2005 Event Calendar

Symposium on Life and Times of Will Thomas celebrating the 200th Anniversary of his birth. 

The Cashiers Historical Society presented The Life and Times of William Holland Thomas celebrating the 200th Anniversary of his birth,  May 5, 6, & 7, 2005 at the Historic High Hampton Inn and Country Club, Cashiers, NC.

Scholars participating:

Dr. E. Stanly Godbold, author of Confederate Colonel and Cherokee Chief: The Life of William Holland Thomas, the definitive biography of Thomas.

Dr. William Anderson, editor of the Journal of Cherokee Studies. His publications include A Guide to Cherokee Documents in Foreign Archives and Cherokee Removal: Before and After. 

Dr. Barbara Duncan, Education Director at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Cherokee, North Carolina, editor, Living Stories of the Cherokee and Cherokee Heritage Trails Guidebook

George Ellison noted naturalist, lecturer and regional columnists who wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees

George Frizzell, director Special Collections, Hunter Library, Western Carolina University, author The Legal Status of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

Dr. Richard Iobst, author of The Bloody Sixth: The Sixth North Carolina Regiment Confederate States of America; Civil War Macon: The History of a Confederate City and recently transcribing and researching the diaries of William Holland Thomas at Museum of the Cherokee Indian.

Dr. Gordon McKinney, author of The Heart of Confederate Appalachia: Western North Carolina in the Civil War; and Zeb Vance: North Carolina’s Civil War Governor and Gilded Age Political Leader.

Jane Nardy, professional Genealogist; National Speaker; Cashiers Historical Society Historian; coeditor of The Cashiers Area - Yesterday, Today and Forever; Direct descendant of the Zachary founding family of Cashiers Valley.

Thursday, May 5, 2005

Bus Tour of Cherokee - Visited sites with Will Thomas connections such as: Guided Tour of Cherokee Museum, behind the scenes – 2nd floor etc. - Campground Cemetery, Keener Cabin at Methodist Church (Elvira Keener Zachary's home with her father Rev. Ulrich Keener etc.), Oconoluftee Turnpike, Thomas Valley, Stekoa Field

Welcome Dinner at High Hampton Inn 

Friday, May 6, 2005 

Opening Ceremony with bagpiper R. J. Grady

Symposium 

Tour of house and grounds

 Saturday, May 7, 2005

Stumphouse Tunnel Tour

Guests traveled along parts of the Tuckasegee and Keowee Turnpike of the 1850’s to Stumphouse Tunnel, SC, started by Blue Ridge Railroad Company  of South Carolina and to adjoining Isaqueena Falls, guided by a Park Ranger and Ken Fisher of High Hampton. 

Biography of William Holland Thomas

Thomas, William Holland (5 Feb. 1805-10 May 1893),[/b ] the only white man to serve as chief of the North Carolina Cherokees, businessman, and soldier, was born in Haywood County, North Carolina, the son of Richard Thomas (who died before his birth) and Temperance Calvert. His father was a veteran of the American Revolution who acquired land in western North Carolina following  his service in that war. Thomas grew up as a unique transcultural figure on the rugged, mountainous North Carolina frontier. From his mother he learned Christianity, impeccable manners, and the value of reading and hard work. Felix Hampton Walker, a local storekeeper, gave him a set of law books, which at the age of fifteen he read with such diligence that he was able to practice law. Thomas's childhood friendships with Cherokee boys led to his learning their language and customs. They nicknamed him Wil-Usdi, or Little Will, because he was short. Yonaguska, the aging head man, treated the fatherless white boy as his own son. Thomas played ritualistic games with his adopted people, defended them against all intruders, and encouraged the perpetuation of their native culture and human dignity.

During the removal crisis of the 1830s, Yonaguska's Oconaluftee Indians asked Thomas to serve as their agent. In 1836 Thomas journeyed to Washington to argue successfully that they should be allowed to remain in their native state and to defend their claims for financial payments that the federal government had promised them. The grateful clan, now called the Eastern Band, named him their "chief" after Yonaguska died in 1839. For the next twenty-eight years Thomas held that title, which implied only that he was a head man among the loosely organized Cherokees. He won for them the right to be treated as citizens of North Carolina, to govern themselves in their local communities, and to become the owners of thousands of acres of land that he acquired for them originally in his own name because it was not legal for Indians to own land. When his creditors attempted to wrest from Thomas the lands he had acquired for the Indians, he helped them win the right to keep their lands in two cases in the U.S. Circuit Court in 1873.

