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Interactive Map - Places to Go - Tidbits & Contacts - More to See & Do |
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Sites in Murphy The Cherokee County Historical Museum The Cherokee Heritage Trails interpretive center for the Murphy area is located in the Cherokee County Historical Museum, situated in downtown Murphy next to the Cherokee County courthouse. This non-profit museum, housed in a historic brick Carnegie library building, maintains extensive collections of prehistoric and historic era artifacts, as well as document collections important to the rich heritage of Cherokee County. Exhibits in the upstairs galleries include displays of seventeenth and eighteenth century Cherokee artifacts from Peachtree Mound and Village and other local sites. Displays of mid-nineteenth century farm and homestead equipment illuminate the lives of early white settlers in the area, while interspersed photographs chronicle the later nineteenth century and early twentieth century development of Murphy and Andrews. Photographic portraits of members of Murphy's early black community round out an image of Cherokee County's unexpectedly diverse heritage. The ground level floor of the museum houses exhibits that provide overviews of prehistoric era native culture and technology in the region. This part of the museum is currently under development as a local center for the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail and the Unicoi Turnpike National Millennium Flagship Trail; planned exhibits focus on presentation and interpretation of the Cherokee Trail of Tears and nineteenth century Cherokee life in the upper Hiwassee River Valley. These exhibits will include a reconstruction of a fully-equipped Cherokee cabin interior from the 1830s, interpretations and maps of the Cherokee cultural landscape circa 1837-'38, and a treatment of local resistance against the military removal and the development of post-Removal Cherokee communities in the local area. Contact : The Cherokee County Historical Museum, 87 Peachtree
Street, Murphy, NC 28906 Fort Butler, once located on a hilltop overlooking present-day Murphy, was headquarters for the Eastern Division of the U.S. Army of the Cherokee Nation during the forced removal of 1838. From mid- June through mid-July of that year, more than 3000 Cherokee prisoners from southwestern North Carolina and adjacent parts of Georgia passed through Fort Butler at the outset of the Trail of Tears. Although some Cherokee prisoners were incarcerated for as much as two weeks in the internment areas surrounding Fort Butler, most stayed at the fort only a few days before marching west along the Unicoi Turnpike toward the Cherokee Agency and "emigration depot" at Fort Cass, now Charleston. Tennessee. The site of the fort, at the intersection of Cherokee and Fifth
Streets near Riverside Drive in Murphy, North Carolina, is now privately
owned and occupied by a large brick residence. Although substantially
modified over the past 163 years, the site is still recognizable
as the location that Lt. John C. Fremont sketched in 1837 (see figure
[query: is this figure going to be included - ]). To gain Fremont's
perspective on the fort location and surrounding landscape, walk
to the top of the hill at the intersection of Fifth and Hitchcock
streets and look northwest-ward across the knoll toward downtown
Murphy. Immediately downslope from the fort site, Cherokee Street
follows the old Unicoi Turnpike alignment westward toward the internment
camps of Tennessee and the new home of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. Contact: The Cherokee County Historical Museum, 87 Peachtree
Street, Murphy, NC 28906 Trail of Tears Interpretive Area and Many of the Removal era sites in the Murphy area, such as Fort
Butler, the Army encampments, Hunter's Store and Ferry, the Unicoi
Turnpike, Christie's Ford and the Ned Christie farm, are brought
together in a single interpretive context at the old L&N Depot,
next to the Hiwassee River in Murphy. This Trail of Tears commemorative
area features a series of outdoor interpretive panels along a short
walkway that offers visitors vantage points of important sites clustered
along the riverfront. The centerpiece of this riverside interpretive
area is a low stone wall engraved with the names of more than 3,000
Cherokee citizens who passed through Fort Butler on the first leg
of their 1838-1839 journey over the Trail of Tears. These names,
in Sequoyan syllabary, are transcribed from signatures on an 1838
petition circulated by Cherokee councilman J.D. Wafford; this petition
is the sole record of the names of all Cherokees, male and female,
young and old, in the area. Removal era sites are particularly clustered along the river near
the L&N Depot because the area near the confluence of the Hiwassee
and Valley rivers has long been a strategic hub for regional transportation
