Warm Springs
[Hot Springs]

"Oct. 29 [1809] (North Carolina). At Buncombe I spoke on Luke 14.10. It was a season of attention and feeling.  We dined with Mr. Erwin and lodged with James Patton [owner of Patton's Warm Springs.] How rich, how plain, how humble, and how kind! (1904. Tipple, Ezra, ed. The Heart of Asbury's Journal, p. 619.)

"Nov. 30 [1812]...Why should we climb over the desperate [Warm] Spring and Paint Mountains when there is such a fine new road?  We came on Tuesday a straight course to Barratt's, dining in the woods on our way. (1904. Tipple, Ezra, ed. The Heart of Asbury's Journal, p.653.)

Dec. 9 [1812]I cannot easily describe the pain under which I shrink and writhe.  The weather is cold, and I have constant pleuritic twinges in the side.  in cold, in hunger, and in want of clothing, mine are apostolic sufferings." (1904. Tipple, Ezra, ed. The Heart of Asbury's Journal, p. 653.)

"Again in November, 1802 we find this entry [ in Bishop John Asbury's Journal] 'Wednesday, 3. We labored over the Ridge and the Paint Mountain: I held on awhile, but grew afraid of this mountain, and with the help of a pine sapling worked my way down the steepest and roughest parts.  I could bless God for life and limbs.  Eighteen miles this day contented us, and we stopped at William Nelson's Warm Springs.  About thirty travelers having dropped in, I expounded the scriptures to them, as found in the third chapter of Romans, as equally applicable to nominal Christians, Indians, Jews, and Gentiles.'" (1913. Arthur, John. Western North Carolina: A History..., p. 218.)

"The Hot Springs. The Warm Springs on the French Broad had been discovered in 1778 by Henry Reynolds and Thomas Morgan, two men kept out in advance of the settlement to watch the movement of the Indians.  They followed some stolen horses to the point opposite, and leaving their own horses on the north bank, waded across the river. On the southern shore, in passing through a little branch, they were surprised to find the water warm. "The next year" says Ramsey, "the Warm Springs were resorted to by invalids." (1913. Arthur, John. Western North Carolina: A History..., pp.491, 492.)

"Grant no. 668, dated July 11, 1788, and signed at Fairfield by Samuel Johnston, governor,  conveyed to Gaser Dagg, or Dagy, or Dager, 200 acres of land on the south side of the French Broad river in Green county, including the Warm Springs....Green K. Cessna...with Joseph L. Chunn and wife conveyed the entire property to James W. and John E. Patton, by deed dated December 6, 1831, for $20,662....John E. Patton took charge in 1832.  He owned it till 1862, when J. H. Rumbough bought it.  He has owned it since. (1913. Arthur, John. Western North Carolina: A History..., p.492.)

"Old Warm Springs. The old Patton hotel at Warm Springs faced the river and was on the left bank, a bridge crossing the French Broad at that point.  the thirteen large white pillars in front were very imposing looking, and represented the original States.  The Lover's Leap rock was on the right bank of the river, and little less than half a mile above the hotel.  It was a sheer precipice, thirty or forty feet in height.  What is now called Lover's Leap, on the left bank and a mile below, is much higher, but was not so precipitous in former days, the apssage of the railroad necessitating the blasting away of the lower portion of the cliff...." (1913. Arthur, John. Western North Carolina: A History..., p. 492.)

"Again in November, 1802, we find this entry: Wednesday 3. We labored over the Ridge and the Paint Mountain; I held on awhile, but grew afraid and dismounted, and with the help of a pine sapling, worked my way down the steepest and roughest part. I could bless God for life and limbs.   Eighteen miles this day contented us; and we stopped at William Nelson's, Warm Springs. About thirty travellers having dropped in I expounded the Scriptures to them, as found in the third chapter of Romans, as equally applicable to nominal Christians, Indians, Jews and Gentiles. (1922. Sondley, F. A. Asheville and Buncombe County, p.109.)

"On October 1803: North Carolina. On Monday, we came off in earnest; refreshed at Isaiah Harrison's, and continued on to the Paint mountain, passing the gap newly made, which made the road down to Paint Creek much better.  I lodged with Mr. Nelson, who treated me like a minister, a Christian, and a gentleman. (1922. Sondley, F. A. Asheville and Buncombe County, p.110.)

