History
Local Residents Enjoyed Spruce Pine Club House for Decades
In July of 1946, the Spruce Pine Chapter of the American Business Club dedicated the Spruce Pine Club House. According to the Asheville Citizen Times “The clubhouse with its entertainment facilities constitutes one of the most modern recreational centers in this...
The First Electric Lights for Bakersville and Toecane
Bill Masters is credited with bringing the first electric lights to Toecane and Bakersville from energy generated by his water wheel in a 3-story mill in Toecane. According to living relatives, Bill was a voracious reader with a table in his home piled with stacks of...
Ringing the Bells of Bakersville
The first large bell in Bakersville is the one in the Historic Courthouse today, which, we are told, was the one that rang from the belfry of the first Mitchell County Courthouse built in 1868. Photos of the 1868 courthouse show clearly a belfry and the design of the...
Dr. Virgil Roscoe Butt, MD and Family
First, a word about the Butt surname. Some researchers have traced the first Butt settlers in America to Dutch origin, with the name spelled Butz. However, in a reliable source entitled Names through the Ages, the name is seen as English, derived from Butler, meaning...
Ted Morgan ~ Mitchell County’s First World War II Casualty
Arthur Theodore “Ted” Morgan was born March 18, 1915 to John Lindsey and Cora Sophronia Melton Morgan in the Cane Creek area of Mitchell County. Several official documents associated with him indicate Clarrissa. His brothers included George Bruce, Forest, and Marcus...
An Early History of the Bakersville United Methodist Church
Critically important pieces of Mitchell County History are the stories of our churches. Some works of note such as Lloyd Bailey, A History of the Methodist Church in the Toe River Valley, from which the current story draws significantly and James Oliver Young, A...
April Fools
According to Wikipedia, April Fools’ Day is “an annual custom on April 1, consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes.” April Fools’ Day is not a public holiday in any nation, but it is commonly observed around the world. Some historians suggest the basis of the April...
The Spanish Lady Visits Mitchell County
A lot of older folks recall their parents and grandparents telling stories about the deadly “grippe” that many Mitchell County families suffered 100 years ago. One grandson remembers being told: “They said that some took sick and died in two or three days. It was...
“My Dear Companion” – Letters Home From the Civil War
The Civil War was hard, certainly, on the soldiers called away from home, whether or not they believed in the cause for which they fought. It was also extremely trying for their loved ones left at home. One couple separated by the Civil War was Garrett DeWeese Gouge...
The Mother of Little Switzerland ~ Nancy Buchanan
Nancy M. DeWeese was born 2/2/1842 in Missouri, where her parents, Louis DeWeese and Rachel Matilda McKinney DeWeese, had moved. Her father died when she was 5, and her mother took her and her two sisters, Jane Elizabeth (1837-1889) and Mary (1844-1929) back to North...