1861-1911 Timeline

Transylvania Timeline

1815

• Benjamin Allison built what is now the oldest standing frame building in western North Carolina.  

1820s

• First known private school, Davidson River Academy, established by Davidson River
• Presbyterian Church

1827

• Buncombe Turnpike connected Tennessee and Kentucky to South Carolina (ran through what would become Transylvania County creating an economic boom)

1830

• Congress passed the Indian Removal Act (In 1832 the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Cherokee)

1834

• William Deaver and Margaret Patton married.  They bought the Allison House and approximately 300 acres of land and enlarged the house to become a 12-room dwelling.

1838

• Removal of Indians by government policy.  In 1838-39, the U.S. government forcibly removed the Cherokee from their lands in North Carolina, leading them on the infamous Trail of Tears to the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). They left Pisgah Forest from Neill’s Hattery.  A small number of Cherokee people successfully resisted removal, however, by claiming North Carolina citizenship and by maintaining the right to remain on lands they owned. These people and their descendants were recognized in 1868 by the federal government as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.  
• Henderson County was created from Buncombe County

1848

• Under the leadership of Will Thomas, the remaining Cherokees were paid $53.33 each appropriated by the federal government for the trip west and 6.5% interest since 1836.  This total amount was used to purchase the mountain landwhich would become the Cherokee Reservation.

1850s

1857

• Charles Moore, James W. Patton and Thomas Miller started Davidson River Iron Works (iron ore mined on Boyleston Creek).  Closed soon after the end of the Civil War.
• School Established at the Eastatoe Ford (Now Rosman)

1858

• Morgan Mill constructed in the Cherryfield vicinity was, until its collapse in 1998, the oldest surviving industrial building in the county.  James Madison Morgan, later known as  “Big Jim”, was born in North Carolina, of British immigrant parents. In 1848 he decided to seek his future in Texas. He drove a pack of horses which he sold and then worked as a blacksmith for about ten years. He is said to have returned with $10,000 in gold and constructed the Morgan Mill in the Cherryfield vicinity. Until 1998, when it collapsed, it was the oldest surviving industrial building in the county.

Prior to 1860

• Court and county business had to be transacted in the courts of Jackson or Henderson counties.

1860

• English Chapel - early Methodist church

1861

• February 15: NC General Assembly passes act to establish Transylvania County from Jackson and Henderson Counties. Joseph P. Jordan introduced the act and named the county “Transylvania”.  John Willis Ellis was governor (1859-1861) Civil War, April 12 - April 9, 1865.  Many men in Transylvania County volunteered to serve in the Confederacy but others joined the Union Army.  No Civil War battles were fought in this county but it did become a haven for outliers and bushwackers – deserters and those avoiding induction.  Frequently, they took advantage of sectional tensions and wreaked havoc on the countryside.
• May 20: Secession of North Carolina from the Union
• May 20: Court was opened and held at the home of B. C. Lankford.  Thus the founding fathers met to create a county government.  On the second day of meetings county officials named a board of common schools, which became the founding governance body of what would one day become the Transylvania County Schools. The county seat was to be located in a place most convenient to the majority of the citizens and should be called Brevard in honor of Col. Ephraim Brevard, MD, a Revolutionary War hero and patriot.  B. C. Lankford, L. S. Gash and Alex English donated 50 acres of land for the Town of Brevard.  The survey of the townsite was made by James Killian, Chairman of the County Court, W. Probart Poor and Charlie Patton.  They were authorized to set aside space for public buildings and three churches and to sell the remaining lots at public auction.

1862

• Board of Tax Listings for May 3 listed a total of 447 slaves and 3 free Negroes.

1865

• African Americans in Transylvania County established French Broad and Bethel Baptist Churches.
   

1866

• The first Transylvania County Courthouse was a wood-frame building constructed in 1866 by George Clayton and Ephriam England for approximately $4,500.00. In 1879 a brick structure was started to house both the courthouse and a jail - this project was completed in 1881. The courthouse was expanded and a larger jail constructed in 1920. These structures were renovated ino 1983 to retain their aesthetic and historic significance.

