I stumbled upon the McDowell County Oral History website today. One of the videos I just had to watch was this one where Bill Carson tells the story as it was related to him by Dolly Vance about the flood of 1916 at the Orchard at Altapass.
If you’ve ever taken a drive up Highway 221 North from Marion toward Linville Falls, you’ve probably noticed the large rocks and boulders that dot the fields and pastures on both sides of the road. All those tons of rock tumbled down the mountainside and to their current resting place during the cataclysmic flood of 1916. [1]
Click on the picture above to see the video and here the story of the flood of 1916 as Bill Carson tells it on his CD.
It was on our first family trip to the mountains of North Carolina that I met Bill Carson. Like many of the places we visited that year, I went to the Orchard at Altapass to see the story I had only read about online.
As my family wandered about the store and I was enjoying the vistas from the porch I ended up bumping into Bill Carson at about the time one of the orchard workers showed up wanting Bill to inspect the trail they were clearing to the grave site of Charley McKinney where a new stone and a dedication was scheduled to happen. Bill asked if I’d like to ride along and I quickly accepted…Without saying anything to my family (better to ask forgiveness than permission) I followed Bill out to his SUV. A quick run up Orchard Road and a short scramble down a rough trail freshly cut into a laurel thicket and we were visiting the little McKinney family cemetery that had been overgrown for years.
The first person to settle here was Charlie McKinney. In the 1790’s he made his home here. He left his mark indelibly: in the course of his 85 years, he collected 4 wives and had 48 children. The wives lived in four separate houses along the trail, and attended church as a family group of five, plus children. He died in 1856 and his unmarked cemetery lies on a beautiful and peaceful spur off the Blue Ridge at the orchard.[2]
After we lingered a while in the cool of the heavy forest. We made our way back up the trail…Much more difficult than the tromp down. Since they were expecting some of the family members coming to the dedication to be up in years, there were handrails of fresh cut timbers to make the climb a little easier.
That was the first of our many trips to the Orchard…On each we picked up gifts for folks at home and fresh apples when they were in season…I forget which trip it was, but on one of our trips we had apples to munch on the whole way home to Texas.
If you would like to hear more about Charlie McKinney here’s a link to more of Bill Carson’s storytellin’…
The next time
[1] The Flood of 1916 « McDowell County Oral History.
[2] History – The Orchard at Altapass.
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