Cherokee Names and Legends

BLOOD MOUNTAIN

Elevation 4458 Ft.

Chattahoochee National Forest
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In Cherokee mythology the mountain was one

of the homes of the Nunnehi or Immortals,

the “People Who Live Anywhere,” a race of

Spirit People who lived in great townhouses

in the highlands of the old Cherokee Country.

One of these mythical townhouses stood near

Lake Trahlyta. As a friendly people they

often brought lost hunters and wanderers to

their townhouses for rest and care before

Guiding them back to their homes. Before

the coming of white settlers, the Creeks

and Cherokees fought a disastrous and bloody

battle at Slaughter Gap between Slaughter

and Blood Mountain.

The historical marker gives interesting information about early dwellers in our land. The Cherokee who were in Union County long before the white settlers left us many names and legends that, though sometimes sad, enrich our land and lend much food for thought. The historical marker on Blood Mountain gives a taste of both legend and real history, and helps us know why the mountain was named Blood.

First, to the myth about the Nunnehi, immortal people. These were believed to be the immortals who dwelt in these mountains. Their task was to help all who traveled and needed assistance of any sort. We can only imagine how overwhelming was their tasks when the Creeks and Cherokees met in battle at Slaughter Gap near Blood Mountain. It is said the blood ran down so profusely from the dead and wounded that the whole area was covered in blood. Hence the names, Blood Mountain and Slaughter Gap.

Prior to the Revolutionary War, the Cherokee had made contact with English, French and Spanish settlers. They had learned to trade and make bargains with the European colonists. We find many instances of Cherokee leaders negotiating with traders and government officials. Oftentimes, the Cherokee would make raids against the settlers. Living on the frontier in those days was fraught with danger. In the Revolution, the Cherokee sided with the British against the colonists.

In 1791 at what was called the Holston Conference, Cherokee-American negotiations were somewhat stabilized. There followed several treaties in which Cherokee land was ceded to states and the federal government. By 1819, the Cherokee Nation was left with about ten million acres of their former land holdings. Some of the Cherokee began to move to western lands in the early 1800’s. The Overhill Cherokee that had remained in the mountains of Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee were the most adamant against moving west. In 1828, the government of Georgia declared Cherokee law null and void. Governor Gilmer, with the support of President Andrew Jackson, sent troops to push the Cherokees out. The next governor, Wilson Lumpkin, continued to push for Cherokee removal. Many had left before the final exodus and the Trail of Tears that began under the military direction of General Winfield Scott in 1838.

When white settlers began to come into what became Union County in 1832, some Indians remained but most had already moved.

The town of Blairsville was incorporated on December 26, 1835 and became Union’s county seat. Two reports exist about whom the town was named for. In his Georgia Place Names, Kenneth Krakow states that it was named for Francis Preston Blair (1791-1876), a Kentuckian, editor of The Washington Globe newspaper which was established to support Andrew Jackson’s presidency. The fine house in which F. P. Blair lived in Washington was purchased for government property and is now known as the Blair House.

The other person (probably more authentically) for whom the town of Blairsville was named was Captain James Blair. He was an official Cherokee Indian agent, born in Augusta County, Virginia in 1761, and listed as working in Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas as an Indian agent between the years of 1801-1835. The naming of our county seat town for this Blair was declared in “The Blair Family Magazine,” Volume 8, No. 3 in the Fall of 1990 by researcher Margaret Vance Webb. She tells how James Blair worked to settle land claims and to assist with Cherokee removal from Georgia. In Habersham County, Georgia, where Georgia Highways 115 and 105 intersect, a historical marker indicates that spot as where the “Blair Line” crossed. The historical marker reads: “It was a line between the state of Georgia and the Cherokee Nation, surveyed by Captain James Blair in the early 1800’s. The line extended from the forks of the Soque and the Chattahoochee Rivers in a direct northerly line to the Tallulah River. It was the boundary line in 1817 for all the lands east of the Chattahoochee River by the State of Georgia from the Cherokee Nation by the Treaty of 1818.”

This abbreviated sketch merely hits the high places of the stormy era of our history prior to and leading up to Cherokee Removal. Each time you hear a name, like Walisiyi, Trahlytah, Arkaquah, Coosa, Choestoe, and many more, know that the Cherokee left place names where they once lived, names that we now take for granted in our familiarity with our beloved county. Honor the names and the land left to us. They came our way at great sacrifice and with much heartbreak.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published May 20, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A Visit to Blairsville Around 1934

Believed to be the earliest extant picture of the 1899 Union County Courthouse, the edifice still stands on the square in Blairsville, Georgia. The red bricks were molded in the area. Architects named Golucke and Stewart designed the Romanesque Revival style building and M. B. McCinty received the bid to construct the building for $12,000, which was raised in one year by heavy increases in citizens' taxes.

