Mountain Heritage Center:
Meeting Those Who Settled North Carolina's Hills

Just a few miles from the bustle and lights of Cherokee and its casino lies the quiet mountain town of Cullowhee. The Mountain Heritage Center, housed at Western Carolina University, fills just three galleries, but tells the story of the Scots/Irish who settled the North Carolina hills and shows what skills they brought with them and what they had to learn to survive in their new home.

The first gallery tells the story of the settlers themselves. Most were descendants of the Scots transplanted to Northern Ireland when the English took over Ulster. By the mid-1700s, economic depression and rapidly rising rents left the small farmers destitute. They headed for the Colonies, hoping - like all the other immigrants - for a better life.

When they arrived, they moved to the mountains where land was waiting to be cleared and farmed. Names like McCracken, Buchanan, McDowell, Vance, and Colwell were common in the hills then, and they still are.

The exhibit traces one family, the Colwells, as they plan to leave their hardscrabble farm in Ireland. A replica of their dry-stone (built without mortar), thatched-roofed cottage gives a glimpse of living conditions. Photos of life in rural Ulster taken a hundred years later shows that not much changed during that century.

They brought with them whatever could fit into the steamer trunks, several of which are on display, none of which look as though they could carry enough clothes or supplies for a weekend camping trip today.

Farmers in Ireland, they naturally farmed in America, but learned new crops. Corn, beans, and squash replaced oats, barley, and potatoes. Flax, grown for linen in Ireland, never became a crop for the newcomers.

If they'd had television back then, there's no doubt the settlers would have been devotees of the Colonial versions of Bob Vila and "Home Improvement." A second gallery is filled with the tools the mountaineers used to build and furnish their houses and to develop and maintain their farms. Framing tools, drills, planers, and measuring tools hang on the walls, above a dresser with an inlaid design, a hooded cabinet for showing off the owner's pewter collection, an oak chest, and chairs and tables made of hickory and other local woods. There are more great old photos of people working with their equipment on their farms and homesteads, the sort of pictures that give a real feel to what that era was like.

A life-sized diorama shows the inside of a cabinetmaker's shop from those years. A full-sized log cabin is also in the gallery, complete with fireplace and the basic furnishings, just waiting for Martha Stewart to arrive and start decorating.

Even Martha would be impressed with the star of the collection, a quilt from the 1870s, kept in a special display case to protect it from strong light.

Quilting and woodworking were skills learned in the Old Country. Life in the Appalachians called for learning new ones. Turning pottery was one. The third galley is devoted to those who worked in clay. The potters said they had 'clay in their veins' and were 'raised in the mud.' They considered themselves craftsmen, not artists. They turned out the jugs, mugs, bowls, and other things needed by themselves and their neighbors.

That didn't mean they didn't have fun with their creations on occasion. Many of the jugs are 'face jugs,' with whimsical, ghoulish, bizarre, and just plain funny faces worked into the clay.

The Mountain Heritage Center is located in the ground floor of the administration building of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, NC. Hours are 8-5, Sunday - Friday from June through October, 8-5, Monday - Friday from November until June.
(828) 227-7129.
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