The Adventures of Bubba Jones Time Traveling Through the Great Smoky Mountains

by Jeff Alt

  “I’d want to stay,” I said.

  “Yeah, this place feels like it’s your own private playground,” Hug-a-Bug added.

  “In 1818, the first settlers arrived in the area. They had a vision of what you see today. But what they actually saw back then was flat land covered by forest. They realized the potential to make this into farmland. In 1818, the land still officially belonged to the Cherokee Indians. The Cherokee never settled in Cades Cove; they used it as their hunting ground. Over the years, more and more settlers flowed into Cades Cove to live. They cleared the land by hand to grow crops, carve out roads, and build churches and schools,” Papa Lewis explained.

  Papa Lewis set off on his bike again, and we all followed, cruising up and down small hills, enjoying the picture-perfect views. We rode past Sparks Lane, one of the original narrow roads that cut across the cove. Soon, we saw a distant cabin off to the right. We all got off our bikes and went over to read the historical sign on the side of the road.

  “Hey, Papa Lewis, it says here this is the John Oliver place, and they arrived in 1818. This must be the first settler family you were talking about,” I said.

  “Yep, that’s them.”

  We all walked a quarter of a mile through a tall grassy field, up to the homestead, which was set back into the tree line. When we got within about thirty yards of the house, we passed through a split rail fence. The fence was made of split tree trunks and branches stacked in a zigzag fashion.

  “This was how they constructed fences without having to dig postholes in the rocky ground,” Papa Lewis told us.

  The cabin was small, not much bigger than my bedroom at home. It had a small loft for sleeping, a front and back porch, and a stone fireplace. Red dirt filled the gaps between the stones of the fireplace, and the cracks between the logs that made up the walls of the cabin.

  “Can you imagine living here?” Crockett asked.

  “Why imagine?” I replied with a sly grin.

  A few other cyclists had just left the cabin and were walking back towards the road. We all walked around the cabin and out of view of the road so no one could see us. The roadside sign said the house was completed by the early 1820s. So, to play it safe, I took us back to 1825.

  My synthetic clothes transformed to cotton pants and shirt, topped with suspenders. A short distance away, there were two tree stumps with boards lying on top. Honey bees were zipping all around the stumps.

  “Those are beehives called ‘bee gums.’ The early settlers didn’t have sugar, so they used honey as sweetener instead. They also grew cane and made molasses to use as a sweetener,” Papa Lewis explained.

  We could hear the clucking noise of chickens coming from a small chicken coop, made out of stacked logs. The grunting of pigs could be heard from the barn off in the distance, next to a corn crib. A bell hanging from the neck of a cow in the field clanged as she stopped chewing grass and looked up at us.

  The sweet doughy smell of something baking, mixed in with the scent of wood smoke, caught all of our noses. We all walked around to the front of the cabin, looking for the source. A woman was sitting on the porch stirring something in a tall wooden bucket. She had the bucket wedged between her feet and knees so it wouldn’t tip. I spotted the source of the tantalizing smell—a fresh-baked blackberry pie sat cooling on a table up on the porch near the woman. Smoke swirled out of the cabin chimney. A skinned squirrel hung by a string beneath the porch roof. A young girl sat on the porch step staring at us. Next to the little girl sat a toddler-aged boy. He was wearing a dress which at first glance led us to believe he was a she. But I remembered Papa Lewis explaining that all young kids wore dresses back then.

  We had obviously caught the woman’s attention, but she never stopped her task and continued to churn the wooden stick around in the bucket.

  “Y’all must be our new neighbors,” the woman said.

  “We just arrived in Cades Cove today,” I replied, hoping my response was sufficient to explain our presence.

  “As soon as I’m done making the butter, I’ll serve ya up some fresh corn bread,” she said.

  “Mighty obliged, ma’am ,” I replied, trying to sound like I was actually from 1825, “but we’s just passin’ through.”

  “Can we help out with anything?” Hug-a-Bug asked.