Concurrently with his life among the Cherokees, Thomas maintained a home with his mother and wife as a traditional, prominent white citizen; he was an entrepreneur and state politician. He speculated in land and built stores, mills, turnpikes, and railroads. He dreamed of a transcontinental railroad that would connect western North Carolina with California, and he thought that the economic future of the South rested with transportation and mercantile development, not slavery and agriculture. As a Democratic state senator from 1848 through 1861, Thomas worked for the protection
of his Indian friends, economic development of the mountainous district, and social reforms such as the establishment of a hospital for the mentally ill. He voted for secession from the Union in North Carolina's convention of 1861.

In June 1857 Thomas married Sarah Love, and they became the parents of three children. Sarah agreed to practice what her husband called her "Christian virtues" among the "small remnant" of people who affectionately called him "chief." They came to love her as much as him and eventually adopted her and her children into the tribe.

When the Civil War began in 1861, Thomas was driven to support the Confederacy by loyalty to his state, his family, his understanding of the Constitution and the Christian religion, his love for the Eastern Band of Cherokees, and his hope to become wealthy by transforming western North Carolina into the economic center of the new nation. Despite his lack of military experience, he joined the Confederate army and organized two regiments of Indians and nine more of mountaineers into Thomas's Legion, which he commanded as colonel. With his Indian warriors he trod a fine line of advertising them both as savage fighters with whom Union
troops should not dare to tangle and as civilized human beings whose rights the Confederacy ought to respect. Although they saw action early in the war at Baptist Gap, Tennessee, Thomas's troops served mostly as guards of the railroad passes through the mountains of eastern Tennessee and against the numerous Unionists in the area.

More loyal to his men and to his region than to the Confederacy, Thomas was court-martialed twice for refusing to obey orders. On 15 August 1863, General Alfred E. Jackson had him arrested for allowing deserters, most of whom were Thomas's Indians and friends, to join and depart his command at will. Because an imminent Union attack did not allow time for a trial, the charges were dropped. In February 1864, General Joseph E. Johnston ordered Thomas court-martialed because of a rumor that he had disobeyed an order that had resulted in the Union's capture of General Robert Vance, the brother of Governor Zebulon Vance. Because Thomas was probably innocent; the case was politically motivated;
and Robert Vance was already a prisoner of war, President Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) granted Thomas a presidential pardon before a trial could be held. Thus, despite a controversial military record, Thomas surrendered with honor to the Union on 7 May 1865.

The Civil War broke Thomas physically, mentally, and financially. The erratic behavior and occasional violent outbursts that his contemporaries noted before the war became so serious that in 1867 his wife committed him to the state asylum in Raleigh. For the rest of his life, with short exceptions, Thomas lived in hospitals for the mentally ill. Ironically, from his hospital room Thomas made one final and very significant contribution to his Cherokee people. Visited at the Western Insane Asylum in Morganton in 1890 by James Mooney, a young ethnologist from the Smithsonian Institution, Thomas told the full story of his life among the Indians and provided intimate information about their culture. He died at the asylum three years later. Although Mooney drew the information he used in his Myths of the Cherokee (1900) from many other sources, much of their important culture and history might have been lost without Thomas's contribution.
The Eastern Band of Cherokees would not have continued to exist in North Carolina had it not been for the work of Thomas, and his dream for the economic development of western North Carolina was embraced by subsequent generations who pushed it to success.

Bibliography

The two major collections of William Holland Thomas Papers are located in the William R. Perkins Library at Duke University at Durham, N.C., and the Hunter Memorial Library at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C. The biography and monographs that provide the most detailed information about his life and sources for its study are E. Stanly Godbold, Jr., and Mattie U. Russell, Confederate Colonel and Cherokee Chief: The Life of William Holland
Thomas (1990); John R. Finger, The Eastern Band of Cherokees, 1819-1900 (1984); and John C. Inscoe, Mountain Masters, Slavery, and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina (1989). For the legal struggles of the Eastern Band and Thomas's role in them, see George E. Frizzell, "The Legal Status of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians" (M.A. thesis, Western Carolina Univ., 1981).

E. Stanly Godbold

Citation:
E. Stanly Godbold. "Thomas, William Holland";
http://www.anb.org/articles/20/20-01398.html;
 
From American National Biography, published by Oxford University Press, Inc., copyright 2000 American Council of Learned Societies.

