ShookHistory.org
 |
 |
 |
|
Jacob Shook The Man and His Legacy By Bob Jones Copyright 2001, Asheville NC Chapter III Jacob Shook The Pioneer
All of us that have grown up in our American culture have a vision of the hardy pioneer. This figure has become the mainstay of our historical vision of early America. Daniel Boone seems the "poster child" for this vision, and his coonskin cap, deer skin coat and long rifle are familiar to us all. The local fort, built of sharpened logs set in the ground, and the related difficulties with the original inhabitants of the land, the Indians, are images and concepts we feel we know and understand. All these things indeed were elements of the early frontier, but in no way do they go far enough to enlighten the interested as to the diversity and detail of the lives of these frontiersmen. This image of Daniel Boone is an image of the Scot Irish Presbyterians that came down the Wagon Road from Pennsylvania in the years before the Revolution. This group of settlers was indeed a flood that populated vast areas of the "new" frontier of North Carolina. But with them came a separate but equally as adventurous group, the "Dutch Lutherans" from Pennsylvania. Jacob Shook, or Schuck, was part of this tide of settlers, in the company of his father and mother, sometime in the 1760s (or soon thereafter some say), he came south, walking, from Northampton County in Pennsylvania. His family came to the area west of the Catawba River and joined the families of his aunt's, the Vollbrects and the Eigners. Some tradition says this was in 1761, and that they came as a group to Carolina, however the only evidence of this early arrival is the land grant to William Fulbright (Wilhelm Vollbrect) dated 1763 on Lyle's Creek in today's Catawba County, NC. Jacob Fulbright, William's son stated in his Pension Application many years later that it was actually 1769 when William brought the family to North Carolina. Whether they all came together, or as some suggest the Schucks came later, the fact that they were there on Lyle's Creek before the Revolution is not in dispute, and the story of Jacob Shook the pioneer must start with an understanding of that place and time. Lord Granville's Trans-Catawba it was called in London, but to the Schucks it was Cataber. Imagine if you will a wild country, road-less and pristine. Across the seemingly endless hills covered with open prairies and down in the many little valleys crowded with trees and cane thickets let your mind wander. Here and there in this vastness you might imagine on a cold winters day a plume of smoke rising from some pioneer chimney. This chimney upon closer inspection would be of the "stick and mud" variety, attached to a log cabin hewn by the owner from trees that once stood nearby. The cabin might have two rooms, but if the settler had been there a few years it could have four or five. Out back you would see a number of crude outbuildings serving the owner's family as a corn crib, stable or smokehouse. Here on this "plantation" of 240 acres about 60 acres might be cleared of trees and planted in some crop such as oats. Closer to the house would be the garden of vegetables.
The original land grants on Lyles creek record the owners, Johan Baum in 1750 was the first recorded, Simon Yonoss (Jonas) and Hinrich Shrink, Phillip Hahn, Conrod Mull, Conrad Boobey and Johann Hagins appear soon after. Then in 1753 the German United Brethren or Moravians purchased a huge tract of land in Lord Granville's district, location undefined. They set out to determine the land they would select and brought a small team of surveyors across the Catawba to "look for the land". As guide they hired Johann Baum. Being duly impressed with the area between the South Fork of the Catawba and the Catawba proper they decided that this area, which included Lyle's Creek, would be an ideal spot for their projected colony. John Carteret, Lord Granville set aside this huge parcel, as well as several others, for the Moravians and ceased to sell land there late in 1753. For ten years the land lay under this reserve. The Moravians decided to place their colony at a less remote area which is today Forsyth Then in late 1763 John Carteret, Lord Granville, died and his heirs in England closed the sale of his lands. It was 1778, 15 years later, before the office would open again, and many, many Germans had come to live on the unclaimed lands by then. In December 1778 8,900 acres were registered in Salisbury on Lyle's Creek alone. Among these names we find Christopher Beekman (Jacob's Capitan in the Cross Creek Campaign) Adam Bolick, George, Peter and William Deal, George Eslinger, Peter Gront, Frederick Gross, Devault Hunsucker, Johann Isonhower, Frederick Shull, Andrew Fulbright and, our guys, Johann (Hans) and Jacob Shuke (Shook). In that year Jacob was 29 years old. It is obvious from these many land rolls that the Germans predominated in Lyle's Creek. Land was the historical issue, but religion was the heart of the story for the Germans. These were a refugee folk, for generations they had been persecuted, driven to exile and isolated by the surrounding cultures due to their religious beliefs. As a product of this experience these groups had developed a self contained resolve to remain independent. This resolve had motivated the majority to leave Europe behind and make the perilous journey to America in the first place. It was to be after 1770 before the first