MOODY’S “STOMPIN’ GROUNDS”

By Marshall McClung
Graham Star Correspondent

In the upper reaches of the Little Snowbird Creek watershed is an area known as Moody Stomp Gap.  On some maps it may be called Moody Stamp Gap, but mountain people know the origin and meaning of someone’s “stomping grounds”.  For less enlightened folks, your “stomping grounds” refers to your home place or place of birth, where you did a lot of “stompin” or walking around.

Abner Moody and his wife Joanna Carver Moody moved from near Hiawassee, Georgia to Moody Stomp Gap near the Graham-Cherokee County line somewhere in the late 1800’s.  Abner had served the last two years of the Civil War in the Confederate Army.  Upon arriving in what is now Graham County, Abner built a cabin near a spring in the vicinity of a small gap that we now know as Moody Stomp.  I recall going through the area as a youth from the old road that runs from Eller Cove past Moody Stomp, Cozad Gap, and either turning toward Andrews down Beaver Creek or down Little Snowbird Creek, depending on which turn you took.  I visited the area a few weeks ago with “Hoot” and Virginia Gibbs to see if we could locate any remains of the old home site such as a pile of rocks indicating where the chimney was located. We were unable to locate anything.

Abner and Joanna had several children, who became prominent citizens of Graham County:   Newton Jasper Moody became an attorney, John Harve Moody was the superintendent of Graham County schools for twenty years or more, Hettie Moody married Joe Lovin of the Burnt Rock Ridge story, Texan Moody married D.W. Buchanan of the “Buck Branch Bunch”, Ida Moody married Riley Cook, Wiley Moody was a farmer and lumberman, and taught Sunday School to many of the youth of this county including this writer.  Much of the information in this story was passed down from Wiley to his son Ray Moody, and some from Texan Moody Buchanan to her children and grandchildren, Lillie Moody married Phil Hollifield and taught in the school system here for many years.  They also ran a boarding house where some of the men building the railroad up Big Snowbird stayed; John Harve Moody was the first white child born here after this became Graham County in 1872.  He was born on February 16 of that year.

Wiley Moody was a young child when the family made their move from Georgia to the backwoods of Little Snowbird.  He told his son Ray that he remembered traveling up and down Little Snowbird when there was no road of any kind, only a trail.  Few white families lived in the Snowbird area then.  Most of the inhabitants were Cherokee Indians.  Wiley said that although the Cherokee were friendly, if they saw you coming, they would disappear into the woods, and then come back onto the trail after you had passed.

Joanna Carver Moody had a favorite mule she rode, but swapped it for a tract of land.  Eventually the Moody’s owned a large section of land totaling some one thousand acres, lying near the forks of Big and little Snowbird Creek including the area now known as Nelms Road, and continuing on down Snowbird Creek.  Joanna Bald, where the forest fire lookout tower is located on the Graham-Cherokee County line is said to have been named after Joanna Moody.  Joanna Bald, rising to an elevation of 4,716 feet is also known by a Cherokee name, Teyahaleee or Diyahaliyi Bald, meaning “Lizard Place.”

Abner was a farmer, and was very active in the Missionary Baptist faith.  He died in 1915, and his wife Joanna died the following year.   What made them and others like them such as the John Denton family that lived in Joyce Kilmer, pull up roots and move into this area that was a remote wilderness?  Graham County was one of the last areas of North Carolina to be settled due to its remoteness and rugged terrain.  It was known as the “Last Frontier.”  Extremely old maps simply labeled this area as ‘Unknown”, “Uncharted”, or “Indian Country.”  It is said that when some of the very early settlers first arrived coming from the flatlands, and viewing the mountains in their words “rising like a great, green wall”, that they wept and wondered how they would ever get through them.

Why did our early settlers come here?  It is speculated that after the Civil War ended, that the bitter divisions did not.  Families were divided by the Civil War, never to get back together with “Yankees” and “Confederates” in the same family.  Carpet baggers descended on the South in hordes, as well as the Union occupation forces.  Having oppression on every hand, and finding it very difficult to make a living where they were, as the South’s economy lay in ruins as well as many of the towns and railroads, many simply pulled up stakes and left.  They stated they wanted to go somewhere where they could live and raise their families in peace without outside interference.  I suspect that if you will check carefully with the local descendants of those early families today, that you will find that wish high on their list also.