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Village Heritage Award Plaque Presentation

The Chamber of Commerce After Hours and Village Heritage Award Plaque Presentation was held at Monday’s House of Design on June 9, 2005. Lynn Monday was the recipient of the award.

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Vega String Quartet   July 27, 2005

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Ramble to the John C. Campbell Folk School  July 28, 2005

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Designer Showhouse Patron Party    August 18, 2005

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2005 Designer Showhouse at Lonesome Valley

SOUGHT-AFTER NATIONAL SPEAKERS DURING CASHIERS DESIGNER SHOWHOUSE

Cashiers, July 15 – You’ve seen him on TV.  Read her books.  Saved their magazine features.  This summer, they’ll both be in Cashiers for the Cashiers Designer Showhouse popular Speaker Program, August 20 and August 27. 

Kathryn G. Precourt, creative lifestyle, design and antiques author, is the credit behind such well-known publications as Audubon, Antiques Extra, Budget Living, American Homestyle and Gardening and more than 20 other publications.  Her books, including the spectacular Living with Dogs and Living with Flowers and the popular The Sporting Life, A Passion for Golf and The Angler’s Life are well-read and always appreciated as gifts. Devotees of online browsing are likely familiar with her Let’s Go Antiquing website.

Enthusiastic, entertaining and bubbling with ideas, Kathryn will discuss “Incorporating Your Passions and Your Hobbies into Your Home’s Design” on Saturday, August 20.   Her wide-ranging eclectic interests and experiences guarantee a fascinating morning.  An added bonus, her recently published The Gardeners’ Life will be available and she will be signing copies.

Following an overwhelming response last season, Barry Dixon returns  on August 27 to discuss  “Thinking Outside of the Box for the Inside of Your Home…new approaches to age-old problems in making your house your own.”  

Named one of America’s top designers by House Beautiful, Barry has appeared on “Good Morning America” a number of times, including a week-long series where he decorated a living room on TV.  Barry is a veteran of showhouses, including the entire Southern Accents “Capital Design House” and a suite for client and ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer in Traditional Home’s  “Built for Women Show House.” His work is featured frequently in national media, including Town and Country, Southern Accents, W Magazine, The New York Times, House Beautiful, the Washington Post, Better Homes and Gardens and Traditional Home. 

Featured as an Outstanding Alumnus, Barry is a graduate of the University of Mississippi.  He spent much of his childhood abroad, living in exotic countries from India and Korea to New Caledonia and South Africa giving Barry the global perspective reflected in his design philosophy.

Both events, and a reception during which everyone can talk with the speakers, will be from 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. in the Fellowship Hall of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Highway 107 South in Cashiers. Tickets for each are $50.00 which includes the speaker and reception as well as entrance to the Showhouse.  Seating is limited so interested attendees are encouraged to call 828/743-7710 for tickets. 

The 2005 Cashiers Designer Showhouse, The Homestead at Lonesome Valley, kicks off with the August 19 “Diamonds and Denim” Patron Party.  The Showhouse will be open Saturday, August 20 – Sunday, September 4.   The Cashiers Designer Showhouse is presented by the Cashiers Historical Society, benefiting the Zachary-Tolbert House restoration fund and 2005 grant recipient Cashiers Community Council.

CASHIERS DESIGNER SHOWHOUSE: ELEGANT FARMHOUSE RETREAT & GARDEN REINFORCE SITE’S UNSPOILED VISTAS

Cashiers, June 20 -- Each year Cashiers Designer Showhouse visitors look forward to seeing the newest custom furniture, venerable antiques, unique accessories and surprising twists on tradition from many of the Southeast’s most sought-after designers.  The Homestead at Lonesome Valley, this year’s Showhouse, promises to be exceptional. 

Sixteen designers from Cashiers, Highlands, Sapphire and Atlanta will create a sophisticated mountain retreat amidst acres of pristine farmland overlooking long-range mountain views.  In addition to the home’s rooms, there are decks, porches, patio and a garden shop.

Entering at the covered front porch, Cashiers/Palm Beach/Chapel Hill/Atlanta designer Skip Ryan will combine vintage antiques with his special finds.  Ryan owns Ryan & Co. and The Cat Bird Seat in Cashiers.  This year marks his eighth Showhouse.  

In the living-dining room, Atlantan Carolyn Malone’s designs debut at her first Cashiers Designer Showhouse. Familiar to those who have enjoyed Atlanta Decorator Showhouses and Malone’s designs in Veranda, Southern Accents and House Beautiful, Malone is known for her attention to detail and personal custom touches.