1868

• Brevard town incorporated (had only seven voters and a population 50+) as the county seat.
   
• Brevard granted a postmaster. First post office in Leander S. Gash's store on Probart Street, later to be known as the "Red House"

1869

• First Baptist Church in Brevard organized in The Log Cabin (Baptist Church in Cathey's Creek about 1813. Burned down with records in 1820.)

1870

• There were 365 farms in Transylvania County

1872

• McGaha Chapel - early Methodist Church

1873

• Site deeded on North Gaston Street, Brevard, to B. C. Lankford & Trustees for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

1874

• The Board of County Commissioners appropriated $12,000 toward building a brick courthouse and jail.

1879

• First school building constructed at Quebec.
• County Commissioners approved plans for the County Courthouse.

1881

• County Courthouse construction was completed. Thomas Davis was the contractor. It was accepted by the county on February 7. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the two-story brick building is a modest but impressive example of Italianate Victorian architecture.
• This was the year an ambitious scheme was launched to build a passenger steamboat. Plans were that this steamer, named the Mountain Lily, would carry passengers and freight between the French Broad River and the junction of the Oklawaha River, a distance of 17 miles. The steamboat, launched on August 2, 1881, from Horse Shoe, was operated by the French Broad Steamboat Company and owned by Col. S. B. Pickens of Hendersonville. The boat was 90 feet long and could accommodate 100 passengers on its two decks. A flash flood in 1885 pulled the Mountain Lily from it mooring where it was anchored at Banner Farm Road.  It was mired on a sandbar and due to its weight could not be refloated. The wood was salvaged and used to build the Horseshoe Baptish Church. Its bell which rang from the bridge was installed in the belfry and called people to church.

1887

• Printing of the Transylvania Pioneer began in Transylvania County
• Davidson River Church, Sunday School started
• In an annual report sent to Raleigh, then school superintendent Whit Brooks reported "the need of this county is a larger school fund, enabling committees to pay good salaries thereby securing good teachers." (Transylvania County Board or Education, 1887).

1888

• Newspaper: The French Broad Voice
• George Vanderbilt purchased thousands of acres on which to build the Biltmore Estate

1890

• Turnpike constructed from Brevard, through (what became) Rosman to Cashiers
• First school building constructed in Gloucester
• Death of Dr. A. J. Lyday, who practiced medicine locally since 1846
• The Western North Carolina Republican served the region.
• By this date, what was referred to as "The Settlement" established a Post Office called Jeptha and operated until August 1901. Mail was then sent to Toxaway (now Rosman)
• There were 877 farms. Outbuildings had become essential to everyday operation

1891

• French Broad Hustler, a Democratic paper served the region
• Construction of original white-framed church, known as St. Paul's in the Valley (forerunner of St. Philips Episcopal Church) - first constructed in 1856.
• Town of Brevard deeded land for Brevard Presbyterian Church

1892

• The Sapphire Valley Mining Company began mining corundum along the Horsepasture River

1894

• Birth of Loretta Mary Aiken, known as Jackie "Moms Mabley", billed as the "funniest woman in the world"

1895

• October 25: First railroad line completed from Hendersonville to Brevard (H and B Railroad)
• J. Frances Hayes formed the Toxaway Company
• About this time the first plank road constructed under direction of Dr. Carl A. Schenck
• Clayton House (Hotel) was built in about 1895 on the corner of Main Street and Caldwell Street. It was owned by Joe and Belle Clayton. It was also referred to  as "the tin hotel" because its siding was time. On the first floor there was a lobby, the kitchen and a general store. Family quarters and guest rooms were located on the second and third floors.
• French Broad Hustler moved to Hendersonville; The Sylvan Valley News started
• Epworth School founded by Fitch and Sarah Taylor. Mrs. Epworth's school began at the Henning Inn, then moved to the Red House and became Brevard Institute. It later had a large campus on North Broad Street at the current site of Brevard College.

