LETTKKS FROM
ТНК
ALLKfillWY
MOUNTAINS — III
Fishing in the Cullasaja
If »/ JOHN LANMAN
IN 1848
This is Ihe third installment of
portions of a book describing
travel through our mountains in
1848. Other letters will follow,
describing the section when it was
virtually unknown to the outside
world.
Franklin, North Carolina
May, 1848
The little village of Franklin is ro¬
mantically situated on the Little Ten¬
nessee. It is surrounded with moun¬
tains, and as quiet and pretty a hamlet
as I have yet seen among the Allc-
ghanies. On the morning after entering
this place, I went to the post office, for
the purpose of obtaining a peep at the
last number of the National Intelli¬
gencer, whereupon the officiating gen¬
tleman informed me that I should find
it at the office of a young lawyer whom
he named. I called upon the legal gen¬
tleman, and found him, like all the
intelligent people of the country, very
polite and well informed. In speaking
of the surrounding pictorial associa¬
tions he alluded to a certain waterfall
and added that the gentleman who re¬
ferred me to him owned a plantation
near the falls, on a famous trout-
stream. and was an angler. On this hint
I sent a couple of handsome flies, as a
present, to my post-office friend, and
in less than twenty minutes thereafter
he made his appearance at my lodg¬
ings. and insisted that wc should go
upon a fishing excursion, and that the
lawyer should accompany us. Horses
were immediately procured, and hav¬
ing rode a distance of ten miles along
a very beautiful stream called Kul-la -
sa-jah. or the Sugar Water, we came
to the chasm leading to the falls. Here
wc lied our horses, and while my com¬
panions commenced throwing the fly,
I proceeded to the more profitable em¬
ployment of taking sketches.
The chasm of the Sugar Water Falls
is about half a mile long, and im¬
mediately below the precipices are per¬
pendicular and very imposing, reaching
an elevation of at least one thousand
feet. The falls themselves arc three in
number — the first and principal one
being about sixty feet high. Emptying
into the Sweet Water, directly at the
lower end of the chasm, is a tiny brook
without a name, upon which I found a
cascade of great beauty. The water
falls near forty feet, but sings its
eternal song in a shadowy recess,
where hoary trees, mossy rocks, and
exquisite vines, of every variety pe¬
culiar to the country, remain in their
original wildness. As I clambered up
the ravine leading to this cascade. I
startled a doe from the green couch
where she had been spending the
noontide hours. I added a number of
sketches to my portfolio, and after
spending "alone in my glory" the
whole afternoon, wandering from one
chasm to another, I left the delightful
valley with reluctance, ntusing upon
the marvellous beauty of every thing in
the world formed by the hand of God.
On arriving at the spot where our
horses were tied, I found my com¬
panions both wearing uncommonly
long faces, for they had not succeeded
in killing a single trout. I joked my
post-office friend about his "famous
trout-stream,” and then, remounting
our horses, wc paid a visit to his plan¬
tation, where wc enjoyed a comfort¬
able supper, and continued on our way
home by the light of the moon. Under
any circumstances this would have
been an agreeable ride, but on the
present occasion my companions did
all the talking, and the substance of
two of their stories I herewith subjoin
merely as specimens:
“I can't account for our bad luck
in catching trout today,” said my post-
office friend; "but I do assure you that
a couple of young men named Hyatt,
and myself, once went a fishing in the
Sweet Water, and we took one hun¬
dred and seventy-five trout. But this
is not to the purpose. On that occasion
wc fished up the stream; and when wc
came to the mouth of the chasm, we
saw a big buck, which we frightened
towards the falls as we ascended. When
wc came near the falls, one of the
Hyatts and myself stopped fishing, and
went to work to corner the buck, and
sec if wc could kill him with stones,
or cause him to drown himself. There
was no way for him to make his escape,
except by running directly over us, and
this wc did not suppose he would dare
attempt. He made many desperate ef¬
forts to get away, and at one time
managed to climb an almost perpen¬
dicular wall of rock to the height of
some twenty feet, when he lost his
foothold and fell into the pool below.
He now became very much enraged,
but wc continued to pelt him with
stones, though without effecting any
serious injury. After bothering him for
at least half an hour, the creature
finally got upon the rocks at the lower
part of the pool, when he swept by us
with great fury, and started down the
chasm, making some of the most fear¬
ful leaps that I ever saw. And now it
so happened that wc saw the younger
Hyatt standing upon a rock and casting
his fly upon a pool, where wc thought
the deer must pass in his downward
course, and wc immediately shouted to
the angler to ‘look out.’ He did so, and
immediately drew out a hunting-knife
which he had in his pocket, and as the
deer tumbled into the pool, young
Hyatt actually jumped upon his back,
and succeeded in giving him a fatal
stab, so that the animal merely crawled
upon the rocks to die. It was quite late
in the evening before we started for
home, and we only brought the skin
along with us; but as we left the chasm,
wc saw a large panther descending one
of the cliffs of the gorge, as if hastening
to have a feast upon the dead deer.”
The “story" of my lawyer friend, or
rather a fragment of his entertaining
conversation was as follows: "As it is
important, Mr. Lanman, that you
should not leave our country without
learning something of our great per¬
sonages, and as our companion here is
a modest man, I will give you a brief
sketch of his character. He is a gentle¬
man of some property, for he not only
owns the plantation where we took
supper, but one or two others of equal
value. He is one of the oldest residents
in this mountain region — a gentleman
of fine moral character, and with a
heart as guileless as that of a child. He
is a passionate lover of scenery, and
has probably explored the beauties of
this mountain land more thoroughly
14
THE STATE. October 9. 1954