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Many stories exist about the first frontiersmen who moved into the area that later became Clay County. They came not to a wilderness waiting to be occupied, nor one filled with “savages” as many suspected. When the white pioneers arrived, they found an area flourishing with villages inhabited by civilized Cherokee Indians living in cabins, tending crops, and exercising community governments similar to our current bicameral state and federal systems. The natives had already developed a written language and, by 1820, the Cherokees were publishing their own newspaper
Settling Alongside the Cherokees The pioneers also found the native peoples participating in lucrative trading with early European explorers and traders.
A 2006 note from Dr. Brett Riggs, a research professor at the University of North Carolina and recognized authority on early Indian history and culture, reports among the earliest white settlers prior to 1725 were John Sharp and Cornelius Daugherty. In the late 1830s others came to settle farms once owned by Cherokees who had emigrated west in l838, when the U.S. Government took over the land. As Riggs noted, “The federal government leased these farms to whites to prevent Cherokees from resettling the properties”
Also according to Riggs, among the first documented white settlers was a couple who operated a stand (rest area and store) from 1828 to1832 on the Unicoi Turnpike that ran from Georgia into the Clay County area. The stand was operated by Nathan B. Hyatt and his Cherokee wife, Ann Reed Hyatt, “who were business partners of the Love family in Franklin, North Carolina. Store records still exist and include a long list of Cherokee customers who traded there.”
In 1976, historian Guy Padgett reported in his book, A History of Clay County, North Carolina, that J.V. A. Moore (also a local historian, who died in 1962), said in an interview for a newspaper article that his ancestor, “John Covington (John C.) Moore has the honor of being the first white settler in Tusquittee—in 1832.”
A brief tribute to this settler in the County’s Tusquittee area (northeast of Hayesville’s town center) is in order to show the sturdy character and various trials facing the Moore Family and other frontiersmen. J.V.A Moore (James Virgle Alexander) is the uncle to present-day resident Carl Moore. “Uncle Virge” wrote an essay giving tidbits about John C. Moore, Carl’s great, great, great grandfather. John C. Moore was born into a Presbyterian family in Rutherford County, North Carolina in 1811, having a lineage of German, Dutch, Scotch, Irish, and English. When grown, he moved to Macon County, North Carolina, where he married Miss Mary Bryson and had a young son, Bill.
Like the typical potential settler, John C. scouted out the Tusquittee area and negotiated successfully with a Cherokee Indian to procure a small native-built cabin. Returning to Macon County, he and his wife Mary loaded up two pack horses with household effects and Little Bill, and trekked over Chunky Gal Gap on the major Indian trail used link Macon County and Tusquittee. The young family’s small cabin was located near Tusquittee Creek, approximately one-forth mile northeast of what was to become the Hayesville town center
John C. began clearing trees on his claimed property in preparation for planting and growing Indian corn. Using the felled trees, he began erecting a fence around this area, but an Indian neighbor protested, saying the fencing infringed on his possessions. Legend has it that the confrontation ended up in a fist and skull (head-butting) fight, during which John C. almost bit a thumb off the Indian, who rapidly retreated. The Indian returned with several of his kinsmen, but John C. demonstrated his commanding use of his flintlock gun and, thereafter, had no more trouble.
When John C.’s first crops were ready to store in his new granary, he hired an Indian woman, Sallie Peckerwood and her husband Jim to stay with his wife Mary and Little Bill while he traveled back to Macon County to get household supplies. When he returned, he soon began storing his crops, and the family lived peacefully with the Indians in the Tusquittee Creek section for a brief period, before the U.S. Government forced most of the Cherokees in the area to move westward. Afterwards, at a land sale held in Macon County, Moore was able to purchase land that he had cleared.
He is also credited for bringing the first wagon to track the soil of Clay County. The trip home with the wagon purchased in Tennessee was quite challenging. As they moved along, bit by bit, two men with him trimmed a road for the wagon and team of horses. At one point the wagon had to be dismantled and carried over a deep ravine around the side of a mountain. But, finally, they reached their destination.
Eventually, Moore sold his property in Tusquittee to James Allen Shearer and purchased land in the Brasstown area, a village approximately six miles west of Hayesville. While building a fence in Brasstown, his ax hit a boulder and broke into pieces. He examined the rock and discovered a great surprise. It contained gold! Soon this site became the Warne Gold mines.