"In October 1805: North Carolina. We came into North Carolina and lodged with William Nelson at the Hot Springs....(1922. Sondley, F. A. Asheville and Buncombe County, p.111.)

"October 1807: Friday, 15 [16]. We reached Wampings [Warm Springs]. I suffered much today; but an hour's warm bath for my feet relieved me considerably.  On Saturday we rode to Kill[i]on's [in Asheville]." (1922. Sondley, F. A. Asheville and Buncombe County, p.112.)

"I come now to speak of the Warm Springs, which are thirty-six miles from Ashville [sic], and within six of the Tennessee line.  Of the Springs themselves there are some half dozen, but the largest is covered with a house, and divided into two equal apartments, either one of which is sufficiently large to allow of a swim.  The temperature of the water is 105 degrees, and it is a singular fact that rainy weather has a tendency to increase the heat, but it never varies more than a couple of degrees.  All the springs are directly on the southern margin of the French Broad; the water is clear as crystal, and so heavy that even a child may be thrown into it with little danger of being drowned....The Warm Springs are annually visited by a large number of fashionable and sickly people from all the southern States, and the proprietor has comfortable accommodations for two hundred and fifty people.  His principal building is of brick, and the ball room is 230 feet long.  Music, dancing, flirting, wine drinking, riding, bathing, fishing, scenery-hunting, bowling, and reading are all practised here to an unlimited extent; but, what is more exciting than all these pleasures put together, is the rare sport of deer-hunting; and hereby 'hangs a tale'.... (1849. Lanham, Charles. Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, p. 125.)

"Lately the Warm Springs property has passed into the hand of a company of men well fitted by capital and experience to increase the popularity of the place, both as a summer and winter pleasure resort and sanitarium. Mr. Gudger, the superintendent, was for a number of years in charge of the State Insane asylum, and is consequently well adapted to the business he had entered into. Great improvements are being made in the buildings, and every convenience added for the welfare of guests.  This to the votary of please: The next to the largest ball-room in the state is here. (1883.  Zeigler, Wilbur and Ben Grosscup. The Heart of the Alleghanies...p. 369.)

Among the mountain-streams that have their source among these towering hills is the famous French Broad, whose wild and romantic course from Asheville to the Tennessee line abounds in the most picturesque and beautiful scenery. It cuts its way through mountain-gorges of fearful height, runs dimpling among green hills, winds itself around mountain-islands, whose heavy and tangled undergrowth, with their clinging vines and glowing flowers, are of tropical luxuriance, sleeps sullen and dark between huge cliffs, rushes down rocky declivities with a deafening roar, ever changeful in its wild beauty. Sometimes are seen piled up in the river's centre great rocks and trees hurled into weird and fantastic masses by the powerful flood. A notable feature of the river is the rocky ledges that run diagonally across its course. Many of these are square stones resembling man's handiwork. A fine highway follows the banks of the river, often trespassing upon its waters as it is crowded by the overhanging cliffs. Some twenty miles east of Greenville, the traveller [sic] from Asheville approaches the celebrated Chimney Rocks - a series of lofty cliffs broken at their summits into detached piles of rocks, which have the likeness of colossal chimneys. These rocks rise abruptly to the height of nearly three hundred feet; a little beyond these cliffs a turn in the road brings the traveller [sic] to the famous Painted Rocks, another series of stupendous cliffs rising to an altitude of two hundred and sixty-three feet direct from the river's edge, and having a reddish-brown color, from which their name is probably derived, although some accounts attribute their designation to the Indian pictures said still to be seen on them. Tufts of grass, wild-flowers, and branches of bracken enliven their rough sides, and add to their fine effect. The geological formation of the rocks of this region is primary or azoic, consisting of granite, gneiss, mica, and hornblende, with very slight alluvial or tertiary deposits. They abound with metals-copper, quicksilver, lead, zinc, iron, and even gold and silver. It is probably a heavy intermixture of iron or copper that gives to the Painted Rocks their peculiar color.