  “No help needed, thank ya kindly for asking. When we first arrived here in 1818, we nearly starved to death. We could’ve used some help then. Some Cherokee Indians gave us some food to eat, and that helped, but those first few years was awful lean. By now we got things figured out. My husband John is out in the corn field and should be back in a few hours,” the woman told us, then added, “I’m Lucretia Oliver.”

  “We’re the Lewis family,” I replied.

  “You oughta’ stick around for supper. We’re fixin’ to have a nice meal of squirrel stew, corn, biscuits and blackberry pie.”

  “Thank ya, ma’am, but we best get goin’.”

  “Stop back again then.”

  We raised our hands in farewell and walked around the side of the cabin and out of view. We all huddled together to time-travel back to the present. Once there, we walked back down through the field towards the road, where we had left our bikes.

  “The dinner offer sounded good up until she said squirrel stew. Yuck!” Hug-a-Bug said.

  “Come on, Hug-a-Bug. It probably tastes like chicken,” Dad joked.

  “Hug-a-Bug, you’d eat anything that moved back then. The Smokies had plenty of game to eat like squirrel, rabbit, possum, fish, deer, duck, geese, turkey and even bear. They butchered pigs and cattle for meat, too. They would smoke the meat over a fire and cure it with salt to keep it from spoiling. Pork tasted best with that method,” Papa Lewis explained.

  “I would’ve liked to taste that fresh butter Mrs. Oliver was making,” Uncle Boone said.

  “How did they keep butter and milk cold?” Crockett asked.

  “Most families would build a little shed over a ground spring. This kind of shed was called a spring house. The cold mountain stream water would run right through the spring house. The family kept things like butter, milk, and eggs in the cold water of the spring—worked as well as any refrigerator,” Papa Lewis explained.

  “I sure wish we could have had some of that blackberry pie,” Crockett said, licking his lips.

  “I’d like to know where they got the blackberries from,” I said.

  “They picked them from the nearby woods. These mountains are loaded with blackberries, huckleberries, elderberries, and raspberries. They also picked other wild food like chestnuts, wild onions, dandelions, and turnip greens,” Papa Lewis answered.

  “I have to hand it to Lucretia and John Oliver and all the other settlers. I wonder if I could’ve done it. They worked so hard just to eat and stay alive. Today, we can easily buy all the things that they had to gather and make,” Mom said.

  “It’s unbelievable how far we’ve come since those days, but I’m sure you would’ve survived, Petunia (Mom’s nickname for her love of flowers). It’s in your blood,” Aunt Walks-a-Lot said.

  We all hopped on our bikes and continued on our journey. We were just a short distance down the road from the John Oliver cabin when Hug-a-Bug called out, “Bears!”

  We all turned and looked where Hug-a-Bug was pointing, and off on the right side of the road about thirty yards away were three black bears. It appeared to be a large adult female with her two cubs.

  “According to the National Park Service, it’s estimated that there are 1,500 black bears in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I’m surprised we haven’t seen more by now. They’re omnivores like us. But they eat more nuts and berries than anything else. For protein, they eat other animals,” Papa Lewis informed us.

  “Whoa!” Crockett responded.

  “We’re a little too close. Let’s back away slowly and stay close together. You should stay at least fifty yards away, never run or turn away, stick together, and make yourself look as large as
possible,” Papa Lewis advised.

  We all got off our bikes and slowly backed away. The mama bear nudged her cubs up a large oak tree. After we had backed up a safe distance, I pulled out my camera and snapped some great pictures. My zoom lens gave the illusion that we were much closer. Other cyclists stopped next to us and took some pictures, too. We watched the cubs climb down from the tree, then all three bears lumbered into the forest, out of site. We got back on our bikes and continued our tour.

  “That was impressive,” Aunt Walks-a-Lot said.

  “It’s much different seeing bears in the wild instead of in cages at the zoo. It’s scary, because you don’t know what they’re going to do,” Hug-a-Bug said.

  “That’s right. They are wild animals and they are unpredictable. If you do what I told you when you see a bear, you should be fine. Never feed them, and if they approach you, raise your hands above you to look bigger, wave your arms, yell, and fight back if it continues to come at you,” Papa Lewis added.

