The "Pleasant Gardens"

"He was a famous hunter, and delighted in 'trapping,' and to a late period of his life, he could be seen on his way to the mountains, with four large bear traps tied behind him on his horse, with his trusty rifle on his shoulder. On these excursions he would go alone, and be absent for a month or more, hunting the deer, turkies, and bears, and in silent communion with nature and with nature’s God."

—John Hill Wheeler, writing of "Hunting John" McDowell*

There was a wrestling match.

Sometime around 1743, Hunting John McDowell of Augusta County, Virginia, and Henry Weidner,*** a McDowell family friend from Philadelphia, crossed the Catawba River together at Sherrill’s Ford in North Carolina. Only one white family, that of Adam Sherrill, had preceded them into that part of the Carolina frontier. McDowell and Weidner continued westward along the Catawba, and came upon a land tract of unparalleled beauty. They called it “the pleasant garden,” and each wanted it for his own. In traditional Scots-Irish custom, they agreed to wrestle to determine whose the land would be. McDowell won, “using the effective ‘knee trip’”** to defeat Weidner. 

"John McDowell built his house on the west side of the Catawba River, on land now called the Hany Field, a part of the fine body of land well known as 'The Pleasant Gardens,' which for fertility of soil, healthfulness of climate and splendor of scenery, cannot be excelled."*

In 1748 Hunting John received his land grant from John Carteret, Earl of Granville (the former Lord Proprietor, who, upon dissolution of the Lords Proprietor, kept his land in lieu of buyout by the Crown.) The tract extended from Swan Ponds up the Catawba River to Garden City and Buck Creek. Swan Ponds was about three miles above what later became the homestead of his uncle Joseph J. McDowell. Hunting John sold Swan Ponds, without ever occupying it, to Colonel Waightstill Avery, and chose to build his home at “the pleasant garden.” In 1753 that area of Anson County became part of Rowan County, then later, in 1777, part of Burke County. (Later still, in 1842, it would become the heart of McDowell County, created to honor Hunting John’s son Joseph “of Pleasant Gardens.”)

Hunting John had married Ann “Annie” Evans while still in Augusta County, Virginia, about 1746. She was the widow of John Edmiston, who died while their only child was still very young. Hunting John took young Nicholas “Edington” into his household to raise as one of his own. John and Annie would have three children, all born at their North Carolina home: Rachel, Joseph, and Ann. Their only son together was born 25 February 1758 and became "Joseph of Pleasant Gardens.” As he gained renown, and to differentiate him from his cousin Joe of Quaker Meadows, many simply would call him “P.G.”

*Source: John Hill Wheeler, Reminiscences and Memoirs of North Carolina and Eminent North Carolinians, 1884, Columbus Printing Works, Columbus, Ohio
**“The Wrestling Match,” from Father Weidner, The King of the Forks, by R. Vance Whitener, 1916, Spartanburg, South Carolina
***Henry Weidner’s name is also found in documents as Widener, Whitener, and Whitner.

Silas McDowell, on Morganton (part 4)

Morganton and its Surroundings Sixty Years Ago, excerpt, by Silas McDowell, c. 1877, manuscript (transcribed by Ann Walker, ©2009)

... The old lady remarked, that as my business would bring me in contact with the citizens of Burke, that she would, for my benefit, exhibit to me a kind of portrait gallery of those families who occupied the front rank in Burke's social circle; as well as a kind of rear rank; that is to say, families who were tolerated in consequence of their wealth.

"I will begin," she continued, "with the old patriarchs of the county—the few survivors from whom have descended the very best families in the county. The oldest man among these is Arthur Erwin, living on Upper creek; he was once a man of sound practical sense, and of amiable character; but a plain unassuming man; is now high up in eighty, and the father of Col W.W. Erwin of Belvidere. The next is Alexander Erwin, brother of Arthur, and two years younger: their farms join. They are quite unlike in character, Alexander having been devoted to books and a thorough knowledge of the current literature of the age, and withall, when young, a wit, and a dandy: his best representative is Col James Erwin, clerk of our county court. He has many daughters and three sons by his last wife, but none of these are of much promise. The next oldest man is Col. Waightstill Avery of Swan Ponds, four miles up the river. He was once a great lawyer, and [an] amiable man, but now confined at home from weakness in his limbs: he is represented by his only son named Isaac, lately married to Harriet, eldest daughter of Col W.W. Erwin.