1896

• J. Frances Hayes built Lake Fairfield and the Fairfield Inn, a modern summer hotel with all the conveniences and comforts including electric lights and indoor toilets. The Fairfield Inn was dismantled in the mid-80s and the land was sold.
• The Toxaway Company was founded and the Toxaway River dammed

1897

• A colored Baptist Church" listed (Brevard Clipper, September 16)
• J. Frances Hayes built Lake Sapphire and The Sapphire Inn

1898

• Biltmore Forest School (first in America) started by Dr. Carl Alwin Schenck
• J. Frances Hayes purchased the Hendersonville and Brevard Railroad at a receiver's sale on April 29 - later renamed the Transylvania Railroad

1899

• First brick commercial building (McMinn Building) erected by Nathan McMinn

1900

• Toxaway Company built the Franklin Hotel ($25,000.00)
• Railroad extended to nine miles south of Brevard to Toxaway (now Rosman). Travelers could travel from Asheville, through Biltmore to Hendersonville on the Southern Railroad. Then switch to the Transylvania Railroad going through Brevard to Toxaway.
• The Franklin Hotel opened with rooms for 200 visitors
• First school established in Gloucester

1901

• In 1902 the people living in and around the settlement called Jeptha decided they wanted a town and on February 20, 1901 the Town Charter incorporated the town of Toxoway. The repetition of "Toxaway" was becoming confusing. Thus what was Toxaway in 1901, changed to Eastatoe on January 12, 1903. But within the same year, on February 28 , the designation changed back to Toxaway. Locals once again found this confusing and on April 7 changed the town's name to French Broad. This did not sit well since the river already carried that name, so on May 13 they changed the name back to Toxaway. This, of course, failed to clear the confusion between the town, lake and other points of feference. On July 18, 1904 Joseph Silverstein, who had started the Toxaway Tanning Company two years earlier, changed the town's name to Rosman. The name was an amalgamation of Ros-(in honor of a financial back name Joseph enthal) and - (in honor of another financial backer name Morris Ossky). This designation forth worth applied to the Post Office and since February 1905 also the railroad stop.

1902

• The Brevard Tanning Company in Pisgah Forest developed by J. Frances Hayes
• Joseph Silverstein (he changed the family name to Silversteen in 1916) established the Toxaway Tanning Company.
• The NC Good Roads Association was organized..

1903

• Transylvania Raidroad extended from Toxaway to Lake Toxaway.
• Toxaway Inn was completed in the same year the railroad reached it
• Construction began on the Aethelwold Hotel

1904

• Aethelwold Hotel in Brevard completed by John J. McMinn
• Chestnut blight was discovered. Formerly a very common large tree of the Mountains and upper Piedmont regions of North Carolina. Because of the chestnut blight fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica), which was introduced on nursery stock of the Chinese Chestnut (C. mollissima) in New York City by the 1930s-1940s, almost all the large trees in North Carolina (and throughout American Chestnut's range) were killed back to the ground. This was an irreplaceable loss to some landowners in the mountains where as much as 1/3 of the timber in some areas was American Chestnut.
• By 1904 there were 37 schools in the county, three of which were for African American students

1905

• T. C. Henderson had for some time been involved in local schooling. In the 1905 he was elected Superintendent of all schools in the county. He served two terms, 1905-1917 and again 1923-1929. One year after taking office (thus1906) the first bond issue for schools was voted by district and immediately took effect. He worked tirelessly at getting improved schools in all the districts. He consolidated some schools, and built new school houses where necessary. He was instrumental in providing an 8 months shcool term for all grades and all ethnic groups. He also established public transportation for school children.

1906

• Transylvania Cotton (spinning) Mill started on Whitmire Street, Brevard. Later known as Sapphire Cotton Mill and Pisgah Cotton Mill.
• Sourthern Railways signed a 50 year lease for us of Transylvania Railroad
• Transylvania County voters authorized the first issue of bonds for schools.