In the receiving room, Showhouse visitors will be charmed by Guyton Design Group veteran Kathy Guyton’s casually elegant interior. Her timeless designs, featuring antiques and accessories from around the world, have been featured in Town and Country, Veranda, Southern Living and House Beautiful. Guyton’s current projects include homes from coast to coast, from Sea Island, GA to Santa Barbara, CA.  

The children’s bunk room will be designed by Cashiers resident and Rusticks’ owner Ann Sherrill.  Sherrill’s delightful mix of one-of-a-kind custom designs, always a Showhouse must-see, will feature recently arrived English and European antiques in a comfortable, casual room filled with ideas for Showhouse visitors. 

In the powder room, Cashiers resident Vivianne Metzger, owner of Vivianne Metzger Antiques, will feature 18th and 19th century French and British accessories and antiques, personally imported by Metzger, and specially chosen to complement the home. Atlanta designer Susan Bozeman will transform the master bedroom and bath into a quiet refuge.  Bozeman and her staff apply nearly 50 years of design expertise to her goal – transform a homeowner’s vision to the ah-ha-this-is-me moment.  Showhouse visitors are sure to glean ideas for their own homes.

Cashiers Showhouse newcomer Priscilla Wodehouse, owner of The Decorative Touch in Ponte Vedra, FL and Cashiers, has won rave reviews at Showhouses from Massachusetts to Florida.  Her kitchen design at Lonesome Valley is expected to do the same. Wodehouse’s interior designs range from Jacksonville’s University Club to beachfront homes in Ponte Vedra Beach. Mindy Sullivan of Atlanta will join Wodehouse for The Homestead at Lonesome Valley kitchen design and at The Decorative Touch in Cashiers.

English Green owner Debra Green of Cashiers will put her mountain elegant touch on The Homestead’s covered porch. Green’s charming furnishings, antiques and accessories have graced  six previous Showhouses.  This year, visitors can relax amidst Green and colleague Janine Peak’s classic furnishings and admire the spectacular mountain view. 

After all that relaxing, visitors will wish they could rest in the upstairs bedroom, designed by Sara McKee of Sara McKee Antiques and Interiors in Cashiers.  Showhouse visitors always anticipate seeing McKee’s custom lamps, lampshades, distinctive accessories and American and European antiques and this year they will be well rewarded.

Cashiers designer Lynn Monday, founder of the first Cashiers Designer Showhouse, is this year’s recipient of the Cashiers Historical Society’s Village Heritage Award for adapting her historic family home for contemporary use – now Monday’s House of Design.  Monday has been recognized by the National Association of Homebuilders with the Gold Award.  At The Homestead at Lonesome Valley, Monday will combine custom work from local craftsmen with classic antiques and stunning fabrics to create the gentleman’s study.  

In the guest bedroom and bath, Midnight Farm owners and designers Jim and Pat Grady and Ron Smith of Cashiers will create a unique mountain ambiance featuring their popular country antiques, handmade twig furniture and well-known custom rustic furniture, asked for by clients from Massachusetts to the Bahamas.

Showhouse visitors should pause on the staircase and upper landing to appreciate how Peter John Pioli’s diverse design techniques complement the home’s many rooms.  Pioli has participated in numerous Showhouses and after being a seasonal resident for 20 years, now lives in the mountains year-round.

As many mountain visitors know, a trip to the mountains also means a trip to the Summer House in Highlands. Summer House owners Barry and Paula Jones will bring their design team of Darren Whatley and Merideth Waltzek to the Cashiers Designer Showhouse.  As in prevous Showhouses, the design team’s approach will be much anticipated. Together they have worked throughout  the country, including NY, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and Atlanta.  

The incredibly popular garden shop and potting shed returns to this year’s Showhouse, thanks again to Erin and Dustin Watson of Scotlyn’s Yard in Cashiers.  Fresh flowers, plants and hanging baskets as well as unusual poplar bark planters and delightful garden accessories  will be available.   The Watsons donate a percentage of all sales to the Showhouse. 

New this year will be a container garden featuring designs from Poetic Posy in Cullowhee.  Owner Kris Nelson specializes in unusual plant combinations, creative containers and a flair for the artistic.   

Also new this year, well-known landscape designers Hugh and Mary Palmer Dargan of Dargan Landscape Design will create one of their incredible landscapes around the stone patio. The Dargans have received numerous trophies and awards, including both Regional and National Awards of Merit from the American Society of Landscape Architects as well as being named by Southern Accents as two of the South's leading landscape architects. Several of their projects currently air on Ground Breakers—a weekly, primetime television series produced by Home & Garden Television (HGTV).

