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Kephart writes of odd names in the Smoky Mountains

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Kephart writes of odd names in the Smoky Mountains

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Kephart writes of odd names in the Smoky Mountains

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Kephart writes of odd names in the Smoky Mountains

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Kephart writes of odd names in the Smoky Mountains

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Kephart writes of odd names in the Smoky Mountains

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  • KEPHART WRITES x A JL. TAINS Every. Mountain, Creek, Branch, Cove.and "Lead" Has Name Known Only .To Few Adventurers This Is ths first of a series of Sunday articles, written especially for The X'lmes by Horace Kephart, of Bryson City, noted author and authority on the Great Smoky Mountains, on subjects of great Interest relating to the Great Smokies. This story on "Odd Names in the Smoky Mountains" will be followed next Sunday by "Panthers In the Great Smoky Mountains" and the following Sunday by "The Language of the Cherokees."-—Editor. !X. By HORACE KEPHART WHEN I first came into the Carolina mountains I had no guide but an old "tope sheet" atlas of the TJ. S. Geological Survey. In poring over those maps my eyes were caught and held by many queer names that amused or puzzled me. I could grasp the significance yK.-.,„.-,.. of Standing Indian, as applied to a mountain—the term was picturesque and dignified—but what quirk of Imagination, what ribald streak of humor, had dubbed a fine summit of the Blue Ridge with such a name as Chunky Gal? Nor was my wonder much abated when I learned, from the Indians, that Chunky Gal is the white mountaineer's delicate way of interpreting the original Cherokee name, which means Pregnant Woman. On the way up Shooting Creek to the Chunky Gal, one goes parallel with Drowning Creek and passes Lick- log Branch, Jack Rabbit Mountain, Fleaback Mountain, Hothouse Branch, Pounding Creek, Burnt Cabin and Thumping Creek, all in the course of ten miles. As I had never seen or heard of a Horace Kephart "bald" mountain, in the sense of a heavily wooded dome topped by an unaccountable open meadow of wild bluegrass, such names on the map as Parson Bald and Warrior Ba'.d (properly Wayah, meaning wolf) caused me to break out laughing. I thought they were inversions of Bald Parson and Bald Warrior. But when I came upon Burning-town Bald and Wlne- spring Bald I was quite confused. What, in the name of sanity, could such names mean? Jitter, when I went to live far back in the wilderness, not in the Blue Ridge but in the Great Smoky Mountains, where no map showed accurately the features or the names of that rugged country, I had to learn everything, from the ground up, by my own exploring and from the lips of the few pioneers who had ventured there. The settlements, such as they were, extended in a fringe of scattered cabins along the southern border of the Smokies, and along their northern border in Tennessee. The great mass of the Smokies was quite uninhabited, as most of it still is today. Often, in that wilderness, while, going on my lone exploring trips, I met no human being for several days, nor saw any sign of man save here and there a foot-trail left by wandering hunters or fishermen, or herdsmen who came into the high ranges, now and then, to look after their half-wild cattle and razorbacks. Vividly Descriptive And still, every creek and branch and "lead" and gap, west of Cling- man Dome, had a name by which it was known to the few adventurers who quested the woods. • And such names! Vividly descriptive, if one understood the backwoods lin^o; often unintellible if he did not. Whimsical names. Sometimes profane or indecent' names—but with good cause, as one realized when he tried to bore his way through the laurel "slicks" or found himself trapped in a gulch where the only way out was by edging along cliiis and perilously sliding down the slippery, precipitous courses of mountain torrents. To be caught there in fog, that is to say, in clouds, when one could not see a tree ten feet away, was a dismal predicament indeed; or when steady rain set in and the drench bushes rubbed the water right through the duxbak, leather, or any other material that one could wear in mountain climbing. No wonder we have such names in the Smokies as Ripshin and the "Harricane," the Devil's Den and Huggin's Hell, the Defeat and Desolation branches of Bone Valley, the Rough Arm and the Slowdown, Tear Breeches and Long Hungry Ridge. Aye, worse names, that mav not be put in print until some stripling of the intelligentsia comes from a big city and whoops over his discovery of some new and bizarre specimen of smut. Names there are, in plenty, that express the raw virility of the backwoodsman, his Uteral-mlndedness, his whimsical humor that makes a sport of hardship and privation. Picturts, showing in a word or two, the features of places, or celebrating some incident of the rough life of the woods, or recalling some person who one time was somehow identified with a given place. On the watersheds of Twenty Mils and Eagle Creek are Judy Branch and Genes Camp Branch, Big Tommy and Little Tommy, the Shuck- stack, Big Swag Ridge, Proctor's Sang Branch (ginseng), Lawson Sant-lot Branch (once a cattle cored). Painter (panther) Branch, Bear Pen (a log trap), Coon-town Branch, Pawpaw and Soapstona, Pinnacle Creek. In Hazel Creek Country In the Hazel Creek country we have Blockhouse and Thunderhead mountains. Brier Knob. Indian Camp, Woolly Ridge, the chestnut Bald, the Raven's Den, Owl Cove, Old House Branch, Slick Rock. When one turns up from Bone Valley to the Locust Gap he comes to the Nigh Long Big Slats Branch, then to the Main Long Big Fiats Branch, beyond which, as a head stream, is the Fur Long Big Flats Branch.
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  • This undated article is by Horace Kephart (1862-1931), a noted naturalist, woodsman, journalist, and author. In 1904, he left his work as a librarian in St. Louis and permanently moved to western North Carolina. His popular book, “Camping and Woodcraft” was first published 1906; the 1916/1917 edition is considered a standard manual for campers after almost a century of use. Living and working in a cabin on Hazel Creek in Swain County, Kephart began to document life in the Great Smoky Mountains, producing “Our Southern Highlanders” in 1913. Throughout his life, Kephart wrote many articles supporting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

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Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

This digital collection was created to contribute to the public's understanding of the forces and ideas that led to the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934. The most vi...

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