Stories of North Carolina Names . . .
Copyright 1950 H. C. Wilburn.
A River and Name:
Both Beautiful
Oconaliiftcc originally was the
name of a village destroyed by
Colonel iMoore.
By II. C. WIIJSI It*
This beautiful sketch depicts the dis¬
covery of the Oconaluftce River and
the destruction of a Cherokee village
of the same name on its banks. These
American soldiers, garbed in frontier
attire and with their long rifles, are
being led by Col. William Moore, who
with his one hundred mounted men
accomplished the destruction of all the
Cherokee towns on the Tuckasccgcc
and Oconaluftce Rivers in November
1776.
The location of the village, Ocona-
luftec, was in Nick Bottom on the
west side of the river, three-fourths of
a mile below Birdtown School. A large
mound was excavated here by repre¬
sentatives of the Valentine Museum of
Richmond. Va.. 18X2.
The name. Oconaluftce. in the
Cherokee form is Egwanul'ti "by the
river." from cgwani. river, and nulati
or nulti. near or beside. A number of
spellings appear but the above is the
generally accepted form. A post office
was maintained for a number of years
near the mouth of Couch's Creek that
was designated Ocona Lufty.
The Cherokee name for the stream
scents to have been Nununyi. corre¬
sponding with the name of the village
that formally existed on its banks three-
fourths of a mile above Cherokee. Scv-J
cral land grants issued by the state
North Carolina in the 1790’s refer tc
this stream as Nunai, which was prof
ably the white man’s effort to pro-|
nounce the Indian name. Nununyi. Inj
an entry to Felix Walker, bearing!
date Dec. 12. 1796, statement is madei
that this creek (Oconaluftce) is called
by John McDowell and others, the
Oconalufty (sic). This, so far as the:
records show, is the first time this name
was applied to the stream. It is not
strange that Felix Walker, John Mc¬
Dowell. Joseph Dobson, and other
landgrabbers of the period, should con¬
fuse and transfer the name of the vil¬
lage to the stream, and then forget all
about the name of the village which,
in all probability, was never rebuilt
after its destruction by Col. Moore fif¬
teen years previously.
The aboriginal trail followed by
Moore and his men. as they ap¬
proached the Oconaluftce from the
east, is still identifiable as it winds over
the hills and down a hollow to an old
ford opposite the village site.
Noticeable in the picture arc two
types of architecture. The aboriginal
hut. and the crude log cabin. This
indicates, correctly, that the Chero-
kecs in this area at the time of
Moore’s destruction, were in the tran¬
sitional period. That is. they had begun
to receive the white man’s tools, and
to take on his ideas of building their
residences.
Oconaluftce is the largest stream in
the North Carolina side of the park,
draining a very large area in the
middle portion. It rises near Newfound
Gap. flows, generally, southeastward,
emptying into the Tuckasccgcc at Ela.
The principal tributaries arc Bradley
Fork and Raven Fork, both on the east
side of the drainage area. Bradley Fork
rises among the roughs of the Saw
Tooth section of the Smokies and joins
the main stream at Smokemont. Raven
Fork rises on the slopes of Mt.
Chapman. Tricorncr. and the Balsam
range farther eastward, and enters the |
Oconaluftce just below the Oconaluftce
Ranger Station.
It is known to this writer that
there are some other explanations and i
interpretations of the place-name
"Oconaluftce." But after considerable
research, both in the field and in litera¬
ture, old records and old maps, the
above seems authoritative and justifi¬
able.
THE STATE. MARCH 29. 1952