The eighth annual Cashiers Designers Showhouse is presented by the Cashiers Historical Society, benefiting the Zachary-Tolbert House restoration fund and 2005 grant recipient Cashiers Community Council.  Kicking off with “Diamonds and Denim,” the popular Lee Epting catered Patron Party Friday, August 19 at Lonesome Valley, the Showhouse will be open Saturday, August 20 – Sunday, September 4, 10:00 – 4:00 daily and 1:00 – 4:00 on Sundays.

Tickets for the Patron Party and the Showhouse can be purchased by calling 828/743-7710. In addition to Patron Party and Showhouse tickets, for the first time this year there are $2,500.00 corporate sponsorships available.  Corporate sponsors receive eight Patron Party tickets and eight daily tickets. Click here to see the CDS Invitation (pdf).

Lonesome Valley, on Highway 64 east, is just across from the horse stables 2 1/2 miles from the crossroads of Highways 64 and 107.  Free onsite parking is plentiful.

CASHIERS DESIGNER SHOWHOUSE BENEFICIARIES

Cashiers, June 8 – Connected to the land and representing a more nostalgic era – a fitting description for this year’s Showhouse, The Homestead at Lonesome Valley, as well as the organizations it will benefit – the Cashiers Historical Society and grant recipient Cashiers Valley Community Council (CVCC).

The Homestead at Lonesome Valley has a multi-generational history in the area.  Jenning family patriarch E. H. Jennings, one of the original owners of The Toxaway Company, bought thousands of acres of land in Lonesome Valley in the late 1800s.  Over time, four generations of the Jennings family have been careful stewards of the land, its homes and Lonesome Valley’s stunning native mountain and meadow beauty. 

Land has always played an important role in the Cashiers Valley.  According to one story, Cashiers got its name when a settler’s horse wandered away, finding better feeding in the valley.  The horse’s name?  Cash. Cashiers Valley.

From folklore to homesteads – the Cashiers Historical Society, founded in the mid-1990s by a few enthusiastic history buffs, now has a full calendar of activities to inspire exploration of Cashiers historical heritage.  Prominent among them is the Zachary-Tolbert House which opened to the public in 2002 after extensive restoration to rescue it from its decline.  This handsome 1850s Greek Revival house, complete with original plain style furniture, is now open for tours, school groups and special events.   An archaeological dig underway explores this treasure of recreational learning – what people did, how clothes were washed, where people slept, which crops were used as medicine.

Other Historical Society activities include a scholarly Symposium, Rambles to regional historical sites, educational visits for local school children, research activities and Cycling thru History.  An annual Village Heritage Award recognizes individuals who have done an exemplary job of adapting a historic building for contemporary use. This year’s award to Lynn Monday recognizes her restoration of the 1924 family home of her descendant Dr. Owen Van Epp. The building is now Monday’s House of Design.

The Cashiers Historical Society recently acquired additional land surrounding the Zachary-Tolbert House.  With a grant from the Cashiers Community Fund, an affiliate of The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, the Cashiers Historical Society is now working on a master plan to fully preserve and interpret this significant historic property.  Proceeds from this year’s Showhouse will be used to implement more of the master plan, including a meeting pavilion, extended parking and restrooms.

Just over 50 years ago, the Cashiers community rallied to form the CVCC to raise money for a sports, recreation and community facility.  Since that time, the CVCC has added tennis courts, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, baseball and soccer fields, walking trails, a playground, picnic pavilion, thrift shop and child care facility.  Previous Cashiers Designer Showhouses have made possible major renovations to the Community Center, swimming pool and ball fields, including lights for evening play and the addition of dugouts and scoreboards.

The CVCC recently granted a 40 year lease of its 14 acre property to Jackson County; in return, the county will build, finance and manage a $3.2 million recreation center and manage all the grounds, including the ball fields, tennis courts, trails, roads and landscaping.  The CVCC will be the community’s liaison to the county.

The land, its people, its places.  The 2005 Designer Showhouse promises to be all that and more.  Kicking off with “Diamonds and Denim,” the popular Patron Party Friday, August 19 at Lonesome Valley, the Showhouse will be open Saturday, August 20 – Sunday, September 4, 10:00 – 4:00 daily and 1:00 – 4:00 on Sundays. 

