The "Good Ole Days" and ATC Guidebooks....

[The Cleaner]

I just was doing a little research on Trail Journals trying to get the phone# for the "new" hostel near Devil's Fork Gap. Laurel Trading Post is about 2 miles down the NC side here. I' m looking to find a place to park and hike the Rocky Fork area which is also a "Bear Reserve" and should be free of hunters and their sometimes lost and bothersome dogs. Although the Trading Post is about 5 miles from the gated entrance to Rock Fork, it looks like the best and nearest (safe) place to park. What I found while reading an entry on Trail Journals was really interesting. A hiker had passed the Shelton Grave site and where he got his info on the graves was very disturbing. He claimed that this area was the site of the Shelton Massacre:eek:. Yep a real horror story right here between Hot Springs and Erwin. His version told of a Colonel from the Confederate army killing 13 people of Shelton descent for helping Union soldiers. What a total load of BS. The earliest ATC guidebook I have is from 1980 and tells the true story of what happened on Coldspring Mtn. Two (2) Union soldiers and 1 young man were surprised by Confederate soldiers, killed and all buried in one grave. In 1915 a grave marker was hauled by oxcart up the mountain and put there and later the markers that are there now were brought up . The AT in this area is in the process of being relocated away from the road. One reason for this is that the gate to this road is open, near the Horsecreek jeep road, the last Sunday in July for Decoration day. Locals from the Greene Co. TN area travel up to the graves and have a short service and bring fresh decorations for the 3 buried there. How a hiker came up with 10 more bodies and a horror story is interesting to say the least. I'm assuming that very few thru hikers actually carry the official ATC guidebook. There are many other "unofficial" guides hikers use. I could see that getting details for all of the historical sites along the entire 2100+ miles could be a very hard task. Well my point is that if one needs more detailed info about the AT and some history too, the ATC guidebooks,while expensive and heavy,are the only "official" account of the AT and some other guidebooks/data books may contain some misleading information about historical sites along the trail. These other sources of info are mostly very accurate as to mileage and other trail info. I guess that some stories around the campfires of thru hikers and others may change what one has read earlier from who knows what and where. IMO some thrus are totally focused on making miles and not learning about history and geology while hiking on the Grandaddy of long distance trails. HYOH but listeners beware....

[rickb]

How a hiker came up with 10 more bodies and a horror story is interesting to say the least.

Wikipedia

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelton_Laurel_Massacre

[The Cleaner]

Wikipedia

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelton_Laurel_Massacre This is a completely different incident from the story in the ATC guide for the 2 soldiers and one young boy buried along the AT.

[The Cleaner]

FWIW, I'd say that a hiker could have stopped at the Shelton graves on the trail got out a smartphone and searched for info there. It seems like more hikers are using electronic methods of trail navagation & info and as anyone should know info from the web ain't always correct or true. Many times while I'm on a maintenance trip to Jerry's Cabin shelter (a few miles south of the graves) hikers will ask me about the campsite or water location that is in their preferred method of navigation. What one guide says is spring may be a damp ditch when you get there. The best info sometimes is from trail travelers in the opposite direction when you can find them and if they have time to talk.......:)

[Sly]

From the 2014 Companion.


Shelton Graves—North of Big Butt is the final resting place of William
and David Shelton, who lived in Madison County, N.C., but enlisted
in the Union army during the Civil War. While returning to a
family gathering during the war, the uncle and nephew were ambushed
near here and killed by Confederate troops.

It appears many thru-hikers' these days don't want anything but data.

At one point I was about to remove such references from the Companion to cut down on a few pages, but most were put there by field editors over the 23 years the Companion has been published, and whom am I to remove it.

[The Cleaner]

From the 2014 Companion.



It appears many thru-hikers' these days don't want anything but data.

At one point I was about to remove such references from the Companion to cut down on a few pages, but most were put there by field editors over the 23 years the Companion has been published, and whom am I to remove it. +1 Sly, those few extra pages- Oh the humanity:eek:......

[Sly]

+1 Sly, those few extra pages- Oh the humanity:eek:......

Yeah, the smaller, lighter comparison is kind of lame since many tear out and mail ahead their pages. The extra narrative is fractions of grams weight wise, but adds food for thought while hiking.

Anyway, to help counter that particular argument (Companion vas AT Guide), the 2015 Companion will be divided in to 4 major sections, along with the front matter and appendices.

[Starchild]

You don't need to use proper paragraph breaks, but the opening blob you posted makes me not want to read it.

[fiddlehead]

You don't need to use proper paragraph breaks, but the opening blob you posted makes me not want to read it.
+1
I couldn't get through it to the end.

