Place-names salute us in a revised gazetteer

[Rob Neufeld]

What place names make the N.C. list?

by Rob Neufeld

It behooves every historian to rhapsodize about place names, and I’ve got a good excuse. Michael Hill, state historian, has collaborated with William S. Powell, editor of the original North Carolina Gazetteer (published 1968) to produce the classic reference “updated for a new generation.”

So, I’ve got a word to say about Suit and Vests, two towns in Cherokee County. They’re in both editions of the “Gazetteer,” with geographical info. To get the poetry of the place names, you’ve got to go back to the circa 1970 columns of the late John Parris, author of Roaming the Mountains. 

No suits in Suit

“You can’t buy a suit in Suit,” O.C. Payne, former postmaster, told Parris. “If a man wants a suit he has to go to Murphy. And you can save yourself a trip across the ridge,” he added, “You won’t find any vests in Vest.”

The postmaster acknowledged the disappointingly undramatic origins of the names, but the truth was, the first postmasters had been a man named Johnston Suit and a family named Vests. This despite the region’s reputation for such colorful names as Sandy Mush, Turkey-fly-up, and Charlie’s Bunion.

The new edition of the gazetteer does add one fact to the “Suit” entry: “Served by post office, 1886-1955.” There’s poetry in this prosaic note. 

Ghost towns

Many of the new towns listed in the 2010 North Carolina Gazetteer have been added from a list of ghost towns once made post office-worthy by railroads and work camps. They appeared on D.C. Magnum’s 1901 map for Rand McNally, which Powell hadn’t used. One of Hill’s first additions is for such a town.

A is for “Adelaide, community in n Rockingham County served by post office 1883-1905.” A is also for Adams Run, a Henderson County town on Big Hungry Creek, with no post office stint to explain it.

I know where the Big Hungry spills into Green River just before “the Narrows”—the “section of Green River,” Hill’s new entry reads, “where rocks narrow to tight passageway. Favored by kayackers despite access difficulties.”

What about Adams Run

But I can’t find Adams Run. We can be pretty sure it’s not a new subdivision because Hill states his exclusion of them. “Some modern names do not belong in the book,” he writes in the preface. “This would include residential subdivisions, the kinds of communities that spell harbor with a ‘u’ and town with an ‘e.’”

I wouldn’t be so exclusive. History is history, whether it’s as romantic as “Fryingpan Gap” (near the Cradle of Forestry), “so named because a frying pan was left there at a common camping ground for the use of all comers”—or as Disney as Sherwood Forest.

But Hill had a constraint. UNC Press limited the expansion of the text to ten percent, or 1,900 new entries, a fraction of the possibilities.

Adams Run? That entry came from one of Hill’s expert local sources—specifically, his father, Ray Hill, a lifelong apple grower from Dana, just a couple of miles from Big Hungry Creek. Hill was also one of his own experts, and added this about Bat Cave: “Fans of 1960s ‘Batman’ television series coveted postmark.”

To Asheville’s relatively long entry, Hill added, “Historically a tourist and health resort, the city experienced a renaissance as a bohemian mecca in late twentieth century.” 

I'll See Your Adams Run, and raise You a Uree

The news has asked, and readers have answered. The article on place-names (above), inspired by the new edition of The North Carolina Gazetteer, posed a puzzler. Where and what was Adam’s Run, North Carolina?

“There's an Adam’s Run (complete with Post Office) in South Carolina,” wrote one reader. That would make one wonder if the North Carolina reference is an error.

But then came the word from Larry Allison, an Asheville general contractor, whose grandfather, Adam Kessler Hyder, had given the place its name. Hyder had also been a builder—so successful in the east part of Henderson County that he built a school a mile below his house on Big Hungry Creek, as a gift to the community.

“He was a retired contractor at the time,” Allison says. “When he finished the school, he was so excited, he ran all the way home. People saw him, and named the place Adam’s Run.”

That’s the way to name things.

Uree?

Now, what about the town of Uree in Rutherford County, asks Bob Mull, poser of the next puzzler. “Uree was the post office serving Bills Creek and other communities in Rutherford County when I was born there 71 years ago,” Mull notes. “Our daily mail was delivered by Jim Washburn Whitesides riding in his horse-drawn buggy.”