  “Fight back? How do you fight a black bear?” I asked.

  “Stay together. Throw rocks, sticks, hit it with your backpack, jab it with your hiking pole. Spray it with bear spray if you have it. Basically, let it know you won’t be an easy meal,” Dad replied.

  “Black bear attacks on people are extremely rare. Sadly though, careless people feed bears and this leads to their demise. As the saying goes, ‘a fed bear is a dead bear.’ When a bear learns that if it approaches people it will get food, eventually someone gets hurt and the bear has to be destroyed,” Uncle Boone added.

  Traveling with such seasoned adventurers like my papa, uncle, and dad was great. Not only had we already learned a ton about the park, but we were also learning bear survival tips.

  A short way down the road, we spotted an old church, built from wood and painted white. According to the brochure I picked up at the Cades Cove entrance, this was the Primitive Baptist Church. We all stopped and explored the grounds and building. The wood frame church was built in 1887, replacing the original 1827 log structure. Adjacent to the church, we found a cemetery where some of the original Cades Cove settlers were laid to rest. We wandered the cemetery for a while, examining the old gravestones, before returning to our bikes and continuing our journey.

  The Methodist Church came into view on the right side of the road, just a short distance further. Once again, we left our bikes to explore the church and walk through the adjacent cemetery. One thing I had noticed about both cemeteries really disturbed me—there were quite a few children’s graves.

  “Why are there so many kids’ graves in the cemeteries?” I asked Papa Lewis.

  “They didn’t have all the medical knowledge and skills, or all the medications that we have today. Simple colds and infections that you can easily tackle today could turn deadly back then,” Papa Lewis said.

  “The Cades Cove tour booklet said that the Primitive Baptist Church closed during the Civil War. That surprised me. I feel so removed from the rest of the world here in Cades Cove—I would think they would’ve been even more isolated back then. Why would they have had to close the church?” I said.

  “You get the illusion that you’re cut off from the world here because you’re surrounded by the mountains. But there were several roads leading in and out of Cades Cove, and the residents remained connected with the outside world. The Civil War divided our country into two sides. The war split families, friends, churches and entire communities, and sadly, many people died. There are even Civil War soldiers buried in some of the Cades Cove church cemeteries,” Papa Lewis replied.

  We continued our ride and stopped next at the Elijah Oliver cabin. A plaque out front told us he was the son of John and Lucretia Oliver. We had just met his mom, Lucretia, when we time-traveled. Elijah must have been the toddler on the porch. His cabin was very similar in construction to that of his parents, but with a few upgrades. He had a guest house built into the front porch, which Papa told us was called a “stranger room,” and not far from the main house we found the spring house where he would have kept his milk, eggs, and butter cold using the mountain stream water. Very ingenious.

  We rode on, approaching a turnoff leading to the Abrams Falls trailhead. Earlier, we had talked about hiking this trail at some point during our visit. We all pulled over to the side of the road to decide whether or not to hike it now. As we looked at the map, we realized that we were just a short distance from the Cable Mill where we hoped to find Cousin Will. The suspense of finding out if Papa Lewis’ cousin was at the Cable Mill swayed the group in favor of putting off the Abrams Falls Trail for another day. It was unanimous; everyone agreed to head straight for the Cable Mill. We rode on, picking up the pace, eager to find Cousin Will.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE SMOKY MOUNTAIN BIATHLON!

  We turned off the loop road and into a parking area for the Cades Cove Visitor Center. The parking lot was empty except for some other cyclists that had stopped to tour the grounds and use the restrooms. There were several buildings spread out around the sprawling grounds. Some of the buildings were not original to the site—they had been relocated from other parts of Cades Cove. The visitor center and the blacksmith shop were added later to enhance the tourist experience. But the Cable Mill is the original grist mill, in the same exact same spot where it was built by John P. Cable in 1870. Back then, there were several grist mills that operated in Cades Cove, but this is the only one remaining. We parked our bikes and walked along, following a sign directing us to the Cable Mill. Up ahead, we easily picked out the mill, a two-story wood frame building with a flume carrying water from a mountain stream, similar to the Mingus Mill, with the exception of the large water wheel on the side of the building. The water was spilling down into the waterwheel buckets and the weight of the water was turning the waterwheel.

