Uncle Fed Messer of Haywood County, NC - The Man Who Lived In Three Centuries 1792-1907
A TRIBUTE TO UNCLE FED MESSER By H.E.C. Bryant Feb. 20, 1907 The Observer, Charlotte, North Carolina :
Uncle Fed Messer At Home...
It was 11:00 O'clock when I arrived at Uncle Fed's home. I left the wagon road about twenty miles out of Waynesville and followed a very old but indistinct trail through the woods, over a small stream whose banks were covered with beautiful laurel, holly and hemlock bushes and by a worn fence to the Messer place. The distance from the road to the house is about a mile. I did not see any route by which a buggy could approach within several hundred yards of the opening in which the house sits. To reach there one must walk or go on a horse.
The Messer Home
The home in which Uncle Fed and his daughter Miss Sue dwell is not attractive to look upon nor would it be comfortable to the up to date people of this age. It is a double roomed log cabin with walls of hewn logs which bear the marks of the ax. Roof of rough riven boards, floors of heavy loose planks and chimney of rocks gathered from the hill side and the streams. The building which is in two sections and used for bedroom and kitchen has become dilapidated and weather beaten. Eighty odd years have passed over it's timbers and like the man who's head it sheltered, it must soon totter and fall. In it's day the house considered first class but the times have changed and styles with them.
Inside The Building
The doors of the building are hung on with hickory thongs. Hinges and staples were unknown to the architect of that house. The chinks between the walls were filled with clay and straw in years earlier but most of them are open now.The wind rushes in and out as if it were tearing through a latticed barn. A half grown boy could crawl through some of the holes. The house is bur little protection against the cold. The furniture of the rooms is scanty and unattractive: the most useful part of it being a carding, spinning, and weaving outfit. But it is here that one of the country's most noblemen live. He is as fine split silk, as pure as gold. It was to this home that Uncle Fed Messer took his bride eighty four years ago and where he saw her die in 1894, after having become the mother of his nine children and made him a faithful companion for over three-score and ten years.
Welcomed By Miss Sue
When I rode up to the Messer gate which was nothing more than a low place in the fence that encloses the house lot, and yelled "Hello! I saw no one in sight but from the feeble constant stream of smoke that rolled out of the chimney, I knew someone was at home. At the sound of my voice, a strong masculine-looking woman of medium height and passed middle age came out of the kitchen and greeted me. Kindness was written across her homely features. Though a rank stranger, I was welcomed to what she had to offer. Before I could speak, she said, " Light stranger and come in". "Could you feed my horse, please Mam?" "Yes, I'll put a bit of corn right here." She went right to work and before I could dismount, relieve Topsy of the saddle and take the bit out of his mouth, she was there with an apron full of corn. We shucked the ears and gave them to the horse in a small trough, cut out of a chunk of wood. Then I went in to talk to the old man while she returned to the kitchen.
Uncle Fed Himself
I found Uncle Fed seated on a low split bottom chair on the right hand side of the fireplace. The room was dark and it was some time before I had a good look at face. His game leg hurt him and at first he was disposed to be down cast. His head was bent over the hearth and he held his face between his hands. Before starting out that morning I was advised by an acquaintance of the mountaineer to take a bit of whiskey. I did and gave it to him with in ten minutes after I went in he took the bottle and turned it to his mouth swallowing about a teaspoon full, he smacked his lips and exclaimed, "That's plum good. Did you bring any backer?" I had to confess that I did not and promised to send him a piece from the nearest store in the afternoon. After this Uncle Fed brightened up and talked freely. He was clad in a homespun coat and pants, a soft white cotton shirt, and a heavy pair of brogan shoes and an old slouch hat. His clothes looked like they had been made for a man twice his size and the beard on his face was several days old. Had it not been for his bright gentle eyes his face would have appeared hard but the more I studied it the better I liked it. The milk of human kindness flows from his heart. It is singular that a man his age should have hair that is almost black. There is but a few gray hairs on his head. Uncle Fed warmed to the conversation. The more he talked the more enthusiastic he became. The bible is his favorite theme. Though he cannot read or write he remembers most of what he has heard from others. He quotes the bible with remarkable accuracy. It was quite a task to get him to talk about himself. All subjects led to the bible with him.
What Uncle Fed Talked About
"Uncle Fed how old are you?" "I was born on the 12th day of August 1792, on the south fork of the Catawba River, in Lincoln County, you can count on that. I remember when President Washington the man who fought for us in the revolution died." I was a Little boy." "Who was the first man you voted for President?"That was Jeems Monroe and had a fight at the lection because they wanted to cheat me out of my vote as I wasn't a free holder. But I walked 12 miles to do it." "Uncle Fed have you drank whiskey and chewed tobacco long?" "Child I's taken a little snip o' spirits before breakfast for ninety odd years. It takes the flashes off of my stomach. But I never took any other time for it ain't good. took a dram one moring before I started hunting and I seed a deer and I couldn't shoot it. The whiskey peared to affect my eyes. I didn't do that again. I've made a rule all my life to let everything alone that hurts me once." "Bout backer I never shewed it till I was grown an'then I took a piece to stop the tooth ache. lacks it but don't take much at a time." "Uncle Fed they tell me you never button your shirt, what about it?" " Well I ain't had it buttoned but twice in my life. When I got married they made me fasten it at the top and tie a handkerchief around my neck but just as soon as I got foot loose and tore it off. The other time was the cold Saturday when it was so freezing cold all day if you spit it would freeze before it touched the ground. I seed a judge, Judge Dick, was born on that day. I had nine children,four boys and five girls and was married when I was 25 years old. The boys all died and the girls are in the west except Sue who stays here with me."
