Western Carolina University WCU University of North Carolina Asheville UNCA

Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (20) View all
University of North Carolina Asheville (6) View all
WCU - Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

Kephart's address before Bryson City Women's Club

items 5 of 6 items
  • wcu_great_smoky_mtns-10443.jpg
Copyright Download
Item 1 - Kephart's address before Bryson City Women's Club
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-10439.jpg

Kephart's address before Bryson City Women's Club

GSMNP_13150_30_01
Item 2 - Kephart's address before Bryson City Women's Club
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-10440.jpg

Kephart's address before Bryson City Women's Club

GSMNP_13150_30_02
Item 3 - Kephart's address before Bryson City Women's Club
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-10441.jpg

Kephart's address before Bryson City Women's Club

GSMNP_13150_30_03
Item 4 - Kephart's address before Bryson City Women's Club
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-10442.jpg

Kephart's address before Bryson City Women's Club

GSMNP_13150_30_04
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-10443.jpg

Kephart's address before Bryson City Women's Club

GSMNP_13150_30_05
Item 6 - Kephart's address before Bryson City Women's Club
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-10444.jpg

Kephart's address before Bryson City Women's Club

GSMNP_13150_30_06
Item
?

Item’s are ‘child’ level descriptions to ‘parent’ objects, (e.g. one page of a whole book).

  • _5_ ^3 Quite recently one of the foremost of American historians, Professor Herhert E. Bolton, of Stanford University, who has specialized in the Spanish explorations and colonization of North America, has^ credited De Soto with crossing the Smoky Mountains in thife immediate neighborhood, by a route different from either of those hitherto mentioned. In his book "The Spanish Borderlands," in the series "Chronicles of America," published by the Yale University Press, he says: "Seven days' marching brought the Spaniards into the country of the Cherokees; and five days later they reached Xualla, a Cherokee town above the junction of the Tuckaseegee and Oconna (sic) Luftee rivers, in Swain County, North Carolina. . . . Still pushing on towards that 'richest province,' De Soto crossed the Smoky Mountains and went into Tennessee." In other words, Bolton states that De Soto went on up the Luftee and over into Tennessee. In that case he in all probability crossed at the Indian Gap; for the oldest known Indian trail, and only one, crossing from the Luftee into what is now Tennessee, did take that course. There seems to be, at first sight, corroborative evidence to this effect. In the 42d Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, published two years ago by our Government, there is an elaborate study of the "Indian Trails of the Southeast, " by a Tennessee archeologist, William Edward Myer. Speaking of John Lederer's exploration, in 1671, of a part of western North Carolina, he says: "De Soto had visited the Saura (Indians) 220 years before (it should be 131 years before), when their town was situated at or near the junction of the Ocono Lufty and Tuckaseegee rivers, in Swain County, N. C." We, as citizens of Swain County, and residents of a town only five miles from the aforesaid junction, would naturally be pleased to have this route confirmed. But a deep regard for historical accuracy, more potent than any local pride, compells me to be v@a»y skeptical of the opinions of both of these historians. Neither of them cites any authority whatever for his statements— a grievous lapse in any history. Mooney, on the contrary, does give his authorities for every statement he makes, and we can check up o# him and verify his conclusions_ Both Bolton and Myer evidently were misled, and carelessly so, by a fancied resemblance in sound of the Spanish chroniclers' Xuala and the name Qualla, which was the designation of the late Col. William H. Thomas's trading station and agency headquarters, in the Quallatown region familiar to us of the present day. And Qualla (properly Kwali) is not even a Cherokee word: it is the Indian pronunciation of the English name Polly, which was given by the whites to an old squaw who lived near Col. Thomas's store. It was first used about three hundred years later that! the time of De Soto's march. <^,A *>?;<** Some_time ago I wrote to Professor Bolton asking for his authority for locating Xualla on the Luftee, but I have never received fa. reply.
Object
?

Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).

Related items

Part of Collection

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...

View collection Read introduction
panzoom image
wcu_great_smoky_mtns-10443.jpg