real congregation of German speaking settlers began to form west of the Catawba. In those years they were served by itinerate "circuit riding" preachers who would come from time to time to their meeting house built on the South Fork of the Catawba. This first church, Der Saut Fark in German, was the predecessor of "Old" St Pauls Lutheran Church in Lincoln County which still exists today. On the rolls of that church's early membership, as reported in 1775 by it's first permanent minister Johann Arends (or Ahrend, Arent, Arnt and Arndt as it is variously spelled in English records) we can find the Lyle's Creek surnames of Bolich, Hahn, Hauk, Killian, Klien, Siegman, Wiegnburger, Miller and Schuk (Shook). This was a "Union" congregation however, so we don't know of which sectarian persuasion the Shooks may have been. Church was the only real authority, for although the distant courthouse at Salisbury was technically the seat of civil power, its reach was The evidence of the linguistics of the Shucks is lacking in this early period, but it does appear that Jacob learned to speak English well, but there is also evidence that German remained his primary language. History would tell us that Hans probably never spoke English at all. Jacob most likely had a very limited English vocabulary in Pennsylvania, but as he lived in "Cataber" country he probably became more or less fluent in that language, at least in a "bare bones" sort of way from necessity. Surely after months of service on the frontier during the Revolution serving with the Militia he became more comfortable communicating with his English speaking fellows, but I am sure English always remained his second language throughout most of his life. . We know of the events that occurred in the Revolution, and from his own recollections we know Jacob's part in those events. We have land records that find Jacob registering a land holding in 1778, and his name in St Paul's Church registry in 1779. The Revolution came to an end in 1783, and in that same year Jacob appears once more. In a case brought before the Confiscation Courts meeting in Lincoln County he and two others presented a charge against a man from Lyle's Creek. They accused him of supporting the King during the war. The court refused to return an indictment as the evidence was lacking, so the man went unpunished. Unknown is the source of this bit of information, other than it appears in the minutes of that unusual court, it was cited as an example of the actions taken against Tories by the new American Government, and how uncharacteristically reasonable and forgiving these courts were on the frontier of North Carolina.
Even more undetectable with our meager means are the reasons for Jacob's move to the mountains of Western North Carolina. Was it the loss of this "court case" that drove him from family and community, could he have had a falling out with the church, was it a connection with the Indians or some previous comrade in arms, was it the marriage to Isabella Weitzell? Misty stuff indeed. On the latter point of his matrimony some questions need be asked. First of all is the traditional marriage date of 1786 correct? No such marriage is recorded, but many German unions weren't in the day, and many, many records have been lost. Who was this Isabella? There is a Jacob Wetzel in the records, an early settler of Buncombe County, was he a brother? He was from Lincoln County which would seem to indicate a connection. Looking further we find a Weitzel family centered in Orange and Guilford County NC, descendants of Henrich Weitzel who moved to NC from Augusta Co VA before 1770. This family eventually Americanized the name to Whitesel. Interestingly there is some indication that Jacob and Isabella married in Guilford County. Additionally Jacob Shook's first cousin, Jacob Fulbright married Elizabeth Weisel, was she a sister to Isabella? Why was Jacob 36 years of age, wasn't that a bit old for a first marriage in those times? These and many other questions are reluctant to give up answers clothed in these mists of time. Long held tradition says that Jacob first came to settle on the Pigeon River at Clyde in 1786. This would make him one of the very first settlers in the area, a position of honor that we find jealously defended by other families even to this day. Because there is no absolute "proof" of his early settlement, some would discount the legend. Only the many history books written years ago can offer support. We know that in the first United States Census in 1790 he was found at the foot of the Blue Ridge, on Camp Creek, in today's McDowell County. Had he taken refuge there near old Fort Davidson during the Indian troubles of that year? Or had he, as others say, only moved to the foot of the mountains by 1790, and not on to the Pigeon? I think it easy to believe both. Often settlers would find a piece of land they wanted, and spend years "improving" the land in anticipation of a later grant. Since Jacob never owned land on Camp Creek it seems that he may well have spent the winters in that slightly more established and safer area with friends, and taken his family to help work his new "claim" in the mountains during the summer months. It is interesting that adjacent or close by to Jacob in the 1790 enumeration lived Joseph McPeters, who also lays claim to be the Pigeon River's earliest settler, and several other Revolutionary War soldiers that would have been known to Shook.
