CHARLIE DENTON WAS A LIVING HISTORY LESSON

By Marshall McClung
Contributing Writer to the Graham Star

A study of Charlie Denton is a study of the history of the area.  He was born in Benton, Tennessee in Polk County in 1868, but moved with his parents to what is now Graham County at the age of eleven in 1879.   They moved to a section of Little Santeetlah Creek in what is now a portion of the Joyce Kilmer Forest.  His father was John Denton who whipped most of Robbinsville over a disagreement about a poll tax as covered in the story “The Great Graham County Tax Fight” published last year in the Graham Star.

At the time the Dentons moved to Graham County, there were only about forty white families living here.  The Dentons moved to Little Snowbird in 1895, and lived near a Cherokee Indian settlement.  Charlie’s playmates when he was a young boy were Indians.  He spent much of his young life in the woods hunting and fishing.  A lot of their hunting companions were Civil War veterans.  He recalls meeting John Jackson “Bushwhacker” Kirkland who lived in Graham County.

Beginning in 1903, and for the next twenty years or so following, Charlie Denton was employed by U.S. Indian Land Office of the Department of the Interior, and was associated with the Cherokee Indian Reservation lands.  As a result, he learned much of the early history of the Cherokee in Graham County.

Charlie said that the earliest white settlers to come to Graham County took the best farm land, first in private settlements with the Cherokee prior to 1837.  Following that time, the state of North Carolina surveyed the lands, operating from an office in Murphy.

Charlie learned much early history of the Indians coming into Graham County.  He said that some of the very intelligent Cherokee told him that the Iroquois and Cherokees came from the Great Lakes, and after much fighting between them, settled near the mouth of the Tellico River and called their settlement Echota.  They later moved on through Tennessee into Georgia and South Carolina and set up a new headquarters and called it New Echota.

In 1835, the North Carolina Militia moved in to begin the round up of the Cherokee in preparation for their removal.  Many Cherokee hid out in the mountains, staying there until the final removal was over.  Charlie said one family that lived near them, Conseen, also spelled Conesene at the time, was one of the families that hid out and escaped the removal.   They were living on Santeetlah Creek and the time, but hid in Slickrock near the Big Flats which is below Big Fat Gap and near Slickrock Creek.  They stayed hid in Slickrock for three years.  Charlie recalled that most of the Cherokees lived in log houses, but didn’t hew the logs like the white man did, but left them round.

One story about the Cherokee that stayed with Charlie and was probably his favorite was relayed to him by the Reverend Joseph Wiggins about Standing Wolf.  Standing wolf was considered to be a religious leader among the Cherokee.  He lived on Wolf Creek in the eastern part of Graham County.  Is this how Wolf Creek got its name?  The soldiers came to get Standing Wolf and the other Cherokees in the Wolf Creek area.  They were accompanied by George Hayes from Tomotla in Cherokee County who served as an interpreter for the U.S. Army.  When the soldiers entered Wolf’s cabin, he asked to be permitted to pray first.  Wolf prayed his prayer, leaving most of those present in tears.

Standing Wolf was taken to a stockade on the Nantahala River.  After being there a few days, Wolf asked the soldiers if he could be permitted to go get his family.  He promised to return the next day, and did.  They were then moved to another stockade on the Hiawassee River in Cherokee County.  At that time, Hayes, the interpreter visited the stockade.  Standing Wolf told him that he had received a warning (from God?), that if they were moved west, that they would be stricken by a fever and die.  This sadly came true for many of the Cherokee who died of Typhoid Fever.  Standing Wolf told Hayes that he wanted to get out of the stockade and go back home.  He asked Hayes what would be the best way to go about that.  Hayes told him that each time the soldiers gave them food to save part of it and hide it until he had enough food to last him for the trip back home.

Several weeks later, Hayes was cutting wood in his yard late one afternoon.  He saw a small group of Cherokee approaching him.  It was Standing Wolf and nineteen other Cherokees.  Standing Wolf made it back home.  Sometime later, he and his wife had a child and named it “Come Back Wolf.

Charlie finished the story by saying that in his career as a surveyor, he ran across the name of Come Back Wolf on several documents and important papers.  He was well acquainted with one of Wolf’s granddaughters, Mrs. Dave Wade Skittie who lived on Connelly’s Creek in Swain County.

Charlie Denton lived on Slaybacon Branch in the Sweetwater section of Graham County.  He said Slaybacon got its name from a man who was a great lover of pork.  Folks nicknamed him “Slaybacon”.  Charlie married Vienna Harwood.  They had five children; Patton Gwyn, Charles Grady, Walter Blaine, Samuel Boyd, and Ethel Virginia.  Two other girls died while still very young; Alma May age 2, and Mary Thelma age 1.   Charlie died in 1962, and his wife Vienna in 1971.  Charlie had many more “history lessons”, that space does not allow for in this story, perhaps more later.