This article appeared in
The Mountaineer July 5, 2000 Haywood County, N.C.

Marker Will Honor Service to Cause For Independence

By KATHY N. ROSS Correspondent

Before Jacob Shook helped lay the roots of Methodism in Haywood County - before there was a Haywood County he was helping lay the groundwork for the country, as a member of the Continental Army's North Carolina Regiment during the Revolutionary War. That was before he became one of the first white men to settle in North Carolina west of the French Broad River, he built his home in the bottomland along the Pigeon River in what is now Clyde, before he offered his home and land as a refuge and meeting place for itinerant Methodist preachers.

It is for that Revolutionary War service that he will be honored July 9, five days after this nation's 224th birthday. when

a marker is placed on his grave at Pleasant Hill Cemetery by Daughters of the American Revolution. The Hugh Rogers Chapter of the DAR is provding the marker after Shook's descendants provided money for a granite stone.

To get the marker, however, a grave requires much more than funds for the base. Its owner, must be established as a Revolutionary War veteran, and that prod must be submitted to national DAR offices in Washington, D.C., for confirmation, said Gail Leatherwood, regent of the Hugh Rogers Chapter. For a grave to be so marked, photographs of the site must be submitted along with a detailed description of its location and a notarized statement of the gravelkeeper or site trustee stating it is where it is claimed to be. Leatherwood said. In addition military service/or pension records of the veteran are submitted and and checked against the records kept by DAR. "If they can't confirm it (Revolutionary service), we don't get DAR permission to mark the grave," she said.

Despite the many cemeteries in the county that have been marked with only field stones or are grown over and forgotten, the DAR thinks it has located the grave of every known Revlutionary War veteran, Leatherwood said. This will be he fifth of the eight known graves to be honored with a DAR marker, she said.

The earlier four included the final resting place of Hugh Rogers in Fines Greek; Christian Sergeant Messer at a family cemetery in Panther Creek; Edward Hyatt near the Jakson county line, and Thomas Able at Locust Field in Canton. They plan to try to also place markers on the graves of Revolutionary veterans Robert Low, co-founder of Waynesville who is buried at Greenhill Cemetery, and William Allen, also buried there. Also on their list is Capt. John Henry, who is buried in a plot surrounded by a cornfield in the Evans Cove section of Maggie Valley. A memorial paced by a now defunct Dorcas Bell Low Chapter of DAR also lists John Masser and George Hall as of the War for Independence. However Leatherwood said, this chapter has not been able to find my record of a John Masser who is buried in Haywood County and also is a Revolutionary War veteran. 'We know a man named George Flail is buried in Locust Field cemetery, but his veteran's status has never been proven ,"she said.

The chapter took the challenge of locating all the veterans' graves several years ago upon a challenge from its state regent Leatherwood said. DAR member Sharon Shook, who lives in Greenville, S.C., but travels to Haywood County frequently, was one of the decendants who helped put together the application for the marker. She inherited the enthusiasm of her mother, Bonnie Shook, for local and family history.

Bonnie also encouraged her daughter to join DAR and provide the required proof to show he was descended from a Revolutionary War veteran. (DAR members can also be descended from a noncombatant who gave aid or assisted in the cause for independence, Leatherwood said, but that ancestry must be established for membership )

Shook's research and that of an aunt show that Jacob Shook enlisted as a private from Lincoln County in the North Carolina Regiment in March 1775, before the war actually broke out. He was 26 years old. During the Revolution, he served under Capt. William Bateman, Col. Christopher Bateman, Capt Randolph Conard and Capt. Daniel Smith, leavng service in May of 1781. The records do not show which battles Shook would haw fought in, though it is likely he was at the Battle of King's Mountain and the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, Leatherwood said.

Shook began receiving a pension for his military service in Oct. 3, 1833, at the age of 84. He lived to what was then remarkably ripe age of 90, he and his wife having raised 11 children. Old Haywood County Courthouse showed the Pennsylvania native of Dutch ancestry would sign his name as 'Yacob Schuck."

Shook's other contributions to Haywood County are almost the stuff of legend, particularly the heritage he left to area Methodists. Family lore and local historians have written how he was converted to Christ while plowing corn with a horse. He later offered his home - the oldest standing residence in Haywood County - for meeting places and as a place of rest for traveling Methodist preachers. The traveling Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury stayed with Shook; a historic marker stands king the Pigeon River on Clyde's Broad Street attesting to the fact. Shook also gave land for camp meetings and later for the county's oldest Methodist church, Louisa Chapel.

When Sharon Shook recently visiited the grave of her several-great grandfather, Jacob Shook. she spotted some papers in a plastic bag, alongside a small flag stuck into the ground. Those papers were a letter to Shook from a woman in Washington State who had traced her ancestry back to the Pleasant Hill Cemetery overlooking Clyde. "Papa, we found you," the woman had written. She had included a handwritten letter tying her to Jacob Shook. Though unlikely she will travel back across the continent to attend, that woman was mailed an invitation to the July 9 ceremony honoring Jacob Shook.

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