Some of this confusion might be explained by the particular status of the valley of the Pigeon River in relation to the Cherokee. As noted before in 1777 they had sued for peace and signed the Big Pigeon Treaty at Long Island of the Holston in Tennessee. In the treaty the Indians gave North Carolina "all the lands east of the Big Pigeon River". The Government of North Carolina agreed to pay for this land. After the treaty it was discovered that none of the signatories had the rights of ownership to that parcel, so the Cherokee declared that portion of the treaty null and void. Thus the area west of the Blue Ridge on to the Pigeon (today's Buncombe and the eastern part of Haywood County) became "the Disputed Territories". Due to this North Carolina closed the territories to settlement. North Carolina was financially bankrupt after the lengthy Revolutionary War, and found itself not only unable to pay the Cherokee for the land beyond the Blue Ridge as they had promised, but was under great pressure from creditors, including its unpaid veterans, to come up with cash. To this end, in 1783, the state of North Carolina announced the disputed land east of the Pigeon to be open for grant and settlement. In the spring of 1784 Samuel Davidson of the family that operated Davidson's Fort at the head of the Catawba came across the mountains following the Rutherford Trace and settled at the mouth of Bee Tree Creek on the Swannanoa River. Here he cleared the land and built a rough hewn cabin for his young wife and baby child.
Samuel's twin brother, John Davidson and a large body of men crossed the Blue Ridge the next morning and came to Bee Tree Creek where they found and buried the body of Samuel. They then proceeded to track the Cherokee warriors, following them down the Swannanoa and catching them by surprise near its juncture with the French Broad. There they had a heated contest and many of the Indians were killed. Several Indians escaped however, and soon brought back reinforcements. The Davidson party, now fully aroused, sent for help as well and a battle took place in and around the huge cane break at the junction of the French Broad and Swannanoa, just outside the present city of Asheville, NC, that lasted 17 days. Reports were made that 70 Cherokee were killed in this battle. In the spring of the next year, 1785, John Davidson and ten other Scot-Irish families made the move across the Blue Ridge to Samuel's old cabin on Christians Creek, and there they planted what is supposed to be the first permanent white settlement in the lands of the Middle Towns, a settlement they called the Swannanoa Settlement. But was it? Something occurred that November 100 miles away on the lawn of General Picken's home at Hopewell near today's Clemson, SC that might dispute that claim. On the afternoon of the 28th of that month a Cherokee elder rose to speak in the Council of Treaty and complained about the settlements on Swannano and on PIGEON RIVER. Who was Musuchanail of Nequassee speaking of on Pigeon River? The Histories of Haywood Co mention no settlers on the Pigeon earlier than Jacob, except the shadowy specter of one. That is Edward Hyatt, who is listed as a Haywood Co Revolutionary War Veteran. Legend has it that he came as early as 1780, and that he first settled near today's Clyde. He was well known to the Cherokee as a "good and fair" man, and for that reason somehow missed the massacre and turmoil of the region in those times. It is claimed that Hyatt said of the Cherokee that "they took up most of his time and ate much of his food" in those early days. (Source: Medford's Haywood's Heritage and Finest Hour, 1971, p. 2)
This story of Hyatt is taken from old documents and family tradition: "Just after the ‘Big Pigeon Treaty' had been made with the Cherokees" (The Treaty of the Long Island of the Holston, 1777, some writers have confused this with the Hopewell Treaty of 1785) "Edward Hyatt settled in this county, which was then Burke. He then went back to Morganton, and after a short while returned with three or four of his sons," (sons by his first wife, a Leatherwood, his second wife, a Parker, is thought to have been a Cherokee by the Hyatt family) "two Negroes and a pack horse loaded with provisions. It is said that he made a crop that year ..." "The early settlers of this mountain section generally made friends with the Indians on arriving here. And some of the whites, like Edward Hyatt and Wm. H. Thomas greatly befriended the Cherokees. Edward Hyatt was seeing much of his Cherokee Neighbors. As well established tradition has it, the Indians often visited in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Hyatt, he would invite them to ‘put feet under table' and it appears that Mrs. Hyatt would also give them food in case her husband was away from home." It is my view that Hyatt may have begun selling land after the Revolution, and that Shook acquired his original tract from Hyatt, as did others, those "settlers" complained about at Hopewell that summer. Hyatt later moved down river a few miles from Clyde, but early tradition hold that originally he lived "on the west bank of the river, just above the mouth of Richland Creek where it meets the Pigeon". That's almost at Jacob Shook's. Since Hyatt would have acquired this land from the Cherokee if he was indeed there by 1780, and since it was located WEST of the Pigeon, and area not in dispute (it WAS Cherokee land at that time without a doubt) there would have been no compulsion to record the deed at Morganton. At Hopewell in the summer of 1785, as mentioned above, General Pickens, the old Indian fighter and Partisan leader of the Revolution sponsored a Council of all the south's Native Americans. Leaders of the Cherokee, the Creeks, the Choctaw and Chickasaw all came together to meet with representatives of the states and with representatives of the new Federal Government. The British treaties of course were all void now, and confusion reigned about the status of the proliferation of individual treaties signed between the Indians and the various states. During the negotiations the Federal representatives took the position that the Big Pigeon Treaty was null and void and that the frontier should remain at the crest of the Blue Ridge. North Carolina's representative walked out of the council in protest.
