Notizen zu dieser Person
At the time of the establishment of the Great Smokey MountainsNational Park, Will Messer was by far the most prominant mamber of theLittle Cataloochee Community. He owned the most property, operatedseveral services businesses, and was a leader in educational and churchaffairs. Through marriage, his family ties extended into the Dan Cookfamily, the John Jackson Hannah family, and other family groups in thearea. As a man of considerable native talent and curiosity, he broughtmany innovations to the community. His remarkable energy and leadershipqualities seem to have infused the entire community. After his passing,Will Messer was remembered as a man who was constantly in motion tendinghis crops, building something, or tinkering to find a solution to someproblem that was on his mind. Will Messer's ancestors appeared in Haywood County during the firsthalf of the nineteenth century. His grandfather Daniel A. Messer livedin the Fines Creek area. His parents Elijah and Christina, bought Loveestate land and moved into Cataloochee during the 1870's. Survivingresidents of the area rembere Elijah as someone who had "always beenthere". He aparently loved books and had enough interest in the "outsideworld" to maintain a subscribtion to the Alanta Constitution and othernewspapers. The elder Messer was an expert axman, cornerman, andstonemason, and had a reputation as one of the best fiddle players in theregion. Will certainly inherited his father's alertness and curiosity. Will Messer was born on April 28, 1870, and became a part of theLittle Cataloochee community when he married Dan Cook's daughter Rachel.Will and Rachel moved in with the bride's parrents, and The Messers'first child, Flora, was born in the Cook house. The couple becameparents of eleven children, ten girls and one boy. Will took great pridein his large family, and frequently liked to boast that he had "tendaughters and everyone of them's got a brother". The marrage of hisdaughters into the Hannah and Palmer families extended Will's connectionsthroughout the Cataloochee settlements. Will and Rachel built their own log home on the upper portion of theCook estate which they purchased from her brother Harrison on December14, 1895 for $350. The house had one of the finest stone chimneys to beseen in the area. Messer added a barn, an apple house, and a springhouse to this property. The apple house was later removed andreconstructed by park personel at the Oconaluftee Pioneer Farmstead nearCherokee, NC. Dan Cook continued to occupy the old homeplace until hisdeath in 1908. From Cook's passing until the establishment of the Park,the old homeplace was occupied by tenats employed by Will Messer. Will moved his family again sometime after 1905, when he purchased a100-acre tract on Little Cataloochee Creek from J.C. Correll. Thisproperty was previously owned by A.J. Vess, one of the pioneer settlersin Little Cataloochee, and ajoined the southern boundary of the JohnJackson Hannah estate. The Messers occupied a house that had been builtby Correll until a new dwelling was completed about 1910. The new housewas the largest and finest structure in Little Cataloochee. It containedeleven rooms, had hot and cold water, and was illuminated by an acetylenelighting system. On this portion of his property Will developed severalbarns and mills, a general store and post office (Correll's old house), ablacksmith shop, and several other structures. The post office was giventhe name Ola, after The Messers' daughter Viola. The house and all ofthe other structures were later removed by the Park Service. The construction of Messers's "big house" on Little CataloocheeCreek marked his arival as the most prosperous and industrious citizen inthe community. Between 1894 and 1915 he acquried several houses and some340 acres of the best land in the area. He farmed, raised subsistencecrops, corn and perhaps some tobacco, as well as cattle, hogs, sheep, andhorses. With the aid of his family and tenant labor, he developed threehighly productive aple orchards, established a furnishing store and postoffice for the community, and installed a sawmill, a canmill, and agristmill. Will operated his gristmill on Saturdays. He charged onegallon of corn out of eight ground as his toll. The toll corn was thenfrequently sold to renters and teants in the area. Will eventully became something of a businessman and banker. Heacquired a store and other property in Newport, Tennessee, and hefrequently loaned money-at-intrest and made deed-of-trust arrangementswith his neighbors. He established a cattle schale and a small stockyardnear the old Cook homeplace. He charged five to ten cents per head toweigh cattle, and he purchased stock which he marketed in Tennessee andvarious lumbering camps in the area. Finally Messer was an undertaker(of sorts), since he made and sold most of the coffins used in the area.He saved the finest lumber that he collected for coffins, and Rachelsewed the linings. A coffin normally sold for seven dollars but wasprovided without charge to impoverished neighbors. Will Messer was a true jack-of-all-trades who could make anything hewanted out of iron or wood. A niece recalls that he was a "well-read,very intelligent, money-making man", and that "everything he touchedturned to money". Will's inventiveness was constantly challenged by therugged mountain environment, but he worked incessantly to improve hissurroundings. At the time of the construction of his "big house" onLittle Cataloochee Creek, he devised a cutting machine to speed up theprocess of making shingles for the roof. Dissatisfied with theunreliable nature of water power, he bought a steam engine to run hissawmill and a gasoline engine to run his gristmill. A neighbor recallsthat Will could cut a thousand feet of lumber a day by himself. And heowned the first touring car and pickup truck to appear in LittleCaraloochee. In other words, Will was a willing participant in theadoption of many technological and machanical changes that transformedAmerican life during the early twentieth century. Even though he was a shrewd businessman, Messer's drive to makemoney was tempered by the needs of his community. He is said to havebeen "helpful, generous, and honest". He extended credit in his store,often carring a neighbor's account for as long as twelve months. Heaccepted eggs and honey in trade for coffee, sugar, salt, and otherneeded store-bought supplies. Children frequently earned money bybringing in harvests of nuts and berries. Will also contributed his timeand