"The next is John Rutherford of Muddy creek 12 miles above Morganton, he will be represented by his only surviving son John; two of his sons having died in the state of Mississippi: his son John is a queer man, but said to have brains.

"The next is Col John Carson of Buck creek, twenty six miles above Morganton: his best representative promises to be his son Joseph, a lawyer of some note living in Rutherford county. Carson's last wife was the widow of Genl Joseph McDowell of Pleasant Gardens, and Joseph McDowell's best representative is his son John, living in Rutherford County. The homestead, the Gardens, are owned by his youngest son James, but he is no Jo, and will never set the world on fire. James Murphey is our next oldest man, and is a good financeer, acquiring fast and holding on to all that he ever grasps. He has an only son named Jack, a dull man.

"Then, there is Col John McGimsey of Lineville [sic] valley: he has two sons, John and William—clever young men. The there is old Daniel Forney of Upper creek; very clever, yet made a fool of himself by marrying a young girl while he was near sixty—he will be represented by a large family of children. And then, there is old Col Andrew Baird of Gunpowder creek who has a fine family, and makes bar iron; and there is also old Sam [Newland?] that married a Tate, of the same section, twenty miles in the N. East section of the county. And besides these there are on Johns river the three Perkins brothers and their families; but Jo has the most pretty daughters; and there is Major Hiland, who married a Perkins; all respectable, but unkind to their slaves. Also, there is Dr Thos Bouchell and family, they are tip-toppers, and live up to and, perhaps, beyond the Drs income: but the girls marry well, two of them [ . . . ] Lenoir, the first having died. And then there is old Dave Tate of Morganton and his family: Dave is a kind hearted wicked man, in whom evil and good are about equally mixed, and is very popular with the poor, and represents Burke in the legislature.

"Next, come in the Greenlee brothers, five of them. They hold vast property, but their social position is not what might be expected; but I must say little about that, for Dave Greenlee is master to my niece, while John has for wife one of the best ladies in the country: pious, accomplished, and kind. But the drawbacks on the family are Ephraim, Sam, James and Bill. Ephraim married Sally Howard of Virginia and they commenced a race who could drink the most brandy! She won, but will not live twelve months, while he can drink himself full, and it don't seem to hurt him.

"Sam keeps a black woman for wife, and that woman is the greatest curiosity I ever beheld. She is coal black; but her form and features that would be a good model for a statuary chiseling out a H___. Jim and Bill are idiots, —nearly.

"Another batch of wealthy brothers are the Harshaws: they may be called the Arabs of our respectable society, and form no part of it. Now comes in the names of younger men, such as Charles McDowell of Quaker Meadows; Abe Flemming of Flemming island; and indeed I might name scores of others who are amiable men, but I am growing weary of the thing, and will cut short, and let you go to rest."

...

Silas McDowell, on Morganton (part 3)

Morganton and its Surroundings Sixty Years Ago, excerpt, by Silas McDowell, c. 1877, manuscript (transcribed by Ann Walker, ©2009)

... When Mrs McEntire learned that I had resolved to settle in Morganton she manifested great interest in my success; an interest without abatement all the while I lived in Morganton, a period of a few months over ten years.

Touching the subject of making Morganton my home she seemed to only one doubt of my success, and that doubt rested on her opinion that Burke society would not appreciate me at my true value; and from the sole cause, that I was a mechanic: informing me that in Burke society there was an inveterate prejudice against all strange mechanics, and that the more intelligent and plausible they were the stronger was the prejudice, and the closer they were watched. And she continued, "The citizens, particularly the parents and guardians of girls have substantial reason for this prejudice, particularly if the mechanic is handsome, intelligent, and of graceful manner. Twenty-five years ago there came to Morganton a mechanic who would have filled the above description precisely; he was by trade a tanner, from the state of Massachusetts and his name Caleb Poor. Among his vast accomplishments, he had a fine voice and was a scientific musician. To shorten the story, he was employed to conduct a tanary [sic] for Col. Waightstill Avery of Swan Ponds and soon eloped with his daughter Mira, the most talented and accomplished young lady in the state. The first time Poor and Col. Avery met he had attempted to ____ him but got soundly ______ himself. Poor turned out to be one of the most fiendish villains Burke County was ever cursed with, but his wife continued with him fifteen years, when he became such an incorrigible scoundrel that her father procured her a divorce, and he settled her and her six children in Buncombe County on a celebrated farm called "Horse Shoe."

