Lingering Emnity

Southwest Virginia Project

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From Source:Coale, 1878

A SINGULAR INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF HON. WILLIAM C. PRESTON.

To give variety as well as interest to this hastily gotten up little volume, the writer has interspersed a chapter here and there illustrating the troubles and sufferings of the pioneers of this part of Virginia, a few hunting adventures of others than the great trapper of White Top, and he he now proposes to give a chapter narrating a curious incident in the early life of the Hon. William C. Preston.

All who have arrived at the age of maturity in Southwestern Virginia, know that the above named distinguished orator and Senator of South Carolina, and who died in that State a few years ago, was a native of the town Abingdon, Virginia, and that this was his home from infancy to, manhood. Having, however, left Virginia at the age of twenty-four, he was better known by his brilliant career and world-wide reputation than by a personal intercourse with the people of his native hills. He was born in 1798, and about the year 1815 entered Columbia; College, South Carolina. He was the grand-nephew of Patrick Henry, and the grandson of General William Campbell, the hero of King's mountain, and inherited the eloquence of one and the name of the other, and the talents and patriotism of both. During his collegiate course, he spent his vacations at home, and determined, on one occasion, instead of taking the tedious and circuitous stage route back to his school, to mount his horse and ride through the mountains, as he loved the beautiful in nature, and could thus see and enjoy the grand scenery along the Laurel, Watauga, Yadkin and Catawba, and have the opportunity of. visiting King's mountain, the field upon which his ancestor had led, in 1781, many of the brave yeomen of his native county, the dust of a number of whom was left to mingle with the soil of that remote and silent battle-field.

Leaving Abingdon, Mr. Preston proceeded up the Laurel, one of the most rapid and dangerous streams in all this mountain country, and much more dangerous to ford, at that day than now, and which he was compelled to cross twenty-six times in less than half as many miles. The gorge through which it winds and tumbles is still among the wildest and most romantic in all this region, precipices on' either side of the narrow pass rising to the height of thousands of feet in places, and even at this day the covert of wolves and bears, and any number of venomous reptiles.

Leaving this and passing along the picturesque table-land where the pleasant little village of Taylorsville [Tennessee] sits like a queen on her throne, his path led him across the Iron mountain into the valley of Watauga at base of the Blue Ridge, where, spread out in rare and wonderful beauty the "Vale of the Cross," the location selected many years ago by the eccentric Bishop Ives, of North Carolina for his impracticable school of celibacy. Passing this, the road, measuring twenty-three miles in its windings, begins to ascend the Blue Ridge, crossing which it passes on the summit two springs, not more than three hundred yards apart, one the source of New river, north hundreds of miles to the Ohio, and the other the source of the Yadkin, running south as many miles to the Atlantic. Here, too, within a few minutes' walk of these springs, is Blowing Rock, one of the grandest natural curiosities with which these mountains abound. This rock is upon the summit of the Ridge, overlook valley of John's river, which winds two thousand feet below. The rock derives its name from the circumstance that a man standing upon it may cast his hat out over the chasm beneath, which, after hanging in midair a moment wil1 float back high above him, and may, as did the writer's on one oceasion, lodge in the top of a tree. This is caused by the shelving nature of the rock on the under side, which, catching all the winds, sends them out in a strong current, although there may not be a zephyr stirring anywhere else in the vicinity.

Leaving this point, the rough bridle-path, as it was when Mr. Preston traveled it, wound along the the tortuous Yadkin upon which Daniel Boone grew to manhood and married his wife to the southern base of the Blue Ridge, where the country opens out wide and fertile, and which was one of the favorite hunting ranges of the Catawba Indians. Passing through these broad and now highly cultivated bottoms, then all covered with and cane, Mr. Preston followed the trace that now passes through the handsome and thriving villages of Lenoir and Newton, to the old town of Lincolnton, a place of note and enterprise before the Revolution, but more notorious in later years as the locality of "Ramsour's Mill Pond," into which the patriotic yeomen of the vicinity drove and drowned a number of Tories during the old war.

Resting here for the night, Mr. Preston left next morning for King's mountain, only fifteen miles distant. Riding leisurely along, admiring the wild honeysuckle, laurel and here so variegated and gaudy, and charmed with the mist-like appearance of the mountains far in his rear, he halted near the middle of the day at a wayside-inn, called for dinner for himself and feed for his horse, and here occurred the incident the writer has taken such a round about way to approach. When it is remembered that Mr. Preston was the grandson of General Campbell, who almost annihilated the Tories in the neighborhood of that inn, the incident that follows will be better understood. While dinner was preparing, he threw himself upon the grass in the yard under the trees. The landlady seemed to be excited and uneasy, frequently passing and scrutinizing him very critically, with not the most pleasant cast of countenance in the world. When the meal came on, and he was seated at the table, she planted herself opposite to and riveted her eyes upon him, with something like a savage scowl. Seeing that she had attracted his notice by-her manner, she thus addressed him:

"Young man, I spose you've noticed me lookin' at you and I can't help it. I'd like to know your name where you live."

"Certainly, madam," replied Mr. Preston, "you shall be gratified. My name is Preston and I live in Virginia."

The old lady, as if relieved of a painful apprehension responded: "Well, well, I'm mighty glad your name is Preston, and it is a lucky thing for you that it is, but you look so much like the meanest and wickedest man I ever saw in my life, that it made my blood bile as soon as I sot eyes on you. His name was Campbell, the head-devil among a band of rebel robbers and murderers that fit killed Colonel Furguson and a heap of our people on ridge yonder a good many years ago, and the last time saw my poor dear husband alive, that bad man was riding behind him sticking a bagnet in him to make him keep up with their hosses. If your name had been Ca mpbel1 and I was afraid it was, because you look so much like him-I don't know what the boys mout have done to you when they come into dinner."

Mr. Preston, of course, didn't inform her of the relationship between General Campbell and himself, when he found that he was in the house of a widow of one of Tories his grandfather had hung to a limb in the neighboring forest.