our state pride in the state song named The Old North State. However, most Mitchell County...
Jackson Stewart – Live Fast and Die Hard
The old saying “live fast and die hard” could be applied to Jackson Stewart, as well as to his parents and siblings. Almost all of them died in a violent or strange manner, including Jackson. His father, Isaiah, was killed by a falling limb while he was in the woods...
Loafers Glory
This central Mitchell County community was named about 1890 by Jonathon Burleson because men delighted in whitling away their time on the porch of the local general store in the evenings and on Saturdays. One day when such a crowd had gathered, Burleson lazily...