Today’s stories are not mine, they’re from an out of print, self-published book by a remarkable local Alexander county woman named Eileen Sharpe. Sharpe was instrumental in the restoration of the Lucas Mansion in Hiddenite and lived an incredibly full, incredibly interesting life, much of which you can read about on her Find A Grave obituary.
The book in question is called “Come A Fur Piece” and was originally printed in September of 1984 by a local business called Taylorsville Business Forms that was owned by Roe Milstead.
Rocky Face Mountain is a small stone-face peak in Alexander county, NC that has been a part of local word of mouth folklore for a long time. I wont even bother to repeat most of the various tales since they are the same kinds that teenagers always think up to scare each other and have no basis in reality, but it does have an interesting history and when I started wondering about that history, I stumbled into this book.
What follows below are her words.
Rocky Face Mountain, an unique work of nature, rises abruptly as a solitary sentinel, standing a little higher than the surrounding Brushy Mountains. It is located in Alexander County just four miles from where I was born and reared. Very clearly seen from the Taylorsville and Statesville areas, its features stand out like a great stone face.
Rocky Face has a base of 356 acres and it rises about 750 feet above the surrounding plain. It is dome-shaped and slightly elongated in a northeast and southwest direction. Sparse vegetation covers the top of Rocky Face since little soil covers her top. There were places with sufficient soil where pine, cedar, ivy, and smaller plants could grow, but no large trees grew on top of this mountain. The slopes of the mountain are not entirely uniform but are very steep in some places. The north side of the mountain we called “old bald face.” It was almost impossible to climb, but some of the young people would try from time to time. Stories of this mountain abound, and some of them have to do with me.
My Grandfather Lackey at one time owned the top of this mountain, where there was just enough soil to have apple and peach orchards and a wheat field. It was a joy for the grandchildren to hitch up the mules, get in the old wagon, and go with Grandfather for a day’s work on top of “old stone face.”
Many enjoyable days were spent on the mountain picnicking and hiking. Every year our Sunday School superintendent would take us there for a picnic. There at the foot of the mountain we would play games, such as Fox and Geese, Goosey-goosey-gander-fox-up-yander (variations of Hide ’n Seek), or find a huge boulder and play Ante-over. We took a ball and threw it over the boulder. We were equally divided on each side of the boulder.
We would try to catch the ball and sneak to the other side to tap a person before he or she could find out that we had caught the ball. This was a quiet game and a lot of fun.
Trees around the base of Rocky Face still bear names of courting couples carved long ago and encircled with hearts and arrows. Two or three of the older boys always would try to scale the bald side of the mountain to earn the right to carve their names on the stone. There are also names of earlier people who scaled the mountain and carved their names in the stone. For instance, my mother’s first sweetheart was one of the boys. My mother was a strong farm girl inspired with great concern for her boyfriend who slipped and fell down the mountain. She scaled the crags and rescued her beau from “old stone face.”
One of the memories that I like best is of the time I took my children muscadine and scuppernong grape hunting at the base of Rocky Face. In the bygone years, the Indians named these famous grapes, and bushels have been harvested at Rocky Face. Wild grape hunting was one of the social happenings of the season. The grapes were not difficult to find because the delicious aroma was detected many feet from the vines. The muscadines we picked had a huge, thick mother vine spread with many tentacles that wound around the tree limbs far up into the trees. The fruit was delicious with a tinge of tartness, just right for making wine, preserves, and jelly.
In the sixteenth century our forefathers talked about muscadines found on the coast of North Carolina when Sir Walter Raleigh took back the famous story that it was a land of milk and honey and grapes. I think the winds and birds carried the seed from the sea to the mountains fulfilling the creative plan of our Great Creator. The everlasting Rocky Face has many glories, and the muscadine and scuppernong grapes are native gifts to man.
I have heard stories of this mountain all my life. My father told of the competent engineers who estimated that there must be 200 million tons of stone above the ground level and it would take hundreds of years to move it.
At one time there was a quarry formed at Rocky Face, and the stone was to be used to build a hard-surfaced road between Taylorsville and Statesville where Highway 90 is now. A railroad track hauled the stone out to the construction workers. Local people thought there would be enough rock at “old stone face” to make a highway completely around the world with some to spare. Some stone was used for street construction and building purposes, but after some time, the rock was found to be not sufficiently hard to meet the requirement for state roads. The quarry did not prove to be very profitable so it was closed.
While the rock quarry was in operation, I saw for the first time black convicts with balls and chains. I was only fifteen, and I was horrified at this awesome sight. I was president of a newly formed program in the Methodist Church called the Epworth League, and when I came back to my church, I asked the minister if I could take the Epworth League to minister to the black convicts. The minister promptly told me I could not, and furthermore, that the Southern Methodist Church did not believe in ministering to the black race.