money to the building and maintance of the Little Cataloochee BaptistChurch, and he and his neibhors frequently made contributions to pay thesalary of the community's school teacher. Will was a supporter of theRepublican party, but politics played only a minor role in the affairs ofLittle Cataloochee. Apples were the real source of Will's prosperity. Indeed, theintroduction of apple growing into the area around the turn of thecentury transformed the economic and social framework of LittleCataloochee. After the development of the orchards, the area ceased tobe an isolated backwoods subsistance famring community with few ties tothe outside world. The income dervied from apples permitted the growersto purchase manfactured goods in Newport and Cosby, Tenn., in Waynesvilleon the N. C. side, and from mail order houses such as Sears and Roebuck. Apple growing for commercial purposes was interduced in to theCoggins Branch-Little Cataloochee Creek area by Will Messer and hisNeighbors, John Burgess and Mack Hannah. Messer and Burgess werebrothers-in-law, of course, was a close freind and father of Messer'sson-in-law, Mark Hannah. The growers acquired many of their trees fromthe Stark Brothers Nurseries in Missouri. Species grown included theStark Red Delicious, Stark Golden Delicious, Winesaps, Staymans,Jonathans, and the Black Hoover (which did not sell after the onslaughtof the Great Depression). About 1915 Will constructed an unusually largestone and wood apple house on a site across the road from the originalDan Cook homeplace. This structure played a considerable role in thecollection and storage of apples produced by the rapidly expandingorchards in the community. During the harvest season running from about September 15 throughearly November, apples were gathered and graded in the bins and barrelsin side the storage houses. The entire community participated. Thewives and small children were kelpt busy cooking food and feeding theextra hands that were brought in to help collect the crop. In addition,meals had to be prepared for the buyers and teamsters who came into thearea to load apples. During the winter and spring, Will and the othergrowers sold apples for fifty to a dollar fifty cents per bushel inmarkets in Tenn. and to the lumbering camps at Creastmont, Sunburst, andMt. Sterling. A portion of the crop was probably turned in brandy, sincea neighbor named Braz Whaley possessed a distiller's license. At the time of the establishment of the Park. Will stated that hisapple crop brought in between $500 and $3000 per year, with $2000 beingthe average. The Burgess orchard produced about 1800 bushels per year.Additional income was was earned by selling supplies to the area'slumbering camps. Large amounts of butter, vegetbles, meat, cider, honey,and syrup were needed to feed the hands working in the camps. Surviving members of the Little Cataloochee community recall thatthe Messers enjoyed a close and productive family life. Rachel Messermanaged her large household in an efficient manner and maintained areputation as an unexcelled cook. A daughter stated that Will and Rachelwanted their children to be the best dressed and best taken care of, ofany children in the community. At Christmas and Easter Will insistedthat his family be provided with new clothing. The marriage of theMesser's oldest daughter Flora to Charles Morrow in 1916 was turned intoan occasion long rembered by area residents. Everyone was invited, and acheif was brought in from Knoxville to prepare the wedding feast. Afterthe reception, the bride and groom were taken to Waynesville for thehoneymoon in a hired four-horse surrey. The Messer family worked hard, but ordinary taskes were often turnedinto social occasions. House-building was undertaken as a communityproject, accompanied by a large feed for all concerned. At harvest timecorn-shucking parties were organized and bashful girls secretly hoped aboyfreind would discover the prized "red ear" which was rewarded with akiss. Courting couples often enjoyed going possum-hunting at night,chaperoned by older married freinds. And children learned necessarytasks by being taken on expeditions to search for nuts, berries, and wildbee trees. Flora Morrow recalls that "we children did our share of thework," but "we was considered good livers." Mark Hannah states thatchildren "didn't get too small to work at Mr. Messer's house." The way of life known by the Messers and the other families residingalong Coggins Branch and Little Cataloochee Creek was brought to anabrupt end during the late 1920's and early 1930's by the establishmentof the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. Will Messer accepted the$35,405 offered to him for his property in a condemnation settlement.With more than a touch of bitterness, Messer declared that he had thebest place in Cataloochee, but received no more than half the value. "Ihave tried it out," he stated, " and I couldn't buy that sort of placefor double the money. With fences and grass and everything, I was robbedout of $35,000 clear dollars." Messer accepted the commission's offerbecause he did not want to go to court and "take a chance with a pickedjury since you never can tell who anybody is going to marry or what ajury will do." Between 1930 and 1934 Will gradually moved his family and householdto Caldwell County, NC. On March 31, 1930, he purchased 1208 acres ofland in Happy Valley in the Patterson community. A portion of his newproperty had once been owned by the Revolutionary War Hero, GeneralWilliam Lenoir. For the remainder of his life Will continued to farm andoprate a general store. Upon leaving Little Cataloochee, Will removedhis tools and machinery to his new home, but the "big house" wasdismantled, sold, and used in the construction of three houses outside ofthe park area. Characteristically, Will died at work. On Dec. 4, 1946, he wasfound dead in a corn crib where he had been preparing feed for his cows.His widow, Rachel, died on Aug. 4, 1964. Will and Rachel were buried inthe cementery of the Piney Grove Baptist Church near the Pattersoncommunity. Their epitaph reads: "We shall meet again." Today the site that was once occupied by Messer's "big house" ismarked by a large re spruce which Will planted in his yard years ago.The National Park Service leased the Messer orchards to Mark Hannah for anumber of years after 1930, and for this reason the apple house on theDan Cook place and the barn on the "upper place" were allowed to stand asreminders of what had passed in Little Cataloochee.
Jürgen
Lampe