The scenery increases in interest as the traveller [sic] nears the Warm Springs, thirty miles from Asheville, a locality once greatly the resort of the elite of the South. A more beautiful spot could scarcely be found. The pleasant hotel, and the cottages, in the midst of fine grounds and under the shelter of the noblest old trees; the Warm Spring itself in whose limpid waters it is almost impossible to sink, and whose temperature stands at eighty degrees Fahrenheit the year round; the French Broad in its varied course almost encircling the plateau on which the hotel is built, and filling the air with its rushing music; the everlasting hills rising around; the lofty mountains, majestic and fatherly, standing with a saintly presence like a benediction over the gentle valley, give one the impression irresistibly of security and protection. We know of no resort that can excel this in situation and surroundings of beauty, or in balmy and delicious climate.

A short distance from the hotel stands a bold and picturesque rock, called "The Lover's Leap." This Mr. Fenn has illustrated by two views-accompanying this number of the JOURNAL - one, as approaching it by night, just at moonrise - the other, as the rock appeared next morning at early sunrise. The reader, doubtless, looks for some tale of horror connected with this rock; but, notwithsatanding this very natural expectation, we regret to say he must be disappointed. A tradition of some sort must originally have given to the rock the designation by which it is known; but the name has long outlived the story. A diligent inquiry, by our artist, failed to elicit the slightest fact that would serve to throw light upon the subject. Everybody among the residents knew the name, but no one had a scrap of tradition or story bearing upon it. It was a tempting occasion to invent some thrilling legend of unhappy lovers who, in their despair, had flung themselves from the frightful diff; but our artist suppressed this poetic temptation, and relates the facts as he found them.

The Indian name of the French Broad is Tselica. William Gilmore Simms has given a beautiful poetic version of a legend of this river. "The tradition of the Cherokees," he says," asserts the existence of a siren in the French Broad, who implores the hunter to the stream, and strangles him in her embrace, or so infects him with some mortal disease, that he invariably perishes." In Mr. Simms's poem, a wearied stranger comes to the stream to rest:

"Brooding thus, and weary, a song rises
From the very billows, soft and clear;
Such as evening bird, with parting ditty
Pours at twilight to the floweret's ear.
Wild and sweet, and passionate and tender;
Now full, now faint; with such a touching art,
His soul dissolves in weakness, and his spirit
Goes with the throbbing sweetness at his heart.
 "He looks, with strained eyes, at the lapsing waters,
And, lancing bright beneath the billows, lo!
Flashes white arms, and glides a lovely damsel
Bright eyes, dark locks, and bosom white as snow.
"He sees, hut still in moment glimpses only,
Gleams of strange beauty, from an eye all bright
As when some single star, at midnight flashes
From the cold cloud, above the mountain's height.
"As raven black as night float free her tresses,
Out-flung above the waves by snowy arms,
Now o'er her bosom spread, and half betraying. ~
While half-concealing still her sunny charms.
Wild was the dreamy passion that possessed him;
Won by the siren song and glimpsing charms;
He leaped to join her in the wave, but shuddered
At the first foldings of her death-cold arms."

( "Picturesque America: The French Broad River, North Carolina,"illustrated by Harry Fenn, Appleton's Journal, Vol. 4, no. 26, November, 26, 1870 p.644).
 

"The Warm Springs region is one of peculiar interest’ to scientific men. The water of the Springs has a temperature of 104[degrees] Fahrenheit, contains sulphur, carbonic acid gas, and traces of some other minerals. They are located near the junction of the limestone and metamorphic slates. As a
mineral region the country has never been well explored; lead, silver, and copper are plenty, iron of the best quality abundant; a large mass of corundum opens a few miles from the Springs, and I was shown a sample of cinnabar which was said to have been obtained from a creek about fifteen
miles from the Springs, The scenery is wildly grand and beautiful, and were the river but navigable its fame would be world-wide. A railroad from Greenville, S. C., via Asheville, N. C., to some point on the East Tenn. and Va. R., has for years been chartered, also an extension of the Wst. N. C. R. R. to a similar point. One will be built, surveys have been made and some grading done. The Springs are located on the French Broad River, twenty-four miles from Greenville, Tenn., on the East Tenn. and Va. R. R. "

H. E. COLTON.
Brooklyn, L. I., Dec. 27, 186G.

For the Scientific American, Vol. 16, Issue 3, Jan. 19, 1867, p. 428.