[freightliner]

Well cleaner the last two post sure maybe your point loud and clear. I always thought it would be cool to have a tourist guide to the AT. Even more than what they have. Theres so much out there to know thats not in the companion.

[rickb]

At one point I was about to remove such references from the Companion to cut down on a few pages, but most were put there by field editors over the 23 years the Companion has been published, and whom am I to remove it.

Don't do it.

Make them eat their spinach-- it's good for them.

BTW, I love threads like this that teach me something new about the Trail. Apart from the graves, does anyone know if the 13 person massacre:

http://www.ourstate.com/atrocity-at-shelton-laurel/

occured in the same general area? Or in the AT corridor? Those on the list who are familiar with my posts over the years can imagine how I might employ such information when it co,es to. The topic of safety along the AT. Just kidding. Probably.

[The Cleaner]

Marshal NC is the county seat for Madison Co. NC. It's a pretty small town and I'd say that the massacre happened somewhere near there as to have been seen by several witnesses. Lots of history around many trail towns....

[Alleghanian Orogeny]

A chapter in William Trotter's book "Bushwhackers: The Civil War in North Carolina--The Mountains" is dedicated to the Shelton Laurel Massacre. "Bloody Madison" is the chapter title used by Trotter. Trotter's account is pretty much the same as described in Philip Gerard's piece in "Our State" magazine, linked above.

I'd read Trotter's book some years ago (late 1990s?) and coincidentally am re-reading it now. Just last week I read the "Bloody Madison" chapter. The book refers to the killings having taken place at the mouth of a tributary creek of the French Broad River but it does not give the name of said creek. That squares with Gerard's account of the victims having been rounded up in the Shelton Laurel Creek basin, taken to Marshall, situated upstream of Hot Springs (then named Warm Springs), held there for 2 days, then marched back down the River bound for Greeneville, TN (or were they being taken to Knoxville?), then still occupied by substantial Confederate forces, for trial on charges of raiding the town of Marshall's salt supply. They were presumably taken along the Buncombe Turnpike, the "road" which followed the River between Asheville and TN. Like Gerard's account, Trotter's refers to the bodies having been ravaged by wildlife prior to their discovery and further refers to the remains having been collected and re-buried. Today, at the intersection of NC 208 and 212, just a few miles south of the AT crossing at Allen Gap, a NC Historical Marker mentions the massacre and notes "graves 8 miles E". That would place it off to the east/south side of NC 212 as it heads upstream along Shelton Laurel Creek to Devils Fork Gap. Somewhere along the way, I faintly recall reading the final graves are in the vicinity of Cutshalltown, more northeast than east of the historical marker, but in that general direction. From all of that, I'd assume the killings took place near the River downstream of Marshall, and that the families interred the bodies closer to their homeplaces deeper in the mountains within the Shelton Laurel basin.

In the course of reading here on WB and from reading a number of TJs over the hiking seasons of '12, '13, and '14, I'd become aware of the Shelton Graves along the AT between Allen Gap and Devils Fork Gap. I thought the AT grave site referred to the gravesite(s) of the massacre victims and I often found it odd that their graves were so far from the French Broad River and way up in a gap. Mountain people didn't then (and don't now) normally live on ridgetops or in gaps, so I often wondered why the massacre victims were buried way up there. I suppose they weren't after all. That means the Shelton Graves mark another and completely separate incident of bushwhacking by and among the NC mountain counties' natives.

Charles Frazier's "Cold Mountain" novel includes an account of an incident much like the Shelton Laurel Massacre. Trotter's nonfiction work is also a worthy read for those with an interest in the 19th century history of the highlands forming the NC-TN border.

AO

[The Cleaner]

The woods road which the AT follows for a few miles near the Shelton graves has been there even before the Civil War. The 1980 ATC Guidebook tells the correct story. 2 Shelton men from NC had been up north fighting in the Union Army. Upon their return they wet met and killed by Confederate soldiers near where their graves are today. A younger relative of the Shelton's had met them and was also killed. All 3 bodies in 1 grave. On the TN side of the mountain are very many "Sheltons" and some relate that they came from Shelton-Laurel NC. via the old road on the mountain. At one time there were extensive balds from near the graves to Big Butt and just beyond. Cattle were herded up Horsecreek jeep road to graze in the summer months. The herder's cabin was in the same area where Jerry's Cabin shelter is now. The shelter was built by the USFS about 1967. They used some stones from the herder's cabin to build the shelter. On the trail to the spring just to the left are the remains of the chimney from the herder's cabin still.:)