Tickets can be purchased by calling 828/743-7710.  Lonesome Valley, on Highway 64 east, is just across from the horse stables 2 1/2 miles from the crossroads of Highways 64 and 107.  Free onsite parking is plentiful.

WANTED:  CASHIERS DESIGNER SHOWHOUSE VOLUNTEERS

Cashiers, June 23 -- Want to get a bird’s eye, in-the-know view of this year’s Cashiers Designer Showhouse?  This year, the Showhouse will be open August 20 – September 4 and more than 100 volunteers – at least 10 per day -  are needed.  Volunteer Chariman, Margaret Kaminer, has sent out reminder cards to find out how many previous Showhouse volunteers plan to return.   “We get a terrific response but every year we need more people.  It’s fun and I hope when people read this, they’ll pick up the phone and call me,” said Margaret.

“We ask them to work in three hour shifts.  Many of our volunteers like to sign up together and make a day of it,” said Margaret.  Before or after their shift, they tour the house – free for volunteers – eat lunch or have a picnic on the grounds.  At The Homestead at Lonesome Valley, this year’s Showhouse, the grounds and the views are indeed spectacular and catered lunches will be available onsite.

Margaret tries to accommodate everyone’s schedules and is flexible if someone needs to switch at the last minute.  She is onsite at the Showhouse every day.

Showhouse volunteers greet guests, answer questions, take tickets and help with any problems that might arise.  No experience is necessary.  Margaret will hold an orientation session August 17, at 10:00, at the Showhouse to help everyone get ready.

The eighth annual Cashiers Designer Showhouse is presented by the Cashiers Historical Society, benefiting the Zachary-Tolbert House restoration fund and 2005 grant recipient Cashiers Community Council.

The Showhouse kicks off with the “Diamonds and Denim” Patron Party August 19 at Lonesome Valley.  Tickets for the Patron Party and the Showhouse can be purchased by calling 743-7710. Click here to see the CDS Invitation (pdf).* 

Lonesome Valley is located on highway 64 east, just across from the horse stables and 2 ½ miles from the Cashiers Crossroads.

* If you do not have Acrobat Reader, click here to download a free copy:

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Founder’s Day   September 29, 2005

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Village Heritage Award Presentation      November 8, 2005

In 2003, the CHS Board of Trustees voted to establish the Village Heritage Award to acknowledge an individual or business that has preserved historic sites vital to the village character of Cashiers.    In 2005, this Award was presented to architect Greg Hall.  Greg was recognized for the renovation and reuse of the “Viewfinders” building, his architectural office and home.  This renovation of a 1974 building utilized materials and colors that are sympathetic with the Cashiers’ natural environment.

This year, the Board of Trustees established The Heritage Land Award that will be awarded when it is deemed appropriate.  

The first recipient of this Award was William D. McKee, Jr. who was recognized for his gift of land to the Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust.  This donation of 293 acres of historic mountaintop land on High Hampton property preserves two signature peaks (Rock and Chimney Top mountains) that define the Cashiers area.

Both awards were presented at the Annual Awards Banquet of the Cashiers Area Chamber of Commerce on November 8.  Congratulations to Greg and Will for your efforts in preserving Cashiers Valley!

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DECK THE HALLS AT THE ZACHARY-TOLBERT HOUSE      November 26, 2005

The spirit of the Holidays has been caught by Traci English and Jennifer Brauer of Acorn Creek Interiors as the Holidays must have been expressed in the 1850’s when Mordecai and Elvira Zachary lived in the Zachary-Tolbert House.  The decorations these artisans have designed at the House are highlighted by a splendid over-door wreath made of apples, magnolia leaves, and a pineapple at the center which welcomes all to the House.  A fresh Frazer Fir donated by Tom Sawyer Tree Farms is trimmed with pine cones, dried hydrangea, moss, and pine cones, typical of the Zachary era.  Completing the picture, wreaths and garland provide a fitting nod to the Season.

All of this charm could not have happened but for the deeds of Traci and Jennifer who donated their time and talents for this project. They provide decorating services from Acorn Creek Interiors @ Home Place Blinds and Design.  They can be reached at 743-5451.  Kudos also go to Elaine and Bill Hunt and Arlene and Emmit Hendrix who assisted the decorators.  Special thanks to Tom Sawyer for donating the tree from his farm.

Don’t miss seeing the Zachary-Tolbert House in Holiday splendor as interpreted in 2005 by these decorators from Acorn Creek, LLC.

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Cashiers Christmas Parade       December 10, 2005

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