The Council's asked the Federal representatives what should be their course of action if confronted by North Carolinian resolve, and were told they could "drive any settlers from their lands". They didn't, however, offer them any assistance in this endeavor. Fortunately the Cherokee never took this advice, for they had been taught hard lessons about picking the wrong side in a dispute between the whites, and they had learned to respect the power and fury of the North Carolinian Militia. North Carolina responded by offering even more land to settlers in the disputed area at unbelievably low prices, and not only to settlers but to land speculators as well. So appealing was this "publicity" that in the spring the flood gates were opened. From all directions hardy pioneers came into the valley of the French Broad and the Pigeon. Where maybe twenty families had been settled in the disputed lands in 1785, by the end of 1786 there were over a hundred. In 1789 John Steele, the North Carolina Indian Agent met with the Cherokee at the War Ford of the French Broad. He had brought with him 3,330 dollars worth of trade goods, the amount settled on for the purchase of most of Tennessee and the French Broad and Pigeon River basins. The Cherokee, still under the influence of the Federal agents, Steele reports, refused to treat and Steele returned east with the goods. Finally, it would be in July 1791, at White's Fort (today's Knoxville, TN) a treaty was signed by the North Carolinians and the Middle Towns, a treaty that ended dispute over these lands, the Treaty of the Holston. Whatever the circumstance that brought the 37 year old Indian Fighter Jacob Shook to the Pigeon, all histories seem to agree that the year was 1786. Tradition says that he was newly married at the time. It is also known that his brother Andrew Shook and his cousin Jacob Fulbright came to the Pigeon as well, but they may have come many years later according to church records in Catawba country. I've yet to see that Jacob sold his land back on the Catawba, so it seems to this descendant that there's something that "went on" back in Catawba, maybe a divorce or some serious breach of the very conservative German social order. Such things were often swept "under the rug" by later carriers of verbal tradition and family history. It seems obvious that Jacob wasn't fully inspired by his Lutheran or Reformed church membership at Der Saut Fark as he later became such a devout Methodist and claimed to have had a "religious conversion" which "cleansed his soul". Of course the "real" truth could be as simple as the allure of land offered so cheaply by the Government of North Carolina ($30 for 100 acres), or it could be as complicated as a "deal" with Hyatt.
In 1787 settlers continued to pour in to the Pigeon Valley, and in that year some notable land grants were made in the disputed lands. These are the oldest grants still extant, but there obviously were some made earlier, as these documents speak of corners and borders adjoining other named settlers. The absence of such records is not surprising, not only was the area disputed between the Federal Government, the Cherokee and North Carolina, but it was also disputed between Burke and Rutherford County as well. It was not until 1785 that McDowell surveyed the line between the two counties, and then he only went as far as the Pigeon. The survey found that those lands south of the Swannanoa lay in Rutherford and those north of that stream lay in Burke. This split the settlements in half, beginning a movement to have an order established by the creation of a new county, an establishment that might combine the artificial separation of the communities into a cohesive and convenient division. This was accomplished with the creation of Buncombe County in 1791. That same year the disputes finally ended with the Cherokee. At White's Fort, the Cherokee finally ceded all the land that had been in dispute since 1777 east of the Pigeon, as well as all the land west of that river that lay in it's drainage (today's Waynesville and Maggie Valley). That year also finally saw the final raids of Dragging Canoe and his Chickamaugans into lands east of the Balsams.