1908

• First gas-powered car (a Reo) in the county, owned by Dr. Edwin S. English.

1909

• September 13: Contract signed for 18 houses on Whitmire Street for Pisgah Cotton Mill Village.
• Jim Aiken, businessman and widely popular friend, died as volunteer fireman when a tanker truck turned over and exploded. He was the oldest some of Jane Aiken and father of Loretta "Moms Mabley"
• Cascade Lake was built in the Little River Community to produce electrical power for Brevard
• The Southern Appalachian Good Roads Association was formed.

1910

• Gloucester Lumber Company established by Joseph Silversteen after acquiring 30,000 acres of forest land from George Vanderbilt. Gave ris to the Gloucester Company Store.
• There were approximately 30 hotels and boarding houses in Brevard.
• Brevare Institute, operated by the Methodist Women's Missionary Society, Flourished in the 1910s and 1920s.
• Brevard #2 Colored School, forerunner of Rosenwald, opend for African-Americans. This was the first African-American school in the county. Later there were three schools for African-Americans, on located at Glade Creek, one in the Everett Farm area, and the county's sole Rosenwald school in Brevard. Everett Farm closed due to low enrollment. The Glade Creek School consolidated wit the newer Rosenwald School in 1948. It became the only school for African Americans  until Transylvania County Schools desegregated in 1962. Today the school serves as the administrative offices of the school system.

1911

• The Weeks Act of 1911 provided authority to establish national forest in the eastern United States (similar forests had already been established in the western states), and thus a number of early purchases of forest tracts became formalized. The Pisgah National Forest was formally established in 1916. The first forest which was purchased was the 31,000 acre Gennet Purchase in northern Georgia. In 1921 Boone National Forest was added and in 1936 most of Unaka National Forest. In 1954 the Pisgah National Forest was administratively combined with Croatan and Nantahala National Forests to be known collectively as the National Forest of North Carolina.
• The Sylvan Valley News sold to Ora L. Jones

 

 

National Timeline

1860

• Abraham Lincoln elected 16th President of the United States on an anti-slavery platform
• South Carolina seceded from the Union

1861

• Confederate States of America organized
• April 12 (through 9, 1865), Civil War
• May 20, secession of North Carolina from the Union

1863

• The South lost the battle at Gettysburg, Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves

1865

• American Civil War ends
• Abraham Lincoln assassinated by John Wilkes Booth
• Slavery abolished by the 13th Amendment

1866

• 14th Amendment establishes full national citizenship for blacks
• Ku Klux Klan formed

1867

• The United States bought Alaska from Russia for less than 2 cents per acre

1870

• Standard Oil Company founded by John D. Rockefeller

1871

• Great Fire of Chicago

1874

• Barbed wire first introduced - lasting effect in the American West

1876

• Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• Scottish-born Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone

1877

• Thomas Edison invented the phonograph

1878

• Congress established the District of Columbia (governed by Congress until 1967)

1881

• Robert Louis Stevenson published Treasure Island.
• Booker T Washington became the first head of Tuskegee Institute

1882

• German and Chinese immigration to the United States reached all time highs

1883

• Brooklyn Suspension Bridge - first bridge to use steel for cable wire

1884

• Hiram Maxim (American gun smith) invented the Maxim machine gun
• U.S. Supreme Court ruled vs Ku Klux Klan that interfering with a citizen’s right to vote was a federal offense

1885

• Iron frame construction employed in the nation’s first skyscraper in Chicago

1886

• Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, dedicated in New York harbor
• American Federation of Labor (AFL) founded in Columbus, Ohio

1887

• A Treaty with Hawaii granted the US rights to build Pearl Harbor naval base

1888

• Department of Labor was created

1889

• Celluloid-roll film produced by American photographer George Eastman
• North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington and Montana admitted to the Union

1890

• Rubber gloves used for the first time in surgery in Baltimore
• Idaho and Wyoming joined the Union
• Last Indian battle at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, resulted in the death of 200 Sioux
• Region served by The Western North Carolina Republican