  We walked single-file into the Cable Mill and found the miller hard at work grinding corn. We were the only visitors in the mill, and we approached the miller, hoping it would be Cousin Will.

  “Hi y’all, welcome to the Cable Mill,” the miller greeted us.

  “Are you Wild Bill?” I asked, getting right to the point.

  “No, Wild Bill filled in for me until today. He did a great job, too, almost as if he was a miller in his previous life. Why do you ask?”

  “He’s my Papa Lewis’ cousin, and we’ve been trying to find him ever since we heard that he was in the park. We’ve been to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, the Mingus Mill, and now here.”

  “I reckon he’s far up in the mountains by now. Wild Bill said now that his miller skills were no longer needed he was going to walk in the footsteps of Horace Kephart. He had a list of historical figures from the Smokies and he planned, as he put it, to ‘walk in their shoes.’”

  “Did Wild Bill leave you his cell number?” Crockett asked the miller.

  “He doesn’t have a phone. If you met him, you would think you were talking to someone from the 1940s. He dresses in clothing from that era, similar to what that guy is wearing,” The miller said, pointing at Papa Lewis.

  “You say Will, I mean, Wild Bill, was heading up in the mountains today?” Papa Lewis asked the miller.

  “That’s what he said. He was going to explore where Horace Kephart once stayed in the park.”

  “Thank you kindly,” Papa Lewis said.

  “Thanks for the information,” I said.

  “Here’s our contact information. If you see Wild Bill, can you give him this and tell him his cousin is trying to locate him?” Dad asked, handing the miller a piece of paper.

  “I sure will. Good luck.”

  We walked outside and followed the flume back to an old barn to discuss the situation out of earshot of other cyclists.

  “I think I know exactly where Wild Bill is going. We can catch up to him, but we have to move fast,” Papa Lewis said.

  “We’ve been one step behind Wild Bill ever since we found out he’s here. What makes you think we can catch him now?” I asked.<
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  “Until now, we’ve been days and even weeks behind Wild Bill. Now, we are only a half day behind him.”

  I pulled the park map out of my daypack, and unfolded it. Crockett grabbed one end and held it while I held the other end.

  “Where are you talking about, Papa?” I asked.

  Papa stepped over to the map held up between Crockett and me, and everyone gathered around. “Horace Kephart lived for a short time in a cabin near the Hazel Creek Trail. Right in here,” Papa Lewis said, pointing to the area of the map where the Hazel Creek Trail and the Jenkins Ridge Trail meet, over the mountain on the North Carolina side. He traced his finger along the Appalachian Trail and pointed at Derrick Knob Shelter. “Kephart spent the summer of 1906 at Hall Cabin near this shelter. It was used by cattle herders, but it’s no longer there. If Wild Bill’s retracing Kephart’s steps, he will definitely be at one of these two spots.”

  “That’s a lot of ground to cover. Do you plan on hiking in?” Hug-a-Bug asked.

  “Well, Hug-a-Bug, this is your opportunity to hike on the Appalachian Trail. We should split into two groups. One group will hike up the Anthony Creek Trail from Cades Cove to the Spence Field Shelter, then head north on the AT to Derrick Knob shelter. I’ll go with that group. The other group will ride horses up the Anthony Creek Trail and down the other side of the mountain on the Jenkins Creek Trail to the Havel Creek area. This way we can hit both areas in the park where Kephart lived, and we’ll be on the same trails Wild Bill is most likely hiking,” Papa Lewis explained

  “Where are we going to find horses?” Grandma asked. Grandma was probably worried about all that hiking. She has a bad knee and was probably planning to join the group going by horseback.

  “I have an old friend in Townsend, near Cades Cove, that owns horses. He rides them in the park. We can look him up. We should get moving. We have to get our hiking provisions ready before we go, and we need to get backcountry reservations for the shelters and campsites,” Papa said.