And Still They Came John C.’s younger brother, William Patton Moore, later a Captain in the Civil War (Ibid.), also settled in the Tusquittee area, and the village grew rapidly as other pioneers followed, including Douglas Davis. Both families were Presbyterians and in later years established that church as the main Protestant denomination in the area.
About this time, Robert Henry also settled and lived in the County to the age of 93. He was 10 years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed, later fought as a young soldier in the Revolutionary War, and witnessed the Civil War (Ibid.). His 1863 gravesite is located behind the Country Store along Compass Creek off Tusquittee Road, approximately eight miles northeast of Hayesville.
In the early 1830s, some of the other settlers living among the Cherokees were Hiram Rose from Yancey County, North Carolina; Pete Mosteller from Catawaba County, North Carolina; and Henry and Peter Ledford from Tennessee. Both Ledfords had been Revolutionary War soldiers and are buried in Clay County. This Author has been unable to find where Henry Ledford was buried, but Peter Ledford’s grave is in Old Philadelphia Cemetery, which was relocated by the TVA when Chatuge Dam was built in 1941. Shown, photo of his gravestone from 1848. (To find Old Philadelphia Cemetery, go east on U.S. Highway 64 to NC Highway 75 South [toward Hiawassee, Georgia], and follow it approximately five miles south. Turn right on Jackrabbit Road and go one-forth mile. Cemetery is on the right.)
Daughters of the American Revolution (D. A. R.) has documented that another Revolutionary War soldier, Amos Brown, is buried in Clay County; however, the gravesite has never been located.
The frontier population continued to expand throughout the 1830s with an influx of other families. Among these were Robert Patton, Perry and Henry Sanderson, T. J. and William Pass, R.C. Slagle, Allen Shearer, Robert Martin, Jesse McClure, Elijah Herbert, and George Moore. Alexander Barnard settled on the Hiwassee River, approximately three miles south of Hayesville, toward the Georgia State Line. Families following were Richard Pass, who migrated from Georgia and settled near Hayesville; Joshua Harshaw, who settled at the mouth of Brasstown Creek, west from Hayesville on Old U.S. Highway 64; and Abner Chastain, who migrated from Burke County, North Carolina, and settled on Fires Creek, north of Hayesville off Tusquittee Road (Margaret W. Freel, Our Heritage: The People of Cherokee County, N.C. 1540 to 1955).
In the years between 1840 and 1850, other pioneering families entered the territory. George Bristol came from Buncombe County, North Carolina, and settled on Tusquittee Creek, approximately two miles northeast of Hayesville. Also, Robert Martin migrated from Wilkes County, North Carolina and homesteaded in the Tusquittee area with the Johnson family. Along the Hiawassee River, the John Alexander family and the Elijah Herbert family settled within two miles of Hayesville’s current eastern boundary.
Prior to the Civil War, George McClure came to the area and settled on the Hiwassee River. Harve Penland, Eli Ledford, William Marr, and Albert Moore and their families formed another settlement at that time in the old Indian village called Shooting Creek, located on U. S. Highway 64, approximately nine miles east of Hayesville.
Several early settlers are buried in the old Ledford Cemetery. Among these are four Civil War veterans, Elisha Mac Ledford, Daniel M. Ledford, and Jason David Ledford (with his wife) and a Thomas Henson. One of the Ledford’s gravestones is shown here. This cemetery is one of those relocated when the TVA built Chatuge Dam.
Others who came to live in Clay County in the last half of the 1800s were Archibald O. Lyons, in the Tusquittee area, and all of the following, who settled in the new town of Hayesville: the Allison Family, Charles Truett, G. H. Haigler, Dr. D. W. Killian, Dr. Sullivan, William H. Sanders, Joel Bowling. Jason S. Hyatt homesteaded in Brasstown and Robert B. Chambers moved into the Elf Community, which is approximately eight miles east of Hayesville.
The rapid growth of Clay County continued as more families migrated into the area and built homes near the new town of Hayesville. These included James Coleman, William Handcock, William Sanderson, and “Cass” Fain, famous for building the first brick house in the community. William Thompson and Riley McConnell settled along a section of the Unicoi Turnpike, one mile west of Hayesville town boundary.
The early families eventually were able to acquire large tracts of land for farming and selling surplus crops, which created the necessity for laborers. Hence, slavery came to the area.
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