1892

• Death of A.S. Merrimon, U.S. Senator (1873-1879), Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court

1893

• Financial panic resulted from a loss of confidence in the US monetary policy

1895

• Biltmore House completed
• The Contract Labor Act forbade the importation of contract laborers

1896

• Steam replaced the “water wheel”; industrialization picks up

1898

• Biltmore Forest School (first in America) started by Dr. Carl Alwin Schenck

1901

• Vice President Theodore Roosevelt succeeded President McKinley

1902

• President Roosevelt called for “a square deal” for every one

1903

• Wright brothers made the first famous flight at Kitty Hawk, N. C.     

1905

• Albert Einstein revolutionized the scientific world with the study of physical laws and publication of Special Theory of Relativity

1909

• Founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

1911

• Pisgah National Forest established by the U. S. Government     

World Timeline

1859

• Charles Darwin published: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection

1860

• Abraham Lincoln elected 16th U.S. President
• First practical internal-combustion produced

1861

• Italy (except Rome and Venice) united as a kingdom

1862

• Otto von Bismarck becomes Prime Minister of Prussia
• Victor Hugo publishes Les Miserables - dealing with the people of Paris

1863

• Civil war in Afghanistan following the death of Dost Mohammed

1864

• French chemist Louis Pasteur discovered killing disease-causing bacteria by boiling

1865

• Genetics founded by the work of Austrian monk (botanist) Gregor Mendel

1866

• Dynamite invented by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel

1867

• Volume I of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital was published

1869

• Leo Tolstoy completed War and Peace
• Suez Canal opened

1870

• Infallibility of the Pope asserted by the First Vatican Council

1871

• Britain annexed Kimberley diamond fields in South Africa

1874

• Guiseppe Verdi’s magnificent Requiem first performed

1876

• Korea established independence from China

1880

• Transvaal declared independence; proclaim republic under Paul Kruger

1881

• Boers in South Africa victorious over British; Battle of Majuba

1882

• The Hague Convention fixed three-mile limit for territorial waters

1883

• Paul Kruger becomes President of the ZAR (South African Republic)

1884

• As anti-Semitism grew, the first Zionist Conference was convened in Prussia

1885

• Congo Free State established under Leopold II of Belgium
• German Karl Benz invented the automobile
• Gottlieb Daimler patented the gasoline engine

1886

• Gold discovered in South Africa
• Death of Franz Liszt, the world’s greatest pianist

1887

• Radio waves first produced by German physicist Heinrich Hertz

1888

• Development of Kodak cameras - birth of mass amateur photography
• Pneumatic tyre invented by British vet John Dunlop

1889

• Treaty of Constantinople internationalized the Suez Canal
• Eiffel Tower was raised in months (by Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel) for the Paris Centennial Exposition

1890

• The Golden Bough, a landmark in anthropology, published by Scottish James George Frazer

1892

• German engineer Rudolf Diesel patented the internal combustion engine

1893

• Karl Benz built his first four-wheel car

1895

• Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi invented wireless telegraphy
• German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays

1897

• Gold discovered and mined in the Klondike: Alaska and Canada
• Emile Durkheim, the founder of French sociology, published his famous Suicide
• Malaria shown to be transmitted by the mosquito, not foul air

1899

• Start of the Boer War between South African Boers and British
• The first Hague Peace Conference attended by 26 nations

1901

• Australia established as a commonwealth with six colonies federated in equal status

1902

• Treaty of Vereeniging ends the Boer War
• Enrico Caruso, the legendary Italian tenor, made his first recording

1904

• Louis Cartier creates the world’s first wristwatch

1905

• The German sociologist Karl Weber studied the relationship between religion and social structure, publishing The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
• British biologist Ernest Starling coined the term hormone

1909

• The term “gene” was first used by Danish researcher Wilhelm Johannesen to describe material controlling heredity

1910

• Formation of the Union of South Africa 
   

By Brian du Toit and Susan Threlkel - Transylvania Sesquicentennial Steering Committee