Walk Through History tour strolls back in time at Tabernacle Cemetery

Museum series finishes season with stories from Black Mountain’s past

Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
September 16, 2022

Robert Goodson leads the Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center’s Walk Through History tour of the south side of the Tabernacle Cemetery, which was established in 1837. Photo by Fred McCormick

Long before the railroad brought the world to the Swannanoa Valley, small, self-sustaining communities dotted the sparsely populated landscape. Not far from the banks of the North Fork Swannanoa River, the Tabernacle United Methodist Church was once the center of the surrounding rural community from which it took its name, while the adjacent cemetery became the final resting place for many whose stories are woven into the DNA of Black Mountain.

As the Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center concluded its 2022 Walk Through History Series, Sept. 14, on the south side of the Tabernacle Cemetery, participants strolled into a bygone era while learning about the people who shaped the thriving town that exists today.

The first Methodist church in present-day Black Mountain once stood near intersection of Cragmont and Byrd Roads, according to the 1994 book, “Tabernacle Cemetery Listings and Historical Information 1837-1994,” which was compiled by Robert Goodson, Joyce Justus Parris and Joan Drake Goodson and includes sketches by Martha Raines. Parris, who passed away in 2014, is the author of the 1992 book, “A History of Black Mountain, N.C. and Its People,” while Robert and his late wife Joan published “On the North Fork of the Swannanoa River 1850-1950” in 1997. Copies of both books are available at the Black Mountain Library, and the Tabernacle Cemetery records can be viewed at the SVM.

Goodson and Jamie Lautner guided the Walk Through History tour, which focused on the three-acre cemetery that was established along with the Tabernacle Meeting House in 1837. Today, Tabernacle Cemetery, which operated as a major community cemetery for a century, contains 550 marked graves and approximately 200 unmarked burial sites. The church remains an active congregation, while the cemetery has been maintained by a nonprofit organization since 1976.

“The church is conservative in saying it was established in 1837,” Robert told the group to open the tour. “Before this church existed here, this congregation attended church in the Cragmont community, at what oral history refers to as the ‘old burnt church spot.’”

The Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center concluded its second season of the Walk Through History Series, Sept.1 4, at the Tabernacle Cemetery in Black Mountain. Photo by Fred McCormick

While records indicate the Tabernacle land was deeded for use as a school and church by Charles Kyle in 1847, the small headstone of Phidilla Smart shows the property was used as a cemetery at least a decade earlier.

“Smart was a family name on the headwaters of North Fork, and professor Smart was a teacher at the Tabernacle School,” Goodson said. “This was his child, who passed away when she was 7 years old. So, while we don’t have written records, this grave does help us figure some things out. We can safely come to the conclusion that this church had to be in existence prior to 1837.”

Regardless of the exact date of its founding, the church quickly grew into a community gathering place for some of the earliest permanent settlers in Tabernacle, and the cemetery holds the remains of many of the first teachers, innkeepers, bank presidents, blacksmiths, soldiers, merchants, local leaders and families who played key roles in the development of what became Black Mountain in 1893.

“The church itself was for members, but the cemetery was for community use,” Goodson said. “Consequently, there are many people buried here who were not affiliated with the Methodist church in any way.”

The Walk Through History tour included stops at the graves of some of the most well-known figures of their time, including the Town of Black Mountain’s first mayor, T.K. Brown, and its second, Silas F. Dougherty.

Robert Goodson stops at the grave of T.K. Brown, the first mayor of the Town of Black Mountain, as the Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center wrapped up its 2022 Walk Through History Series at Tabernacle Cemetery. Photo by Fred McCormick

“A lot of these markers are works of art,” Lautner said. “Others are homemade, and not fancy at all, but many of them are beautiful.”

One of the finest examples of craftsmanship is reflected on the large stone that marks the graves of sisters Emma and Charlotte Walker.

“These sisters were down in Biltmore Village during the Great Flood of 1916,” Goodson said. “The older sister was a nursing student and the younger sister visited her on the weekend. They clung to a tree, but were eventually swept away into the French Broad River.”

The tragedy was covered in news publications at the time, he continued.

“Mrs. George Vanderbilt was so affected by it that she ordered this stone, which was hauled out here and erected,” Goodson said. “That’s why we have this beautiful stone that is so far beyond anything else you see in here.”

The story of the Walker sisters is featured in the SVM exhibit, “Rising Waters: The Past and Future of Flooding in the Swannanoa Valley,” which will remain on display through March, 2023.

Nearby, the graves of twin brothers, Elijah B. and Elisha R. Kerlee, mark the final resting place of two key figures the Valley’s educational history.