The Uree post office has since been closed. The Lake Lure Post Office now serves the area.

“The thing of it is,” Mull continues, “that there is not, and never was, a community named Uree as best as I can determine. I had asked old timers who would, if living, be 125-plus years old where the name Uree came from. No one knows. Does the Gazetteer comment on Uree?”

Dear Asker of Old-Timers: The Gazetteer does, barely. Following the entry for “Uree,” it reads, “community in nw Rutherford County on Broad River.”

Uree is not mentioned in Clarence W. Griffin’s classic 1937 history of “Old Tryon and Rutherford Counties.” But it is on current maps as an unincorporated area within the Chimney Rock Township.

An online genealogical resource points to Mary Frances Maud Williams, who was born in Uree and taught school at Bills Creek a century ago; and Rachel Lee Williams, her sister, also a teacher. The Williamses are a prominent family in the area.

The origin of Uree may be within our grasp.

Historians v. Erasers

An interest in place names is no trivial thing. More popularly than literature, they represent attempts to remember the past. Their tendency to get overwashed by marketing efforts is part of the story.

I recall going with Wilma Dykeman to the site of her husband’s family’s estate in the Lake Douglas area in East Tennessee. It had formed a major part of the geography of her extraordinary third novel, “Return the Innocent Earth.”

The entry road to what had become a modern subdivision was called Holly Oaks, after the old Stokely home. It led to the home’s actual site on what got dubbed Stokely Court. The legendary names had been appropriated as common property; but not a shred of the former existence survived.

The author and I went over to the spot where an African American friend of the Stokelys had pointed out the tree to which his mother had been chained during a lethal flogging by a previous owner. Not a root tendril or ghost contour presented itself.

Our landscapes can be doing a much better job of holding onto tradition.

PLACE-NAMES, PLEASE
Please begin discussing place names here, then we'll move the discussion to a "People’s Gazetteer” on “The Read on WNC.”
To learn more about Powell's and Hill's book, go to http://uncapress.unc.edu.

[Chivous Omar Bradley]

The origin of the name for Uree Post Office is indeed a puzzler. Since first reading the article, I've tried to find an answer.
Clarence Griffin, on page 613 of his 1937 "History of Old Tryon and Rutherford County, simply states: Uree---Postmasters: Philip H. Groce, July 29, 1885 (established); Benjamin F. Edgerton, December 31, 1885; Mrs. Mary E. Whiteside, July 1, 1914.

Mrs. Virginia D. Wilson privately published "Precious Memories - Bill's Creek Community Lake Lure, North Carolina" in 2008. She provides information about the Whiteside family connections to Uree on page 99 and pages 168-174. She cites information from E. L. Walker as early as 1940, Ms. Essie Whiteside who was the last postmistress, and Zack Whiteside, son of James Washington Whiteside who was a rural mail carrier for the Uree post office. Her book claims that Benjamin Franklin "Doc" Edgerton, as first postmaster, opened the post office from his home about 1885. He built the little 9 ft. by 12 ft. post office building about ten years later. Mr. Edgerton's wife first recommended that it be named Broad River Post Office, but this was rejected because there was already a Broad River post office. She then recommended Uree, which her grand daughter, Essie Whiteside, claimed was from an Indian word. A similar word in the Cherokee language possibly meant "rocky field".

Another possible explanation for the name was given by Sue H. Koon in an article on page 511 of "Rutherford County 1979- A People's Bicentennial History" published by Liberty Press Inc., Rutherfordton, N. C. Mrs. Koon states that the post office was first named Ureaka (sic) and later changed to Uree. Although this is not the explanation given in Mrs. Wilson's "Precious Memories" book, other information she provides does add some credence to this possibility. She points out that there was a gold mine nearby and that Eureka Baptist Church was organized near the home of J. W. Whiteside in 1897. This church existed until 1915 when it became a part of Rock Springs Baptist Church. James Washington Whiteside was the rural mail carrier for Uree Route One from 1909-1942 ( Will Flynn was the carrier for Route Two) until it was combined with a Rutherfordton Route. A post office by the name Eureka has long been in existence at Fremont, in Wayne County, N. C., so Eureka probably would not have been accepted for the Uree post office.

Until someone can find a definite answer, we have two possible answers from which to choose. So, I wonder if Bob Mull has found any other explanation by now