and communication. Just below the confluence, the relatively broad
valley of the Hiwassee constricts into a narrow gorge, and paths
and roads traveling westward are forced from the level valley into
rugged uplands. The state road from Franklin, N.C. to Murphy, constructed
by Cherokee contractors in 1836-1837, crossed Christie's Ford just
below the L&N Depot to join the Unicoi Turnpike, once the main
thoroughfare through the region. Slightly downstream, below the
mouth of Valley River, travelers headed west on the turnpike could
cross the Hiwassee on A.R.S. Hunter's ferry (ca. 1832) or via a
bridge that Cherokee contractors built for Hunter in 1837. Sites Near Murphy Rivercane Walk at the John C. Campbell Folk School The John C. Campbell Folk School at Brasstown, North Carolina is
located near the mouth of Little Brasstown Creek, in the heart of
the old Cherokee community of Aquohee (English translation: Big
Place). The school, founded by Olive Dame Campbell in 1925, offers
a wide variety of programs in folk arts and traditional music and
dance aimed to foster appreciation for the traditional cultures
of Appalachia while promoting personal development. As part of its
campus enhancement, the school is developing a 1.5 mile walkway
on its property along Little Brasstown Creek; this Rivercane Walk
is interspersed with trail side exhibits that relate the natural
and cultural history of the lower Brasstown Creek Valley and the
surrounding area. One theme of the trail relates to the rivercane
that lines the creek's margin. Cane, which figured prominently in
traditional Cherokee architecture and is still used for traditional
crafts such as basketry and blowgun manufacture, signifies the health
of stream side environments in the southern mountains, and the folk
school's efforts to restore and rejuvenate Little Brasstown Creek
are symbolized by return and spread of the canebrakes. Exhibit panels along the Rivercane Walk present an annotated map
of the 19th century Cherokee cultural landscape in the lower Brasstown
Creek Valley and discuss the Aquohee community and the lifeways
of its Cherokee inhabitants on the eve of the 1838 military removal.
Featured topics are the Aquohee District, a Cherokee administrative
area centered at a local townhouse; Situwakee, the Aquohee District
judge and Removal era leader who lived nearby on Settawig Road,
and the Unicoi Turnpike, which ran along Settawig Road and crossed
Brasstown Creek just north of the folk school property. Panels also
discuss Peter Oganaya's Baptist church at Aquohee (now Brasstown),
where troops gathered to arrest the congregation for removal. One
panel discusses local petroglyph sites, where images engraved in
stream side boulders depict spirals, crosses, hands, four-legged
animals and water monsters, icons carved by local inhabitants hundreds
or thousands of years ago. Contact: John C. Campbell Folk School, One Folk School Road,
Brasstown, North Carolina 28902 Side Trips U.S. 64 through Peachtree to Hayesville Some of the more important Cherokee sites accessible from the Murphy
hub are located eastward along U.S. 64 on the route toward Hayesville
and can be visited in an afternoon's scenic drive through the Hiwassee
River Valley. All of this landscape is permeated by Cherokee history;
some of the key sites accessible from U.S. 64 east of Murphy are
the Peachtree Mound and Village locality at Peachtree, the Valleytowns
Baptist Mission site at Peachtree, and the Aquohee community area
at Brasstown (visit the John C. Campbell Folk School). Farther east,
at Hayesville, is the site of Fort Hembree (a Removal era military
post), the Spikebuck Mound and Village site, and the Clay County
Historical Arts Museum. From Peachtree, N.C. southeastward through Hayesville, U.S. 64
follows the route of the eighteenth century trading path that stretched
from Charlestown, S.C. to the Overhill settlements of Tennessee.
East of the Hiwassee River bridge in Clay County, U.S. 64 also corresponds
with the Unicoi Turnpike, traveling along Sweetwater Creek, and
crossing Sweetwater Gap to descend into Hayesville. Seven miles east of Murphy, U.S. Highway 64 crosses the old Valleytowns
Baptist Mission Farm on the west side of the Hiwassee River near
Peachtree, North Carolina. Here, in 1820, the American Baptist Foreign
Mission Board founded a church, boarding school, and model farm
to "civilize" and Christianize the Cherokees in the Aquohee District,
the most remote and insular part of the Cherokee Nation. The missionaries
built at old Aquonatuste town; a small community of Natchez Indians
abandoned the site when the Baptists arrived. When the mission opened its doors in November 1820, Cherokee parents
from the surrounding region placed almost 50 children under the
care of the Baptist teachers. The missionaries first attempted to
teach school by English language total immersion, but most of the
students were quickly disheartened by lessons in an alien tongue.
