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Trip into the Smokies with Horace Kephart

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  • Page 9 I will always remember those two funerals. There were so many people that the little church could not hold them all - some standing In the street. Some people came in from Tennessee and Georgia. Many men from out in the Smoky Mountains walked in. Bob Barnett, whom I knew on Deep Creek, came in from Aquone, on the headwaters of the Nantahala River, to be one of Mr. Kephart's pall-bearers. I have never seen so much real feeling shown at any other funeral. It was impressive, the service conducted with reverence and dignity. Many had tears in their eyes. Some of the big strong lumbermen and mountaineers were sobbing as they filed past the Coburns' caskets. Jack Coburn had lived in Swain County many years, coming there in 1888. Both Horace Kephart and Jack understood and appreciated the mountain people, and both had a great love for the Smoky Mountains. There is a fine View of the Smokies from that grave yarc1 up on the hill at Bryson. From Jack's plot there, one can see in the distance Mt. Kephart, named in honor of Horace Kephart, and the Coburn Knob, named in honor of Jack Coburn. There has been a large boulder put up at Mr. Kephart's grave by the late Mr. Irving Stearns, a nephew of Miss Marie Shank of Asheville and Bryson City. There is an arrow on it pointing to Mt. Kephart. Jack Coburn was the first, I understand, to deed land to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park - several hundred acres including the Coburn Knob..Jack gave that land. There have, of course, been many changes since I was out in the Hazel Creek country. The old Hall Cabin and the Spence Cabin on Siler Meadows have long since been torn down. There is now a camp site maintained by the Park Service at the site of the old Hall Cabin and
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