For confirmation of this we can turn to an investigation of the house done in 1995 by the State of North Carolina. The conclusion of the investigation was that the absence of Sawmill Marks on the foundation beams, the presence of square (as opposed to wire) wrought nails, and the presence of several other indicators showed that the house, although substantially modified in later years, may well have been of the antiquity held by tradition". Framed Log Buildings were not unfamiliar to Jacob. St Paul's original church building in Catawba had been such a structure. It was cited by proud contemporaries as "the largest single room in the area" in those days. In Pennsylvania there had been many such structures that Jacob had seen built as a boy. These buildings mimicked those commonly built on the upper Rhine in Germany where the Shucks were from. And as the consummate Pioneer, son of a Pioneer and Grandson of a Pioneer and immigrant it is easily imagined where his steadfast determination and frontier skills were derived.
By 1800 Jacob had 5 sons and 4 daughters, and his wife Isabella, living with him. For them he built this house, certainly a memorable structure for the times. The original house consisted of four rooms each on the first and second floor, and an attic space on the third. Probably, on each end of the house originally stood a chimney and these chimneys heated the front rooms to the south and the back rooms on the north (the northern chimney was later removed and an addition placed on the north end of the house around 1890). The whole house was centered around a narrow stairway that went from the fist to the attic floor. Throughout the house, especially in the Prophet's Room are found big 12 inch wide boards cut from the virgin timber. The front of the original house exhibited a porch, on two stories, built under the roof, much as it appears today, although in those days the rails and supports would have been of log. An outbuilding in the rear, long gone, probably served as a kitchen. Water was carried from a spring that once existed a short way up the "branch" in back of the house (this spot is now covered by US 19-23). The house passed from the Shook family with the death of Jacob's wife Isabella. It was sold to Jonathan Welsh who after some time sold it to Levi Smathers. Smather's son remodeled the house over one hundred years ago, and at that time it was 100 years old. It is still owned by Smather's descendants. Jacob excelled as a farmer in those years it appears, and in his lifetime he came to own over a thousand acres of this prime bottom land along the Pigeon. Many of those acres still remain in the hands of the many descendants of Jacob Shook. He must have also assisted other friends and relatives with their efforts to settle along the Pigeon. Jacob Fulbright settled just down river from Jacob sometime after 1800, as did Jacob's brother Andrew, who settled at a place now called Iornduff a few miles downstream. Jacob's brother John may also have come to Haywood and settled, for we have found an Inventory for his estate in Haywood. Jacob Yount and his family also settled in Haywood in those years, and although we can't be sure of a connection we believe this was the family of Jacob's sister from Catawba. In 1808 a new county was formed from Buncombe. It consisted of everything in North Carolina west of the "Hominy Gap". In the ancient records Jacob Shook and Jacob Fulbright appear as jurors on the first court of the new county of Haywood. Continue To The Next Chapter <<Go Back to Part 2 / Go to Part 4>> [ All materials presented on this web site are copyrighted materials either by the author of the page or the original contributor. Use of this material in a private, noncommercial manner is allowed with proper credit, other uses must be with the written consent of the contributor. Links to this site are encouraged ]
|
Threading through the wilderness, connecting these rare outposts you might imagine a network of not much more than footpaths, pathways that from time to time might see the hooves of the occasional horse or oxen. Along these pathways one could find, if he imagined a trip along them down Lyle's Creek, a household much like the last about every two hours walking. On Lyle's Creek in 1760 that distance was called a "German Mile". And on Lyles Creek that was exactly what is was, for the "Dutch" (Americanized version of Deutsch) had settled there in numbers after their long trek down the Great Wagon Road.
County, NC in 1755, but the restriction still remained on the Catawba lands until 1763. In that year the land was released and it seems that many German settlers had been living on the land in question without deed for up to ten years. In 1763 many of them came to the Land Office in Rowan County at Salisbury, a two day walk away from home, and registered their claims. The surnames from Lyle's Creek include Henry Pope, George Schmidt (Smith), Jacob Wissenaut, Adam Aker (Eckard), Adam Bolch, Thomas Cowan, Peter Grunt, Michael Hart, Johan Haun, Andrew Killian, Isaac Lowrance, Peter Stutz, Christian Treffelstadt, Conrad, Joseph and William Whittenburg and William Fulbright. (so there is our Jacob's aunt Chistina's husband, Wihelm Vollbrect in 1763)
weak on the west side of the Catawba, especially in the tight knit German communities. The language barrier kept Germans from serving in the civil government and often prevented their participation in court, both as jurors or as plaintiffs. The Elders mediated disputes, saw to the banishments and organized community efforts such as barn raisings and cooperative harvests. Often their minister was the only person in the community that spoke both German and English and so was made unofficial ambassador to their "Anglish" neighbors. In the case of Wills and other official court documents, documents that were often not accepted in German, the Ministers often made translations for filing with the Clerk in Salisbury.