The teachers, particularly Evan Jones, resolved to learn the Cherokee
language and conduct the school in the best interest of the monolingual,
full-blood Cherokee population. Through use of the Sequoyan syllabary
as a primary teaching tool, the Valleytowns Baptist Mission school
became the most successful and popular of the Protestant mission
schools to operate in the Cherokee Nation. Contact: The Cherokee County Historical Museum, 87 Peachtree
Street, Murphy, NC 28906 The site of Fort Hembree, a Removal era U.S. Army facility, is
located on Fort Hill on the western side of Hayesville (use 1838
Army map). The site fronts on Fort Hembree road, and occupies the
much of the hilltop flat across the western half of Fort Hill. The
fort site is privately owned and is not open for public visitation,
but a roadside exhibit at the junction of Fort Hembree road and
U.S. 64 provides visitors an opportunity to view the landscape from
the ground. The U.S. Army founded Fort Hembree in 1837 as part of its preparation
for the forced removal of the Cherokee people from southwestern
North Carolina. The hilltop location commands the basin area formed
by Town and Blair creeks and gave the army easy access to densely
populated communities of Tusquittee and Shooting Creek. The fort
also controlled the Unicoi Turnpike, and guaranteed the Army of
the Cherokee Nation its primary line of supply and communication. Contact: Clay County Historical Arts Council, P.O. Box 5,
Hayesville, NC 28904. Clay County Historical Arts Museum The Clay County Historical Arts Museum, located in the old county
jail in Hayesville, North Carolina, features exhibit panels that
detail the nineteenth century Cherokee landscape of Clay County,
relate the role of Fort Hembree, and discuss the impact of the removal
and Trail of Tears on the Cherokee people of Clay county. Artifact
displays present materials recovered from excavations at the Spikebuck
Village site, the old town seat of Quannassee; these reflect of
the late prehistory and early history of the area that would become
Hayesville. Other items exhibited in the museum, such as antique
farm implements, a moonshine still, and an early telephone system
represent the Anglo-American experience in Clay County. Exhibit panels relate vignettes about the Cherokee inhabitants
of the local area in the years leading up to the Cherokee removal.
For instance, Judge Richard Walker, who lived west of Hayesville
near Brasstown Creek, served as justice for the Cherokee Supreme
Court. Walker, a full-blood reared by white adoptive parents, was
an English literate planter and entrepreneur who owned extensive
properties outside the Cherokee Nation. Walker, an early patron
of the Baptist Mission, is immortalized by Walker Branch, a tributary
of Brasstown Creek. Account records from Hyatt and Love's Store
at Hayesville are illustrated on one panel. These records list local
Cherokee customers and their purchases; the accounts survive as
part of a settlement in a business scam that one of the partners
attempted- the other partner harassed Cherokee debtors for years.
Another panel discusses the origins of local place names and their
relations to the pre-Removal Cherokee communities of the Hayesville
area. For instance, Blair Creek is named for George Blair, a Cherokee
planter deported to Oklahoma in 1838; Downing Creek and Jack Rabbit
Mountain are named for individuals (Richard Downing and Jack Rabbit)
who managed to avoid removal. Contact: Clay County Historical Arts Council, P.O. Box 5,
Hayesville, NC 28904. Scenic Drive U.S. 19 through the Valley Towns Today, visitors can tour the old Valley Towns with a scenic 20-minute
drive through the center of the valley along U.S. 19/ 74 from Murphy
to Andrews. More leisurely drives are afforded by the older parallel
roads that run along the valley's margins, such as the old Marble/
Coalville Road on the northwestern side of the valley or Fairview
Road on the southeastern side. From the Cherokee County Historical
Museum, follow Peachtree Street southward to the intersection with
U.S. 64 and U.S. 19/ 74, then turn left on U.S. 19/ 74 toward Andrews
and proceed northeastward. This was once the primary commercial route through the region before the construction of the Unicoi Turnpike shifted traffic to the mouth of the Valley River. Editorial Note: For an in-depth look at each one of the interpretive centers along the Cherokee Heritage Trails, including complete articles and quotes, detailed information on all the historical sites, amazing full color photography depicting the land and its people, stories from many of the Cherokee Elders and much more about the wonderful Cherokee culture, make the Cherokee Heritage Trails Guidebook a part of your personal library. Click here to find out more. |
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