Club Chaos Eye Candy : The History of the Land of Gauxule

"Land . . . 'tis the only thing that lasts . . . ."
Gone with the Wind , Margaret Mitchell

A Tale of Gauxule, Cherokee Name for Asheville.

They say the Land remains. They speak of Gauxule where the river meets a land of mystery and beauty.The Cherokee speak of the landmark where the tiny beings who came from the stars to live by that very river long, long, long ago...even before the Cherokee...that river.

(photo of Asheville's River)

Those who know may tell you how these mountains were formed, the meaning of the rocks and ferns and mosses you can find along the trail. They are the early keepers of the stories of places that marked for memory where the river leaped its bank, how the elk came to the mountains and how the hills turn to shades of red and gold and purple-- stories told long before your ancestors or mine arrived in the Carolinas.

They say the Land remains...and I believe it's true.

A family story handed down to me tells how those early settlers, my many-greats grandparents being among them, borrowed agricultural practices from the Cherokee, and incorporated them into their own farming practices.

Loving the land as they did, and learning how to cultivate it, they began to grow fruit trees and vegetables as this historical note from my Far-grandfather reveals::

"The garden is delightful. The fruit trees and flowering shrubs form a pleasant variety. We have green peas almost fit to eat and as fine lettuce as you ever saw.

The mocking birds surround us evening and morning. The weather is mild and the vegetable world progressing to perfection. We have in the same orchard apples, pears, peaches, apricots, nectarines, plums of various kinds, figs, pomegranate and oranges. And we have strawberries which measure three inches around." ~General Nathaneal Greene

They say the Land remains...but how did they come to live in the Carolinas?

Just a little history-

In the 1770s, English, German, Scottish, Irish, French, Welsh, and Africans started to arrive and enter into conversation with the Cherokee. They wanted to "settle" the land. The "settlers" came first to the coastal areas of the Carolinas, then migrated inland.

Unlike the Cherokee who held the notion that Land belonged to all who lived there, the new arrivals espoused ownership and acquisition.

Thus it was that the Land within the present boundaries of North Carolina and South Carolina which was "owned " by England when they restored King Charles to the throne in 1660 (see details here) came also to be "owned" by the settlers. It would be some time before the notion of stewardship of the Land returned to Gauxule as it has today.

The land grants of King Charles (after whom the Carolinas are named) gave the newcomers access to Cherokee lands. Then, in 1777, a landmark bill was passed in North Carolina that explained how, after locating property, a settler who wished to acquire that land, must identify and claim it.

It required that a description of the location and boundaries of the property be provided by a surveyor. So a surveyor was dispatched into the mountains, hills and valleys or coastal regions to survey and produce two plats of the land. Each contained a scale, description, angles, distances, marks he had made, any water he had crossed, and, total acreage done in the metes and bounds method that had originated in English Common Law.

After a short period of time in which any conflicting claim might be found, the settler was given a copy of the land description, with another copy going to the surveyor as a warrant to survey the land.

Deciphering land records using the metes and bounds method, the method of choice here in North Carolina until not all that long ago and still encountered, is an amazing challenge...and one that can, if you are ready, unveil the history of a place, a farm, a family....

(see example I uncovered recently)

Imagine yourself a real estate professional brokering a land transfer where a metes and bounds survey is involved.

You may find yourself awash in the deepening afternoon shadows, light sifting down into the dusty stacks, trying to decipher a 1790s metes and bounds survey.

You have come face-to-face with a document a treasure-hunter fairly relishes. These documents are complex, and oftentimes as mysterious as the Land of the Cherokee.

You follow along with a series of distances and directions until you arrive back at the point of beginning.

They say the Land remains...and I believe it's true.

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