Since infancy I have had what some people called a fiery temper. I call it justifiable righteous indignation, especially where important issues are concerned. I told the minister in no uncertain terms that we were all of one blood. I stomped out of his office, which was next door to our home, and I went home sobbing aloud. As I walked in the door, I said, “Papa, I’m going to quit the Methodist Church. I’m going to join the Sulphur Springs Baptist Church.” My father was a member there.
Papa asked, “What’s the matter?”
“My church doesn’t believe in preaching to black people, I replied. —
“Well, it won’t do you any good to join my church. Papa said, They don’t, either. What do you want to change for?”
“I want to take the Epworth League up to Rocky Face Moun-tain and minister to the black convicts. God believes in ministering to the and that mountain belongs to God. In fact, the whole world belongs to God.”
He said, “That’s the truth. Eileen, you can stop crying. I’ll take the whole Epworth League up there and chaperone you. Get your League together and I’ll help you pick out the hymns. You call the League in and we will have a practice before we go.”
I called the League, and every member came. I pedaled the old organ, and Papa helped us practice the hymns. The minister’s daughter was there, but not for long! Her father promptly came, pulled her out, pointed a long finger at us, and said, “The District Superintendent will hear about this. “
Every member of that League with the exception of the preacher’s daughter went to Rocky Face Mountain and took the gospel of Christ to the ball-and-chained people. We were accompanied by my father and the depot agent at Hiddenite, Miss Cora Brimmer, our beloved counselor. She was ahead of her time in her attitudes about racial equality. Some of the hymns that I can remember singing were Be a Sunbeam For Him” and “Something For Thee.” My father led the prayer, and different members of the Epworth League told some Bible stories. The convicts were peeping from behind the fence, tears streaming down their faces. This was a very moving scene, for behind them was a huge pile of rocks representing their labor and above them was the towering beauty of the Rocky Face Mountain with all its flora and fauna. I was sure the glory of the great face of God was shining around and about us. They were so grateful to us and stuck their hands through the fence for us to touch. Before we left, my father distributed candy sticks from our general store.
As a child I can remember seeing the decayed remains of an old log shack with a rail fence and a number of dwarf apple trees on Rocky Face Mountain. My grandfather and some other citizens built the shack when they cleared off a number of acres at the top of Rocky Face. The shack provided shelter if it happened to rain while they were working there. I heard my grandfather tell about a wheat field there. With no spring on the mountain, water had to be carried up for watering and drinking. The wheat was said to be of unusually good quality, but erosion removed the topsoil and caused the failure of the wheat and apple crops.
Another product from that mountain was millstones. Millers from miles around obtained their wheels from the rock found at Rocky Face. They climbed the mountain, broke the rocks loose, and let them thunder down the mountain, causing the earth all around the mountain to shake like an earthquake. These large boulders were then hewn into millstones.
Other boulders were apparently carved from old Rocky Face to serve as tombstones for citizens that lived at the base of this magnificent mountain. I discovered specimens of these stones when I was traveling just a few miles south of Allie Patterson’s store. There were seven sharp markers that towered toward the sky, forming a stairstep foundation. The memorials were to a Barkley family, ancestors of Vice President of the United States Alben Barkley, who served from 1949-1953 under President Harry S. Truman. One marker read: “Born October 17, 1768. Death came to him in 1806.” As I looked at these markers, I thought, “Old Rocky Face has traveled a long way and has pro-vided lasting monuments for the living and the dead.
The most exciting story about old Rocky Face is perhaps in the future. In August 1983 the Felburn Foundation of “Saluda Gap” in Tryon, North Carolina, bought this mountain and the surrounding area. The Felburn Foundation is an organization dedicated to the conservation of valuable properties for the United States Park Service. The Foundation wrote me, inviting me to a land auction at the foothills of the Rocky Face Mountain, leaving “old stone face” preserved for valuable conservation ex-periments. The letterhead said “Earth • Sky • Flora • Fauna.” At once I set about investigating this wonderful happening. I went to the auction and talked with the people in charge of the project. They all wore green uniforms with hats printed with “Preserving Nature.” They told me that they had been researching for years the plants that grow on top of the Rocky Face Mountain. They also told me that they had discovered plants not found anywhere else in the world and that they were keeping researchers there experimenting and studying these botanical findings, which have yet to be published. They said it seemed as if the world was still creating plants to confound man.
The future is bright for this mountain to be a great tourist attraction as well as a beneficial study for mankind. My thoughts returned to my Grandfather Lackey and the little shack with the rail fence around the field and the imperfect wagon roads that wound around and around to the top of the mountain. This trail is still distinguishable. I couldn’t help feeling my grand-father’s presence as I surveyed the great possibilities of “old stone face” for a new day in this beautiful land.
Mrs. Sharpe was right, it just took a couple more decades for it all to come to fruition. In 2012 it opened to the public as Rocky Face Mountain Recreation Area. Visitors today can climb the rocks, hike to the top of the old mountain, or even spend the night up on the rock.
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