wealthier land owners were not far behind the first settlers, and their posterity may be found in almost every county, some of them continuing to control large boundaries. The nucleus of settlement was on the French Broad, at the mouth of the Swannanoa. It was there that the first white child was born, in the inter-montane plateau--James M. Smith. In the year 1795, a wagon passed from South Carolina, through Mill’s gap, down the French Broad, to the prosperous settlements in Tennessee. Scores of emigrants, intending to go on to the West, were charmed by broad stretches of valley between the mountains, and went no further. The Indians frequently showed hostile intentions, but the occasion for alarm was never great enough to deflect the tide of settlement. The best lands on the French Broad and Pigeon were occupied by freeholders, and the smoke of squatters’ cabins rose in almost every cove, before the Cherokee treaty of 1819 opened up the valleys beyond the Balsams, which were rapidly occupied by settlers mainly from the piedmont and trans-Blue Ridge regions. East Tennessee made slight contributions. The buying up of cove lands, by actual settlers, from speculators, or the state, began after the valleys were filled, and many small farms on mountain sides have been acquired by “undisturbed possession.” The counties of Western North Carolina, in the year 1777, were all embraced in Burke, Wilkes, and Tryon. Ashe was carved off Wilkes, in 1799, and Alleghany off Ashe in 1859. Tryon, which bore the name of the most obnoxious of the colonial governors, was divided into Lincoln and Rutherford, in 1779, and the hated name obliterated. Cleveland was cut from both these counties in 1841. Caldwell was taken from Burke in 1842, and McDowell was erected out of territory from Burke and Rutherford; and Catawba from territory from Lincoln, in the same year. Easton was carved off Lincoln in 1846. Buncombe was erected in 1791, out of territory previously embraced, partly in Rutherford, but mainly in Burke. It is the parent stem of all the trans-Blue Ridge counties, excepting Ashe and Alleghany. The first branch was Haywood, in 1808, from which Macon was taken, in 1828, and Jackson in 1850. From territory of both these Swain was made in 1871. Cherokee was cut off Macon in 1839. From its territory Clay was formed in 1861, and Graham in 1872. Henderson was cut off Buncombe in 1838; Polk from Henderson and Rutherford in 1855; and Transylvania from Henderson and Jackson in 1861. Yancey was erected from Buncombe in 1833; Watauga from Yancey, Wilkes, Caldwell, and Ashe, in 1849. Madison was erected of territory from Buncombe in 1850; and Mitchell in 1861, from territory from Burke, McDowell, Caldwell, Watauga, and Yancey.