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Writer's pictureDallas Reese

One of the oldest Family Reunions in Western NC renews ties that bind this Sunday July 24, 2022

This coming Sunday, July 24, 2022, the offspring of Barak Norton and his wife Mary Nicholson will convene, as they have on the fourth Sunday in July for 150 years, at the foot of Whiteside Mountain near Cashiers North Carolina to remember who they are. This family has gathered every summer since 1872 either in the lower cemetery or at the Whiteside Cove community building/schoolhouse/church.

WHITESIDE MOUNTAIN-from Hwy 64 Cashiers, North Carolina


There are thousands of descendants scattered across the broad continental United States. Much of the family still lives in North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. It began this way: Barak Pickeral Norton, born in 1777 to William and Jemima Pickeral Norton, who settled in Tamassee, South Carolina, married Mary Nicholson of Mountain Rest on Jan. 10, 1805.

Family historians believe six or seven of their 12 children were born while they lived in the Pickens District, where Barak Norton owned and sold considerable property in the Oconee Station section during the early 1800s.

Barak's parents William and Jemima Norton lived out their lives and were buried in Tamassee, in the upstate hills of South Carolina where peculiar, rocked-up tombs, out in the field, still mark their burial site.

But about 1820, Barak and Mary picked up their considerable household, crossed that first great wave of the Blue Ridge, and cleared a substantial homestead in Whiteside Cove.

It was one of the most striking settings on earth for a home and farm site. Sheltered by the stark 2,000-foot-high bluff of Whiteside Mountain, watered by the Chattooga, it was old as the hills and absolutely new. Barak Norton was the first white man to own it. And he would live there, for most of the rest of his days, until he died in 1869. Mary would live 14 years longer.

There is nothing left of that time, except the graves. The place has gone back to woods and grassy fields. Barak and Mary and several of their children are buried in the Norton cemetery across Whiteside Cove Road, off Highway 107, from where the house used to be.

Grave of Barak and Mary Nicholson Norton-Norton Cemetery-Whiteside Cove, NC



But far ahead, fanning out into the hundreds and thousands, connecting with dozens upon dozens of other South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and other far-flung states' families, their family tree would thrive. Consider this beginning: Their first-born Mira married Mat Murphree and had five children; Roderick married Drucilla Burrell and had 13; Elias married Polly Holden and had 11; Jemima married James Wright and had three; William married Susan Zachary and had nine; Edward, who would later die the victim of Kirk's Raiders in mean times following the War Between the States, married Elizabeth Wall and had six children.

Sarah Whiteside married Col. John Heywood Alley, another Cashiers area pioneer, and had 12 children. (One of their sons was Judge Felix Alley, one of the funniest and most often-quoted storytellers ever in the mountains.) Giles married Sarah Passmore and had three children; Rosal married a Corbin and had four; Pick married Lavinia Hill and had one child. Martha who married Jack Tatham and moved west to Cherokee County, and Elizabeth, who married a Jackson, both died childless.

Add to these the Ellenburgs, Brazeales, Fishers, Hoopers, Fowlers, Klines, Pickelsimers, Turpins, Hendersons, Keeners, Chappels, Hunters, McGuriers, Davises, Bolicks,Duncans, Rosses, and forever on that have since joined the clan. Of these descendants the number who attend the reunions each summer have dwindled down from their heyday, but many from upstate South Carolina and North Carolina still make the trek to the small Whiteside Cove Community church to hold a service and spread out an awe-inspiring Sunday dinner.

Back in the 1920s and 30s the reunions were held in the lower cemetery, But the crowds grew so large that by the time of World War II the reunion moved to the little schoolhouse chapel which had been rebuilt in 1918. And the reunion has been held on the fourth Sunday of July ever since.



The 150th Annual Barak Norton Family reunion will happen Sunday, July 24, 2022 at the Historic Whiteside Cove Community Schoolhouse, 4601 Whiteside Cove Rd., Cashiers NC. The meeting begins at 11:30 am with music, guests, and food, glorious food. For more information on the reunion contact: President Gina L. Hileman 109 Huffman Rd., Kingsport Tennessee 37763 phone: 865-789-7022 or Treasurer Jamie Bryson 335 Lombard Lane, Highlands, NC 28741 phone: 828-526-5194

Barak and Mary Norton Family Links of Interest--Discover more about the family:

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