02/11/2023
This week's highlight: Proctor
The town of Proctor was named for Moses Proctor, the first settler in the area.
Proctor was married to a Marcus and lived in Habersham County, Georgia. They had at least one child (Issac) when Moses went to Cades Cove to possibly find work or to buy cattle. The reason for his trip is not known.
There, he met Patience Rustin, who was at least ¼ Cherokee, with her father a half-Cherokee named Crowe. By the English/Scotch/Irish method of naming first-borne male children for their grandfathers, the first child of the union was named William Crowe Proctor.
Proctor was smitten by Patience and didn’t return home to his wife and child. Receiving word, the Marcus’ brothers were hunting him, he fled across the ridge and established a home in the middle of a Cherokee peach orchard.
Nearby, in Possum Hollow, was a Cherokee ‘summer camp’. The Cherokee would leave their winter homes located in the river bottoms as soon as the spring crops became dormant and went to their summer camps to fish and harvest game and plants that grew wild in the mountains.
Proctor constructed a small cabin in the Peach Orchard where Proctor Cemetery is today and raised 7 children, 2 of which were killed in the Civil War. William Crowe Proctor was wounded in Georgia and Moses made the trip to bring him home, where he was nursed back to health. His other sons, Moses, Jr., Mansfield and son-in-law Joseph Washington Welch, also served during the war. Unfortunately, Moses, Jr. died of malaria in 1862 while stationed near Manassas, VA and Mansfield was killed during the Battle of Jacks Shop, VA in 1863.
Sometime in late 1864, Moses fell ill and sensing he wasn’t going to make it, instructed Patience to wrap his body in a quilt and bury it in the backyard, thus starting the Proctor Cemetery. Today, the cemetery is also known as Orchard Hill in reference to the Peach Orchard, and Farley, for Sadie Welch Farley, who deeded the land to TVA after it was condemned during construction of Fontana Dam.
Sadie is buried the Garrett-Hillcrest Memorial Gardens in Waynesville. She was Moses’ granddaughter and the daughter of Joseph Washington Welch and Moses’ daughter Catherine.
Josiah Bradshaw moved to Possum Hollow near the home of Joseph Washington and Catherine Welch sometime around 1858, most likely into one of the Cherokee summer camp cabins. There, he set up a ‘school’ and taught Joseph Washington and Catherine to read and write, along with some of the nearby Cable children and others who had moved into the area.
Josiah enlisted into the Confederate Army and served alongside Joseph Washington Welch, Mansfield Proctor, and others who lived nearby. Josiah was in the trenches alongside Mansfield when Mansfield poked his head up to see what was going on and was shot and killed.
Josiah returned after the war and constructed a grist mill that was later operated by his son, Janes Robert (J R or Jim Bob) Bradshaw. The mill was expanded to include a ‘trading post’ that supplied necessities to the locals. Josiah served his community as a Justice of the Peace and was instrumental in association with Joseph Washington Welch in establishing the first combination log church/school just north of the Proctor Cemetery.
There is no doubt various ‘Yankee Raiders’ saw the many natural resources in the area during the Civil War. By 1870, a sawmill had been established a Wayside, about 5 miles east of Proctor and by 1890, Taylor and Crate had set up a mill on Hazel Creek, about 3 miles upstream of Proctor where the Sawdust Pile Campsite ( #85) is today.
Taylor and Crate was unable to turn a profit with their steam-powered mill and tried using ‘splash dams’ to float logs to Chattanooga to market. Unfortunately, a lot of the logs were splintered and damaged crossing over the Tallassee Cascades, which are now under the waters of Chilhowee Lake below the Calderwood Dam. Taylor and Crate left around 1900.
Jack Coburn came into the area with Taylor and Crate and remained after they left, becoming a timber agent for Montvale Lumber Company, who came in to log the Eagle Creek watershed. Coburn would later become an important man in the community, land speculator, and a partner in the Alarka Lumber Company.
In addition to logging and lumber, copper was first discovered on Sugar Fork and mining began around 1889. Montvale’s loggers discovered copper on Eagle Creek and mining began there around 1915 and became robust in 1925 when Montvale sold to a group of investors including Dr. J F Ritter and C F Myers.
Ritter Lumber Company moved into the Hazel Creek area just after 1900 after Southern Railroad began constructing a feeder line to Fontana, where Montvale had established its mill. The railroad was completed by 1903 and lumber was being hauled by early 1904. From a community of a handful of families to a camp and mill village of more than 30 family homes, 3 boarding houses, a bunkhouse capable of housing 500 men, and other facilities including a theatre and ice cream shop, Proctor in its heyday, had well over 1,500 residents.
Ritter constructed narrow gauge railroads up Hazel Creek and many of its tributaries and constructed a mill at Proctor and a connecting standard gauge railroad to its depot, Ritter, at the mouth of Hazel Creek, which connected to the ‘Southern line’, then known as the Carolina and Tennessee, Southern Railroad. Ritter logged Hazel Creek through 1928, harvesting over 210 Million Board Feet of lumber.
During the Ritter era, a new church was constructed and a new school, providing both a general (6th grade) education and a high school. Ritter often paid his employees in ‘script’ that was used as money at the company store. Granville Calhoun operated an independent store just downstream of the mill.
In 1928, lands were purchased on the headwaters of Hazel Creek for inclusion in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and in the mid-1930’s a CCC Camp was established at the old Ritter Mill site and work was done improving roads up Hazel Creek and constructing trails and campsites along with planting trees and other work to improve the Park.
In 1942, after World War II was declared, there was an immediate need for increased aluminum production at Alcoa, TN (Aluminum Company of America) and work was begun on Fontana Dam. Alcoa had numerous subsidiaries including Tapoco and NP&L that had planned other, but smaller power generating facilities, including one at the Fontana Dam site.
Construction began with over 5,000 workers working 3 shifts, 7 days a week. Flooding of the lake began in 1943 and TVA condemned all lands necessary for the project and other lands that would be cut off by the flooding of the lake. Over 1,300 families were affected and had to leave their homes.
While the primary push was power for aluminum production, a great deal of electricity was needed for the top secret Manhattan Project that was being conducted at Oak Ridge, TN in producing an ‘atomic bomb’.
Proctor’s existence as a community ended with TVA condemning the lands and in 1947 the lands were turned over to the National Park. Other than the Proctor Cemetery, the Calhoun House, and the ruins of the Ritter Mill, little remains of Proctor, a few old chimneys, some building foundations, and other remnants.
Proctor is accessed by crossing Fontana Lake or by hiking about 10 miles eastward on the Lakeshore Trail from the Fontana Dam trailhead. Boat shuttles are available by contacting the Fontana Marina.