So here and there we see the shadow of the individual man, and we can come to a "fuzzy" vision of him with his thick German accent, frontier garb and "plain" ways. We see a land holder, a "juror", a man willing to seek redress in court and a church-goer. A veteran Patriot and Indian Fighter and most of all a Pioneer since his teens. Beyond that all the rest of his early life is obscured by the mists of time that envelope him.
The story is told of how this first settler had let his stock wander to the meadows on a mountain behind his cabin, and had placed a bell around the neck of his cow. A band of young warriors who had been lurking about watching the settlers had taken the bell from the cow and began to ring it from the top of a high hill, making it seem to Samuel that his cow had fallen to some distress. Upon climbing the hill to investigate he was ambushed by the Indians, shot and killed, then scalped. His wife, hearing the report of the rifle knew what must have happened, so she immediately grabbed the crying baby from its crib and ran barefoot back down the lonely path, all the way back to Davidson's Fort.
The idea that Hyatt may have lived among the Cherokee is not unsupported. Although he was paid a pension and is listed as a Veteran of the Revolution, he also is listed in Burke County as a Troy and a legend says he "escaped to the Indian Territories". Several of the punitive raids already mentioned talk of a "white settler" on the Pigeon, and one speaks of how the soldiers from Tennessee shot a man seen running from the back door of a trader's cabin and, thinking him an Indian, shot him. This man turned out to be a black slave owned by the trader. Hyatt is known to have had slaves.
Did Jacob and his family live for a time in the "First Company" of Burke County, on Camp Creek (on the road between Old Fort and Fairview in today's McDowell Co.)? Probably, but there is no evidence he held land there. He was involved in a lawsuit there in 1794, which he appears to have accused his next door neighbor of something scandalous, was charged and was then acquitted. He then appears on several juries, the last in 1795. Does that mean all the traditions and the histories are wrong? The neighbor by whom he was sued, Joseph McPeters, is held by those same traditions to have settled in the Pigeon Valley in 1787. His brother, living with him in 1790, actually has a grant listed for him in Burke Co from 1787, with a survey entered in 1779! The grant describes the parcel as being on "both sides of the next creek northwest of Jonathan's Creek" on Pigeon River. This is exactly in the place Hyatt supposedly lived, and just downstream of Jacob Shook's later holdings. The story goes Johnathan McPeters returned back east across the Blue Ridge after a couple of years and never returned. (Although he can be found again in Buncombe Co by 1800.) Did Jacob accompany him and settle temporarily on Camp Creek next to him? Were they, and Jacob's other neighbors on Camp Creek, forced to leave the Pigeon because of "Indian Troubles"? There were major attacks in Fairview and at Point Lookout that we know about in 1788, there could have been, and probably were many more, especially further into the disputed territories where Jacob and the McPeters brothers lived. Jacob's other close neighbors included several other Pigeon River exiles. He lived next to (or with) Jonathan Davidson and his family, first cousin to Samuel Davidson, first settler west of the Blue Ridge who was killed by the Cherokee in 1783. Jonathan also appears in the 1800 census in today's Haywood Co.
Sometime within a few years of the founding of Buncombe Jacob Shook took up permanent residence on the Pigeon. He would remain there the rest of his life. The next part of the tradition holds that Jacob built the "first frame house west of the Blue Ridge". Again there are those that dispute this, mainly the descendants of the Scot Irish who settled the area who are pitted against the historians of the area. The tradition holds that the house in question was the Shook House, that still stands today (2001) in Clyde. It was allegedly built in 1795 by Jacob, using hand tools (the Water Powered Sawmill came later) and that Jacob had his own crude blacksmith facilities on the property where he forged his own nails.
One of the telling features of the house is the "dovetail and dowel" joints present in the foundation beams and uprights. Using nothing but axes, froes and a hand auger these joints were fashioned in such a way that over 200 years later there is still no separation of the members so joined. The addition to the house on the north shows signs of toppling, but not the original section, which is 100 years older!
©2009 ShookHistory.org,
All materials presented on this web site are copyrighted materials either by the author of the page or the original contributor. Use of this material in a private, noncommercial manner is allowed with proper credit, other uses must be with the written consent of the contributor. Links to this site are encouraged.