“They donated the property for the first school in the immediate Black Mountain area,” Goodson said. “That land is where the Town Square is now.”

Other stops on the cemetery tour featured stories of prominent social figures, including Diana Ingram, who was known around the community on Lake Eden Road in the late 19th century as the “Party Lady,” according to the guide.

“That is not a negative term,” Goodson said. “When you think about those times, what did people do for entertainment? Well, you went to Diana’s, rolled back the furniture, and had a big dance.”

A shaded corner of the cemetery holds the remains of another figure who was known to entertain locals in the mid-19th century.

“Art Jones, who was known as Ott, was the king of ring riding here in the Swannanoa Valley,” Goodson said. “Ring riding was like an Appalachian adaptation of jousting, and it was important to put on a good show.”

Pioneers in key areas of public service highlighted on the tour included Martha Drucilla Kerlee, the first postmistress of Grey Eagle, the name of burgeoning settlement that eventually became Black Mountain. The wife of logger John D. Hemphill, Kerlee is buried in Wooley Washington, but a stone marker memorializing her contributions to the community stands in Tabernacle.

“Her post office was up near the current plaza where the Tractor Supply Co., and the museum has quite a bit of information about her,” Goodson said.

The grave of Robert Edgar Currier, who established the Black Mountain Fire Department in 1919 and served as its first chief, was also included in the tour.

“He’s generally given credit for establishing the first fire department in town,” Goodson said. “He was in the insurance business, which makes a lot of sense. If you can keep the buildings from burning down, then you don’t have to worry about the claims.”

Names on many of the markers, including Dougherty, Sutton, Kerlee and Stepp, are known to current residents as existing streets in Black Mountain, while others, like Tyson, remain visible as long-running local businesses.

Alfred “Bub” and Betty Tyson, who founded Tyson Furniture in 1946, rest eternally near family members in a section near the middle of Tabernacle Cemetery. Just feet away, a monument marks the intense grief of L.L. and E.J. Dougherty, who lost four young daughters in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

A statue in the Tabernacle Cemetery in Black Mountain marks the graves four young daughters in the Dougherty family who passed away in the late 19th and early 20th century. The gravesites were among several discussed during the Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center’s final Walk Through History tour of the 2022 season. Photo by Fred McCormick

“When people see this statue, they often wonder why someone would put up such a nice monument,” Goodson said. “When you look at the death dates on the headstones, you realize it’s an illustration of their grief.”

The current building occupied by the Tabernacle Methodist Church was constructed in 1927, but its predecessor once stood near the center of the cemetery. Located just outside of where the original building’s entrance once stood is the grave marker of Coleman Stepp, the only African American known to be buried in the cemetery. The granite head stone marks the final resting place of a man enslaved by Jesse Stepp, who gained prominence as a tour guide for parties seeking passage to the top of Mount Mitchell.

“Jesse had two slaves, Coleman and an unknown female, and he brought them to church here every Sunday,” Goodson said. “I mention that because every person who came in this church, after around 1850, would have walked by this grave, because it was in a prime location. I think that says something about their relationship.”

Relying on the archived oral accounts of Cora Stepp Dula, granddaughter of Jesse, the church dedicated a marker for Coleman in 2019. Dula, who was 8 years old in 1889, recalled a large hemlock that once sat near the entrance of the church, and according to lore passed down over generations, the tree was planted to mark Coleman’s grave.

While the hemlock was damaged by lightning in 1970, a cross section in the archives room of the church reveals growth rings dating it the mid-1800s.

“We used calculated dates for Coleman’s marker,” said Goodson, who interviewed Dula in the late 1950s. “While there is little information about him, we do know he lived in his own cabin on Jesse Stepp’s property.”

Individually, the graves in Tabernacle Cemetery echo stories ranging from tragic to triumphant, but collectively they paint a vivid picture of Black Mountain’s evolution from a rural farming community to a modern town. Maintaining the gravestones, and memories, of the people buried there is an important job, according to Goodson.

“This cemetery is a significant historical site in Black Mountain,” he said. “Many of the families still come to visit the graves today, and a lot of people buried here were key figures in the history of this place.”

The tour marked the end of the second season of the Walk Through History Series, which is hosted monthly, from April through September, by the SVM. This year’s tour visited the historic Pisgah Village site at Warren Wilson College in August, and opened at the former location of Lake June, near Grovemont, in April. Dates and locations for the 2023 Walk Through History Series will be announced at swannanoavalleymuseum.org.

Donations to the Tabernacle Cemetery can be made by check and dropped off at the Black Mountain Savings Bank, located at 200 East State Street, or mailed to P.O. Box 729, Black Mountain, N.C. 28711.