Early roots of county can be found at Basin Creek's cove By LON LEATHERLAND Contributor "On a clear day," the man of the mountains mused, "you can look farther than you can see." He may well have spoken from Doughton Park's Wildcat Rock overlook. Far below sits Martin and Janie Blevins Caudill's 14- by 16-foot log cabin — two doors, no windows — nestled hard by the near edge of a small clearing. Dense forest beyond hides Basin Creek's meandering path toward Longbottom Road, a few miles distant. The homes of several dozen families once dotted the creekbanks, but no more. Not since the seventh month, fifteenth day, 1916. In just 18 hours, a simple way of life would be frightfully changed. Harrison Caudill, then just 16, settled in Basin Creek Cove early in the 1800's, moving up from farmland that's now beneath Elkin's Chatham Mills. His new home stood a scant mile down the cove from where Martin's old cabin still sits at the foot of the bluffs. Soon it would be time to start a family of his own. Harrison later told his granddaughter, Edna Martha Ann Caudill Brooks, that he went to the Tilley house to marry Sarah, but since she and her twin sister Mary looked so much alike, he couldn't tell them apart. Mary came out first and the two of them walked off toward the road. Then Harrison paused and called back to Sarah, "Wait for me. I'll be back to get you later."

Caudill Cabin (above) still remains in Doughton Park, at the same spot where it stood during the washout of 1916. At left, the gravestone of Alice Caudill, the wife of Famon, remains in a wooded area near the cabin. Alice and her unborn child were killed when the washout occurred.

Mary died after bearing the first six of Harrison's children. As promised, he returned to wed Sarah, who added 16 more kids to his family. The last ones, Delis and Kelly, were twins. Eleven of the kids were redheads and 11 were brunettes; 11 were boys and 11 were girls. One of the girls would later marry at age 12, another at 13.

Today's valley looks nothing like the way it was early on when young Harrison made three 10- or 12-day trips a year to buy the things he couldn't raise or make for himself. As the years passed, "Grandpaw" Caudill's land holdings would cover nearly 1,000, stretching along the ridge from Brinegar Cabin, past Wildcat Rock to the Bluff's Overlook, then down to the fork of Basin and Cove Creeks, near what is now Longbottom Road at the valley's far end. As his children grew and married, he helped them buy land to build places of their own. Many a nearby business began with Harrison Caudill's money or surety. Martin's place at the cove's upper end originally included an 18-acre wheat field, according to his son, Harrison Jr. At the far end near the schoolhouse site, 75 acres of rich bottomland lined the creek. Acres of food crops, including corn, wheat, barley, rye and buckwheat abutted fields of flax used to make clothing. Many families kept bees for honey and made molasses from sugar cane. In addition to grains and the foods made from them, people raised beans, potatoes, pumpkins and other vegetables: drying, canning and pickling them for winter. Most families had at least one milk cow; others raised a few beef cattle.

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