Why Sould We Care ?

ASHEVILLE CITIZEN TIMES
April 8, 2001

Six years before the first wagon made its way into today's Haywood County , in a time when the Cherokee still owned the lands west of the Pigeon River in North Carolina and all travel was by foot or pack horse, only a few years after the close of the American Revolution, a stalwart pioneer and American Patriot named Jacob Shook brought his family into the mountain wilderness "beyond the Blue Ridge".

From the 1790s until he died in 1839 Jacob was a prominent and sometimes outspoken citizen of the new republic he had helped to found. He saw the county of Buncombe split off from Burke in 1792, and he served on the first jury of the "new" county of Haywood when it was formed from Buncombe in 1809.

After he was converted from his native Lutheran religion to Methodism, helped found the Methodist Church in Western North Carolina in 1798, served as host to Bishop Asbury and Samuel Edney both of whom were pioneer founders of Methodism, on many occasions.

He was an associate and mentor of Methodist Minister Parson Brownlow, later four times Governor of Tennessee, as well as a partner in "singings" with Reverend Posey, Baptist firebrand and Missionary to the Cherokee, and a bitter enemy of Brownlow.

He donated a large parcel of land for use as a "campground" for religious gatherings of the Great Revival in the early 1800s, and gave his name as the original name of the little hamlet in which he lived (today's Clyde NC was for a hundred years called Shook's)

Several of Jacob's children moved west to Missouri, Texas, Arkansas and beyond spreading the gospel with their father's pioneer zeal. Today his descendants range across the nation and number in the thousands.

Jacob built a house in about 1795 tradition says, a building of "Post and Beam" construction, three floors in height. This house still stands today.

The foundations support beams of the old house are a foot in diameter, shaped and notched by hand with Jacob's froe from virgin timber, with joists and uprights cut in and secured by wooden dowels.

In this raw frontier of single room log cabins this edifice must have seemed a castle. This house is well known as the "first frame building west of the Blue Ridge" in North Carolina, and it is today reported to be the oldest building in that area that still stands.

On the third floor he constructed a room, known from that time forward as the Prophet's Room, and in this room were held "preachings" and "singings" that formed a core component of our Mountain Heritage today.

This room has been preserved through the efforts of the Smathers, Morgan and Jones families across 150 years, it today stands as it did in those times as a monument to this man and his times.

Recent years have been hard on the old structure and today it stands in its last hours looking for some "white knight" that might yet prevent it's destruction by the forces of progress or the hazards of age.

We of this new, but certainly not the first, effort to "Save the Shook - Smathers House" recognize how late the hour is, and we are resolved to save this monument by any means we can find.

We would hope for a restoration of the house as it stands, but we acknowledge that this may now not be possible, so we entertain any and all ideas that might preserve this remaining bit of heritage, even if it requires moving or "deconstructing" the structure in order to preserve the critical components.

We adamantly oppose the destruction of these precious and irreplaceable components, and we pledge ourselves to prevent this destruction or their use for purposes other than the creation of a Historical Monument to this man and his times. This structure once lost cannot be replaced!

WHY do we care? Although many of the "Save The Shook - Smathers House Committee" are indeed descendants of Jacob Shook or the Smathers family by blood, we feel strongly that we are also all, as Americans, "cousins", related to Jacob through the creation of this nation for which he fought, and through the Pioneer Spirit which he exemplified.

We care because the house is just about all we of this area have left of the era, the march of time and progress has taken the rest. Generations have sought to preserve this for us, and we now have been passed the torch.

We desire that the house, or the components of the house be preserved, and that they then be restored or reconstructed in some fashion that will help offer to future generations the insights and lessons of the age, and the wisdom and lore associated with the man, and his associates. We see this as our highest calling, and we see this effort as a "last" chance.

We ask that the current owners of the property, the descendants of Levi Smathers, the Shook and related families, the citizens of Haywood County, the Methodists and all those interested in preserving our unique mountain heritage come together to help preserve this treasure.

Wilma Simpson

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