People

Garrett Forbes – Tiller of the Land

Garrett Forbes – Tiller of the Land

Garrett B. Forbes was born in 1904 in the Tiger Creek section of Carter County, TN.  His parents, James Harrison and Mary Vista Moffitt Forbes, moved their family to Mitchell County when Garrett was two.  He had older sisters Pearl Forbes Yelton and Bertha Forbes...

Dr. Virgil Roscoe Butt, MD and Family

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...

Graduation Time – The Bowman High School Class of 1933

Graduation Time – The Bowman High School Class of 1933

Commencement ceremonies this year, during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, are very different from the experience of the 1933 graduating class of Bowman High School in Bakersville. This photo, made in 1930 when the students were Freshmen, appeared in an undated clipping...

Mrs. Nellie Stewart Buchanan and the Stewart Family

Mrs. Nellie Stewart Buchanan and the Stewart Family

The following story was written by the late Jack L. English in February 2009. It is used with permission from his family. My great grandmother was Nellie Stewart born May 11, 1877. She married Doss Buchanan. They had the first telephone in the county and the rising...

The Lewis Men of Pigeon Roost and their Mustaches

The Lewis Men of Pigeon Roost and their Mustaches

  This photograph, made in 1886, appeared in a Tri-County News article on 2/27/1969.  It shows several men from the Lewis family of Pigeon Roost.  Massey Lewis, who supplied the photo, said that the men all “let the hair grow on their lips” specifically in...

Mrs. Ruby Sisk Gouge

Mrs. Ruby Sisk Gouge

Ruby Juanita Sisk was born December 18, 1898 in Franklin, North Carolina to Ray Dean and Emma Lou Guy Sisk. Her father was a successful attorney, state senator, and highly respected community citizen.She was an honor graduate from Woman’s College, UNC, which is now...

Mrs. Agnes Henry: A Tribute during Women’s History Month

Mrs. Agnes Henry: A Tribute during Women’s History Month

Agnes Mary McDougall was born April 30, 1883 to Charles Archibald and Viola Harwood McDougall near present-day Escondido, California. Her sister, Viola Glenwood, was born two years later. Their mother died in 1891 and her father remarried a woman named Francis N....

Ten Wilson Brothers

Ten Wilson Brothers

Phillip H. Wilson was born Burke County, NC, 4/16/1814, the son of William and Nancy Haney Wilson.  On 5/31/1832 in Burke County, Phillip married Nancy Norman (1817-1880), daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Williams Norman.  They were the parents of at least 12 children...

Lydia Holman – Serving Mitchell County for 58 Years

Lydia Holman – Serving Mitchell County for 58 Years

Lydia Holman came to Mitchell County in 1900 to serve as a private duty nurse for a woman suffering from Typhoid.  The woman got well and moved away. Holman stayed for the next 58 years serving the people of Mitchell County. Holman had graduated from the Philadelphia...