Was A Great Hunter
"Yes sir I was a great hunter after bear, deer and turkey's. There were several men on Pigeon River that could beat me in a days hunt but I was ahead of all in a year. I killed 26 deer in one day. 32 turkeys in one and 4 bear in one. My hunting grounds were right around here, within seven miles of this house. I always used a Flint lock rifle and would not use a shot gun or a cussion-lock rifle. I wanted no caps in mine. When I was in my prime I could run down a deer in two hours, I did it in the snow once, I was very Strong then and could hold a cripple deer. No man could put my back on the ground and it took one with a head on him to out do me at log rolling. I feel all the wrenched I got when as a young man. You ought not strain yourself, you will suffer for it." I was in danger from wild beasts sometimes, I had to run as fast as I could scale it once to get out of the way of a cripple bear. A buck deer came near getting the best of me one day, but I threw him under a pole and cut his throat. A scalped bear or buck will fight you. I have jumped with my knife and they will rise up with me." "Bullets made in Ferginny will flatten on a bears skull. It takes a pewter bullet to go in." The bears were so thick here once I had to blow a wooden bugle to scare them off. They would kill my hogs. I generally found my dead hog and watched the rough and if I got my eye on him first he was my salad, but he could sent me a far off he would hide behind a tree and watch for me. I killed an old fellow that weighed 200 pounds over a lion one morning. There was a four inch cut of fat on his back." "I killed a panther, his tail was three feet long. He was sneaking after me when my old dog struck his trail and put him up a tree, when I put him a tree, I shot hm through the heart, but the game has gone. I have not hunted much in 50 years.
An Illiterate
"Stranger, I can't read or write and don't know much about, but I can head off half the preachers. I know more about the bible than anybody in this section. But I'll bet you don't know about Sampson's riddle?" I called for a calf rope and let him answer. "Well out of strength comes sweetness! Sampson pulled the jaw bone off a lion and dropped it in the sun, the bees came out and made honey in the carcass, and that is the way it comes. "I can't read but when read to quoting from the bible I don't forget the good measures. Half the educated people forget them and wind up going to old scratch." Uncle Fed told enough to make a book but I shall leave him hear.
A Mountain Dinner
At 12:30 I bade the old man good man goodbye and started for my horse. He insisted that I stay for dinner, even all that night, but I felt that I had already delayed dinner. I called by the kitchen and gave the lady twenty five cents for my horse feed. She followed me out and said,"Stranger, you're not goin without your dinner?" "Yes, I have a lunch in my pocket." "Well, I don't like that for I was preparing a bit of such as we have and it is ready now. I don't like for a stranger to come and go away with an empty stomach. Won't you come back? We will divide with you." Seeing that she was in earnest I gladly turned back. The dinner was on the table within ten minutes and Uncle Fed, Miss Sue and myself were at the table. I enjoyed every mouthful. We had sweet and Irish potatoes, corn bread, buttermilk, and coffee, a regular mountain menu. I don't reckon there was ever a regular pound of sugar or flour in the house. The corn bread was made from meal ground at a small water mill on Stevens Creek. Miss Sue had carried a half bushel of corn that day before and had it converted into corn meal. The bread was sweet and wholesome. Miss Sue is the carder, the spinner, the weaver, the seamstress, the cook,the field hand and all on the Messer farm. She is proud of her crop this year. She has plenty of corn, two hogs to kill and two good milch cows. She spinns and weaves cloth for the cloths of her father and herself. With it all, she is happy and cheerful and contented, though there are no fine churches or pipe organs or paid choirs near Uncle Fed and his simple but big hearted daughter, they have the king of Christian piety that the people on earth were as good as Uncle Fed and Miss Sue this would be a glorious old world. They would divide their last crumb with a stranger.
Notes
Uncle Fed walked to Waynesville last summer it took him three days to make the trip, but he succeeded. It was then he had his first taste of ice cream. He was at Dr. McFadyen's for dinner and the day was hot. When had swallowed the last bite of sweet juice he turned to Miss McFadyen who gave him the ice cream and asked "Sissie what kind of cold sass was that you gave me. The next time give it to me first for it cools me so. It cools my throat, my chest and all." It is said Fed comes to town twice a year on foot always to buy a pint of good whiskey which he uses as a medicine. The people of Waynesville know Uncle Fed Messer. They like him. His daughter has never been to town. She has never seen a town or any kind of railroad. Capt. R.A.L. Hyatt, clerk of the court of Haywood County, had an authentic record of Mr. Messer's birth. There is no doubt about his age. He would be an attraction worth going to see at an exposition. His mind is sound and quick. His eyes are beginning to fail and his body seems to be drying up.