The next man who damaged mechanics in our society was a handsome and intelligent tailor named Thomas Wilson: he eloped with a beautiful daughter of Major Highland of Johns river, turned out a drunkard and vagabond, and soon brought his lovely wife to grief. The fact is—there has never yet come to Morganton but one mechanic who has not turned out to be either a drunkard or a villain, and he is Major Edward Williams, now living in the North Cove 26 miles west of Morganton. Like Caleb Poor he was a tanner by trade and from the state of Massachusetts, and took his start in the world in the tanyard of Col Avery, but afterward, run a yard of his own in North Cove, has made a fortune and has for wife Polly Brown, the sprightly daughter of Daniel Brown, a rich merchant in North Cove.

My kind landlady continued— "It is safe McDowell, for you to know these facts before you enter Burke society: I know you will rise, but you must go slow for a while, and until, like Ned Williams, you have established a positive character. Of course, your character is negatively good now, because no harm can be said of you, but that won't satisfy the parents of silly young girls, and you are just the kind of man to steal one of these, if you wished it." I thanked the old lady for the compliment, but assuring her that a "silly girl would be the last thing I would ever steal."

...

McDowells in Western North Carolina

From Western North Carolina: A History (1730-1913), by John Preston Arthur, published 1914, Edwards & Broughton Printing Co., North Carolina, pp. 70-71:

WESTWARD THE COURSE OF EMPIRE TAKES ITS WAY. From Judge A. C. Avery's "Historic Homes of North Carolina" (N. C. Booklet, Vol. iv, No. 3) we get a glimpse of the slow approach of the whites of the Blue Ridge: "According to tradition the Quaker Meadows farm near Morganton was so called long before the McDowells or any other whites established homes in Burke county, and derived its name from the fact that the Indians, after clearing parts of the broad and fertile bottoms, had suffered the wild grass to spring up and form a large meadow, near which a Quaker had camped before the French and Indian War, and traded for furs." This was none other than Bishop Spangenberg, the Moravian, who, on the 19th of November, 1752, (Vol. v, Colonial Records, p. 6) records in his diary that he was encamped near Quaker Meadows "in the forest 50 miles from any settlement."

THE McDOWELL FAMILY. Judge Avery goes on to give some account of the McDowells: Ephraim McDowell, the first of the name in this country, having emigrated from the north of Ireland, when at the age of 62, accompanied by two sons, settled at the old McDowell home in Rockbridge county, Virginia. His [nephew] Joseph and his grandnephew "Hunting John" moved South about 1760, but owing to the French and Indian War went to the northern border of South Carolina, where their sturdy Scotch-Irish friends had already named three counties of the State, York, Chester and Lancaster. One reason for the late settlement of these Piedmont regions was because the English land agents dumped the Scotch-Irish and German immigrants in Pennsylvania, from which State some moved as soon as possible to the unclaimed lands of the South.

"HUNTING JOHN" AND HIS SPORTING FRIENDS. "But as soon as the French and Indian war permitted the McDowells removed to Burke. 'Hunting John' was so called because of his venturing into the wilderness in pursuit of game, and was probably the first to live at his beautiful home, Pleasant Gardens, in the Catawba Valley, in what is now McDowell county. About this time also his [uncle] Joseph settled at Quaker Meadows; though 'Hunting John' first entered Swan Ponds, about three miles above Quaker Meadows, but afterwards sold it, without having occupied it, to Waightstill Avery. . . . The McDowells and Carsons of that day and later reared thorough-bred horses, and made race-paths in the broad lowlands of every large farm. They were superb horsemen, crack shots and trained hunters. John McDowell of Pleasant Gardens was a Nimrod when he lived in Virginia, and we learn from tradition that he acted as guide for his cousins over the hunting grounds when, at the risk of their lives, they, with their kinsmen, James Greenlee and Captain Bowman, [who fell at Ramseur's Mill in the Revolutionary War] traveled over and inspected the valley of the Catawba from Morganton to Old Fort, and selected the large domain allotted to each of them."