The Historic James Wilburn Whitehead Home By Carol Lowe Timblin
J
ames Wilburn Whitehead could sit on the front porch of his home just outside Banner’s Elk (known today as the town of Banner Elk) and look out over the hundreds of acres that he owned. From the time he built his home in 1885 until he died in 1924, he had the pleasure of living and working on the large farm with his wife, Jennie, and their children. When he died at the age of 73, James was considered one of the richest men in the area. James experienced significant changes and losses in his early years. Born in 1851 in Elk Mills, TN, he was the oldest of five children born to Daniel Whitehead and Lurany Holtsclaw Dugger. Daniel had come to the marriage with one child from a previous marriage, and Lurany Holtsclaw, the widow of Able Dugger, had four children. When James lost his mother at the age of six, his father soon remarried. At the age of 13 he was indentured to a family traveling by wagon train to Illinois. When he returned to Tennessee at age 20, he learned that his father had died and his stepmother had remarried. In 1872, he showed up in Banner’s Elk with a gun, two hogs, and a dog in tow. By the time James was 30, he had obtained a land grant for 600 acres on Buckeye Creek on Beech Mountain and three years later purchased an additional 480 acres on Big Bottoms of Elk that had
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belonged to Delilah Baird, who was linked to his Holtzclaw kin. In addition to having a family connection to the land in Elk River Valley, James greatly admired George W. Dugger, his half-brother, and wanted to live near him. George and his family had moved to the area in 1856 and had laid claim to large tracts through land grants; Dugger also forged iron at the Cranberry Mines, owned by his father and uncle for several years. Elk River Valley proved to be the ideal place for James to build his fortune. He trapped minks and muskrats in Elk River and hunted weasels, possums, raccoons, wolves, and bears in the deep forests. He raised cattle and sheep and let his hogs run wild on Beech Mountain. He grew oats, barley, buckwheat, cabbage, and potatoes on the farm and tapped the maple trees for syrup, sugar, and candy. In the early 1900s he leased large tracts of timber to the big lumber companies operating in the area. In 1891-1892, a turnpike road, connecting Valle Crucis to Elk Park, was built. Known to be frugal with his money, James once invested in a Valle Crucis bank, which went bankrupt. He never trusted banks after that and stashed his money in canning jars that he hid in the hog lot on the farm. He hired Alfred Bedum Baird, the son of Delilah Baird and John Holtsclaw, to help with the work and even
built a cabin for that family. According to a memorial written by a neighbor, “James was considered a shrewd businessman and always dressed in a suit…..His word was his bond….he was never known to owe any man a cent by note or otherwise.” James married Martha Jane “Jennie” Hayes of Watauga County in 1885. They had five children. Addie J., the oldest, died at the age of three. Sally Louise, Thomas J., George Washington, and Mattie Virginia grew up and pursued their own interests. James succumbed to cancer in 1924, and Jennie died in 1956. Their son, George, and his wife, Mabel, continued to live on the farm, raising livestock and crops. In 1964, they sold their home and most of the land around it to the developer of Elk River Club. The sale took its toll on George. He died in 1972, as the last of his cabbage patches were bulldozed to make room for an airport. Mabel passed away in 1993 at the age of 95. Both are buried in the family cemetery below the Old Turnpike Road along with other family members. Alfred Baird, who lived on the land from the time of his birth in 1826 until his death in 1880, also rests in the cemetery, which contains 19 graves. Elk River Club leased the farmhouse to various individuals before selling it for $5,000 in 1975 to Dennis Lehmann, a land planner for Carolina Caribbean