The photograph was shot from the north view looking south. The old Christopher Hotel is shown on the right in the southwest corner of the square, and a store in the southeast corner to the left of the courthouse became Butt's Drug store later. (Courtesy Union County Historical Society)

What we call “the Old Court House,” now the home of the Union County Historical and Genealogical Society and the Union County Museum has occupied its present site in the center of the town square since 1899. Someone reconstructed a hand-made map of how the square looked one hundred and two years after the founding of Union County, the year 1934. Let’s take a visit this week to the town back then. It will help us get our bearings and appreciate the work and foresight of our forebears who really cared about the appearance and dignity of the county seat’s downtown.

Begin with the old courthouse itself. The modified Romanesque Revival style architecture stands out even today in its restored state as dignified and picturesque. The clock tower catches the eye first, pictured against the blue mountain sky, its arched windows on four sides once revealing the old bell that called attention to special meetings.

When that courthouse building was erected in 1899, these citizens served on the County Board of Commissioners: Jesse W. Souther (11-01-1840 – 03-07-1920) was county commissioner. Serving on the board with him were J. A. Butt, W. W. Ervin, and ordinary, John T. Colwell. Evidently then, commissioner and ordinary were two separate offices. These men put their heads together to try to come up with ways to finance the construction of the courthouse. They proposed bonds, but when the referendum was presented to the voters, it failed miserably.

They even considered a new site, rather than in the middle of the town square, on which to build the new building. After all, the older courthouse which had stood in the same spot, burned. It might be reasonable to find another location. They proposed buying lots diagonally to the courthouse square for $800, but that did not meet the public’s approval.

Mr. Stephen Major of Coosa District was generous and offered free land for the courthouse location if the citizens would but accept it. But again the offer of land, though with no cost attached, was defeated. So the commissioners decided to levy taxes to build a courthouse at the cost of $12,000. What a low price that seems to us in this twenty-first century. But then, the tax burden was heavy and many citizens had to sacrifice needed farm animals and other goods in order to keep their land and pay the accelerated taxes. To say the least, it wasn’t easy, building that grand edifice.

But the glorious old courthouse was built and it has stood, with modifications, for all these years since 1899. The center of court was moved to its new location in the new courthouse northwest of the square and the Historical Society undertook major restoration of the old courthouse. It was successfully placed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 18, 1980. Today, persons who want to research family history, examine displays of the county’s past, or enjoy the many cultural and artistic programs offered in the old courtroom have but to visit the old courthouse on the square. Thanks are due the citizens of the seventies and eighties and others since who have worked so unselfishly to maintain and perpetuate this portion of the county’s lofty past. C. R. Collins served as the first president of the Historical Society, and on the board then, during our country’s centennial year, 1976, were Edith Paris, Ronald Davenport, Herbert Dyer, Mary Smith, Ben F. Carr, Jan Devereaux, Bryan Webb, and Harold Nichols.

Now back to the year 1934 and that “in memory” visual trip around the town square and the old courthouse: Entering from the south, on the Gainesville Highway (recall that the Neal Gap Highway (now 129/19) was opened in 1925), a dwelling was on the right, and on the left a garage and another dwelling—this latter one once being the home of Judge Tom S. Candler. Proceeding around the square in 1934, visitors to the town would see a general store and a hotel building, with the jail a short distance behind the hotel. Next would be another dwelling, and on the corner, a general store. Next was a small café or lunchroom, a garage with a service station attached, and on the corner of the road leading to Young Harris, a drug store. Beyond that street, continuing around the square, another general store building, with an office building behind it commanded that space. I must mention that the Methodist Church was located just beyond this office building on the road leading to Young Harris. In later years, the location of the Methodist Church was moved just south of the square, and in the twentieth century, to its current Appalachian Development Highway location west of town.

Then continuing around the square, next came the Blairsville post office, an office building and a printing shop. A “lunch stand” was in the corner, and attached to it was a barber shop (Ben Wilson was proprietor and barber in the 1930’s). Next came a hotel (Akins), and then the street leading out of town and toward Murphy and Blue Ridge at the junction farther beyond town. On the southwest corner was a hotel building (Christopher) with another filling station attached, and a general store next door. Maybe someone in the readership can fill in names of people who owned these businesses and dwellings. The year 1934 was far too long ago, and I was too young to remember how the town square looked on some of my first visits to Blairsville from Choestoe to the south. But one thing I know and remember: A fondness for the place, its people and its history grew with each passing year. Here in 2010 I could wish for a time-machine so that I could return to those quieter days of yore when everyone knew his neighbor and all worked together, even to pay taxes that seemed impossible at the time. With a will the stately courthouse on the town square was erected, a substantial building that would be a monument to good government and a solid citizenry.

c 2010 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Mar. 25, 2010 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.