Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/lakejunaluskainlOOunse LAKE M \ VI I SKA In the Land of the Sky A booklet describing the Lake Junaluska Assembly of the Methodist Chu rch in the Mountains of Western North Carolina Lake Junaluska Assembly Dr. F. S. Love. Superintendent Lake Junaluska. >«>rlh Carolina IN THE LAND OF THE SKY The entrance to the Lake Junaluska Assembly, showing the Mission Inn e story of the Lake Junaluska Assembly of The f the great Chief of the Cherokees whose of the matchless Smoky Mountains coun- ts located. While it serves mainly the Southeastern Lake Junaluska is a connectional institution, the the whole Church, under the control of and sup- General Conference, ibly consists of 2,500 acres of land and a lake of 250 acres in Western North Carolina, twenty-eight miles west of Asheville, near the eastern entrance to the Great Si tains National Park and the Qualla Reservation near Lake Junaluska Lake Junaluska takes its name from a famous chief of the Cherokees, who inhabited all the southern mountain area from prehistoric times until they were dispossessed in 1838. The Cherokees were a lordly people—the largest, most important, most cultured, and proudest of all the tribes. One of their chiefs, Sequoyah, invented the alphabet which made Indian litera- ture possible. Junaluska and his braves fought with Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812 and saved the life of that General at the Battle of Horse- shoe Bend, But when Jackson became President of the United States he ordered the Cherokees removed to the Indian Territory. That was in 1838. The Cherokees were rounded up like cattle and driven westward, 4,000 of them dying on the road. A little handful of Cherokees in the Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina escaped. Their leader was Tsali and his sons; they were all murdered but their resistance enabled a few of their com- rades to hide in the mountains and elude the searching soldiers. Junaluska was one of the exiles of 1838. He was then an old man. He could find no peace in exile. His soul cried for the mountains of his fathers. The small band of refugees who remained in the Smokies had secured amnesty and Junaluska went back to them. There he lived and there he died. In 1847 the State honored him in a striking way. By special act of the Legislature he was made a citizen and given a sum of money and a tract of land in the Cheowa Indian settlement near Robbinsville. Here is peace and beauty typical of the Lake Junaluska environment He died in 1858. His grave is surrounded by a neat iron fence, and above the gate is the single word, Junaluska. His monument is a great stone in which is set a bronze tablet bearing this inscription: "Here lies the body of the Cherokee Chief, Junaluska, and Nicie, his wife. Together with his warriors he saved the life of General Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. And for his bravery and faithfulness, North Carolina made him a citizen and gave him land in Graham County. He died November 20, 1858, aged more than 100 years. This monu- ment was erected to his memory by the General Josephus Winston Chapter, D.A.R., 1910." The Cherokees still live in the Smokies. Their central village is Cherokee, at the eastern gate of the Great Smoky Mountains Na- tional Park, and travelers passing that way are attracted by the "trading posts" filled with souvenirs, the drab Indian farmers, and the more spectacular red men gaily arrayed in the traditional feathered headgear for the benefit of the tourist. Near Waynesville the highest mountain bears the name of their great chief, as does the shining lake that lies at its base. This is "The Land of the Sky," famed in song and story for beauty surpassing that of any similar phenomenon in eastern America. A dashing little river in "The Land of the Sky." The Great Smoky Mountains are here and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park—visited by more people than any other in America. Here are the highest peaks east of the Rockies. Clingman's Dome towers 6,644 feet, Leconte 6,612 feet, and many others lift their heads above 6,000 feet. The Lake Junaluska Assembly itself lies 2,600 feet above the level of the sea, an altitude which gives a delightful temperature without humidity. This is the land of the pioneer, of Daniel Boone, and John Sevier, and Abra- ham Lincoln, and Andrew Jackson, and Andrew Johnson, and many like them. It produced the men who conguered the savage tribes, turned the tide of the Revolution at King's Mountain, and performed the most notable feats of per- sonal valor both in World War I and World War II. Yet Horace Kephart could not find in any library a scrap of information about it. "Had I been going to Teneriffe or Timbuctu," he wrote, "the libraries would have furnished information a-plenty; but