Black Mountain's Past

Wading into the early history of the Asheville Watershed and colonel John Kerr Connally

Wendell Begley
Guest contributor
The Valley Echo
April 4, 2024

A view of the Asheville Watershed and the east side of the 360-acre Burnett Reservoir. At approximately 22,000 acres, North Fork’s Asheville Watershed is the nation’s fourth largest municipal watershed. The Burnett Reservoir has approximately five miles of shoreline. Photo courtesy of the Wendell Begley Collection

This week’s storyline dates back to 1883 and features one of the North Fork Valley’s most famous landowners. The topic featured in today’s series was the very first piece of local history I scripted for the Black Mountain News almost 26 years ago (June 1998/Series #1). The narrative highlighted the Confederacy’s youngest colonel, John Kerr Connally (1839-1904), and his connection to the North Fork Valley.

As a tie-in to this week’s series, the Swannanoa Valley Museum will sponsor a 4-Wheel Drive Tour to many historical and notable locations inside the Asheville Watershed (east side of the Burnett Reservoir) on Saturday, April 27, 2024. One of the historical sites to be explored includes the 141-year-old Colonel John Kerr Connally estate. Excitement, anticipation and adventure will challenge this year’s participants as they plunge into the remote wilderness at the foot of North America’s highest mountain range and our town’s namesake—the Black Mountain Range. It is a location settled by some of the Swannanoa Valley’s earliest pioneer families.

A photograph from the Museum’s Asheville Watershed Tour (East Side) in May 2016. We are all gathered at Colonel Connally’s old North Fork estate. Joe Tyson (upper right corner) gave a stirring history on Colonel Connally and his colorful life. Joe also spoke eloquently about Connally’s close, long-standing relationship to his great grandfather, “Alf” Tyson (1838-1914). Photo courtesy of the Wendell Begley Collection

During the last quarter of the 19th century, Black Mountain served as a celebrated doorway for some of the nation’s most prominent leaders. Dignitaries from as far away as Europe were overnight guests at the magnificent mountain retreat of Colonel John Kerr Connally and his wife, Alice Coleman Connally. As one of Asheville’s most distinguished residents, Connally purchased significant acreage in the upper North Fork Valley and built a palatial mountain house there during the 1880s. The initial purchase of his vast North Fork lands included 1,583 acres along the Bear Wallow Ridge of Greybeard Mountain (opposite the Presbyterian side of the mountain, now known as Montreat) on March 10, 1883. It was there near the mouth of Long Branch that Colonel Connally built a substantial frame structure. It very well may have been the largest home ever built in the upper North Fork Valley. More importantly, it served as the summer and weekend retreat for one of the South’s most famous Civil War officers and one of Buncombe County’s earliest and most wealthy transplants. 

A rare picture of Colonel John Kerr Connally (1839-1904). Courtesy of the Wendell Begley Collection

The colonel’s main residence, a large Italianate mansion, was built about 1875 on a knoll above the French Broad River in Asheville. Initially, George W. Vanderbilt, a close friend of Connally, tried to purchase the Asheville property from the colonel as the site for his grand home (the Biltmore House). Colonel Connally called the magnificent Asheville structure “Fernihurst,” after the Kerr Castle in Scotland. At that time, the home was known as one of the most artistic colonial residences in the South. Today, the land is part of the sprawling A-B Tech campus and the old Connally home serves as the college’s most famous building, notably attracting national attention to the campus.

Colonel Connally was most known for his acts of bravery during the Civil War. He fought in many of the major campaigns of the South and was the commanding officer of the celebrated 55th Regiment C.S.A. History recorded his gallantry in leading the South’s last wave of soldiers in General Longstreet’s final assault on Union forces at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. Losing his arm in that famous battle at 24 years of age, Connally was the Confederacy’s youngest and most recognized colonel. A marker memorializing him is located on Pack Square near what was Asheville’s Vance Monument. It was placed there in 1926 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

At the end of the war in 1865, Colonel Connally married Alice Coleman Thomas (1852-1917) from Richmond, Virginia. She was from a family of great wealth and her father, a millionaire tobacco merchant in Richmond, gave the couple $150,000 as a wedding gift. Mrs. Connally’s wealth never blinded her generosity to North Fork families. For many years, she paid the extended schooling cost for North Fork children and provided warm clothing and shoes for needy neighborhood families. In Fred Burnett’s 1960s book This Was My Valley, Fred writes: “Mrs. Connally is an example of the cordial relationship which existed between the Valley families and our summer residents. She loved the Valley and all its people and the whole community loved her.” Their home on North Fork was always open to neighbors and her special “kitchen” with its famous, separate “cooking fireplace” (pictured below) was the highlight of the house. 

The famous Connally fireplace (chimney) that was utilized for cooking. It was in the “kitchen building” of the Connally’s North Fork mountain house. It is noticeably smaller than the massive, stately fireplace (pictured below) that was in the nearby “main hall” of the Connally Lodge. Photo courtesy of the Wendell Begley Collection

During that early era, many of the southern mansions separated the cooking area as an adjoining building near the home. This was done to minimize the possibility of a kitchen fire which might endanger the main mansion. An interesting fact is that my good friend Robert Goodson always relates to me when we visit the colonel’s historic North Fork ruins. I took this picture (below) of Robert seventeen years ago in 2007. In it, he is standing in front of a large white oak on the north side of Long Branch within a rocks-throw of Colonel Connally’s North Fork ruins.  

I took this picture of Robert Goodson in 2007. Robert is standing in front of a large white oak on the north side of Long Branch near the ruins of Colonel Connally’s North Fork Lodge. Photo courtesy of the Wendell Begley Collection

Today, only two solitary chimneys from the colonel’s fashionable North Fork mansion stand in stark contrast to the deep surrounding wilderness. Both the time-weathered stone beacons seem far removed from the warm hearth that once welcomed neighbors and dignitaries from all over the nation and beyond.

Photo courtesy of the Wendell Begley Collection

As an interesting sidebar to this series, several sequences in Hollywood’s famous Hunger Games, released in November 2012, were filmed on the old Colonel Connally estate in the secluded upper North Fork Valley. Also, it was Colonel Connally who was responsible for bringing his good friends George W. Vanderbilt, II and Archibald Alfred “Alf” Tyson (great grandfather of Joe Tyson) to Buncombe County.     

Black Mountain Savings Bank
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“Established in 1908, We are One of the 47 Oldest FDIC Insured Banks in America” (that’s Out of 4,620 FDIC Insured Banks) …Too, We are the Town’s Oldest Continuing Business and the Only “Community Owned Bank.” We Have Been Taking Savings Deposits and Making “Local Home Loans” for 116 Years”

Copyright: M. Wendell Begley, series 877, VE11, April 4, 2024