about this housetop of eastern America they were strangely silent; it was terra incognito." It is terra incognito no longer. In normal times a guarter of a million people each summer seek the restful beauty of this paradise of places. Here is the home of the mountaineer, who, according to popular fancy, The Atkins Memo- rial House, home of the Superintendent of the Lake Juna- 1 u s k a Assembly. Formerly the home of Bishop James At- kins, one of the founders of the As- sembly; it was pre- sented to the insti- tution by Mrs James Atkins — speaks the tongue of Chaucer and Spenser and Shakespeare, lingers in the eighteenth century, and lives in a log cabin. He is "more English in speech than Britain itself, more American by blood than any other man in America." In his veins flows the purest Anglo- Saxon blood of the nation. His people are 100 per cent native born of native born parents. Here, too, is the natural wealth of America. It has been a land of coves and cabins, of poor land and primitive methods, of much food but little money, of sorry roads and isolation. Yet fabulous riches are in the Appalachian area. There is here "a greater variety of indigenous trees than could be found in a trip from Turkey to England or from the Atlantic to the Rockies." The hardwood forests elsewhere have been decreasing for forty years; the Appalachians contain seventy-five million acres of hardwood, half the country's supply, which yield more than three-fourths of the annual cut of the whole nation. The region has one-sixth of America's potential water power easily worth a hundred million dollars a year if harnessed and used. It produces one-fourth of our bituminous coal and employs one- fourth of the miners. The United States Geographical Survey de- clared that the southern Appalachians could supply the country's coal for 2,360 years. Appalachia has been backward, but it will be flourishing when other sections are effete. It is the home of the rhododendron, the azalea, the mountain laurel. In the spring millions upon millions of the gorgeous blos- soms cover the mountains with mantles of white or lavender or pink or flame. Persons have been known to weep as they glimpsed the vista from Newfound Gap or Clingman's Dome. The coves and dashing streams are easily accessible now. Mag- nificent highways that wind around and across the mountains have been built. Bridle trails, footpaths, and camping places have been provided. Still the improvements continue. They modify the unspoiled customs of the people, but they permit the outside world to enter, and they bring isolated communities in touch with the markets, the schools, and the general culture of the nation. Looking through "The Narrows" to- ward the golf club at Lake Junaiuska 7 HE Lake Junaluska Assembly is the gift of laymen to The Methodist Church. More than a thousand men met at Chattanooga in April, 1908, in the first general meeting of the Laymen's Missionary Move- ment of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and they adopted a resolu- tion of historic importance: RESOLVED, That it is the sense of this Conference that it would be well for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to have a great assembly ground on the order of Northfield, Massachusetts, for the gathering to- gether of our forces at stated times, and that such grounds be so lo- cated and so improved as to make them suitable for the various confer- At New Found Gap, "Brenner Pass" of eastern America Panorama over Lake Junaluska. ences of our Church when desirable to hold them there, and for Bible institutes and such other organizations for the help of the preachers and laymen and the general upbuilding of the Church and her forces as may- be decided upon in our onward movement for the evangelization of the world. RESOLVED, That a committee be appointed consisting of John R. Pepper, John P. Pettijohn, Gen. Julian S. Carr, B. M. Burgher, R. S. Schoolfield, R. B. Davenport, and A. D. Reynolds, with the request to take this matter in hand and to take such steps as they may think best with the approval of the Executive Committee. Various sites were considered for the location of the proposed assembly, and the decision was made in favor of a spot on Richland Creek about three miles east of Waynesville, North Carolina. It was stated that this spot "has in it the rarest combination of beauties and conveniences to be found in a similar compass anywhere," and that "the mountains which surround it are without that ruggedness which is forbidding, and rich in that beauty which so grace- fully glides into the sublime as to rejoice the timid child and inspire with the loftiest impulses the strongest man." It was also pointed out that "it is the most wholesome climate on earth" and "above the mosquito line!" The institution was called The Southern Assembly.