Blue Ridge Country January/February 2023 - 27

CURIOS
TWO COLLEGE PRESIDENTS SORTED IT OUT
The Walton War
In the early 1800s, Georgia and North Carolina went
briefly into battle over a strip of land that is now part of
North Carolina's Transylvania County.
By MARLA HARDEE MILLING
COURTESY US ARMY SIGNAL CORPS
TOP FROM LEFT: 1.Circa 1938 postcard
shows the Front Royal Army Remount
Depot.
2. HQ Company, 310th Infantry, a New
Jersey National Guard unit, training in
1944.
3. Beginning in August 1942, the first War
Dog Reception and Training Center in the
U.S. was established at the Remount Depot.
LEFT: Quartermaster Detachment
Barracks.
ity of government (COG) in the event
of a national attack. A 2017 book, " Raven
Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's
Secret Plan to Save Itself - While
the Rest of Us Die, " tells of more than 50
fully stocked buildings ready to welcome
1,200 State Department employees.
The State Department halted activities
at Front Royal in 1963, and by 1972
all that was left was the communication
station. In the winter of 1973, the USDA
closed down the cattle research station.
The abandoned facilities presented
an opportunity for Dr. Theodore H.
Reed, then-director of the Smithsonian
National Zoo, who had searched for
more than a decade for the perfect location
for a captive-breeding facility. In
1975 the Smithsonian received title to
the land and launched the Smithsonian
Conservation and Research Center, the
precursor to the current SCBI.
Except for part of the original 5,000acre
Remount Depot that is now occupied
by the Northern Virginia 4-H Educational
and Conference Center, most
of this vast and beautiful tract continues
its legacy of much going on with
very little chance to see it.
Y
ou wouldn't think a small section
of land would cause a major
problem, but a 12-mile tract once
known as the " Orphan Strip " led
to a power struggle among three
states and ultimately a violent
clash between North Carolina and Georgia
known as the " Walton War. "
The saga began in 1787 when South
Carolina ceded that strip of land to the
federal government, which in turn gave
it to the Cherokee Indians before reclaiming
it in a 1798 treaty. Here's where the
main problem arose-the land, at that
time, wasn't governed by any of the states
and considered a sort of " no man's land. "
Settlers with land grants from North and
South Carolina began to live there.
Georgia asserted its ownership of the
land in 1802 after the state struck a deal
with the federal government to relinquish
land to the west that became Mississippi
and Alabama for other tracts of
land, which reportedly included the Orphan
Strip. It fell into an area that Georgia
officials designated as Walton County,
after George Walton who was one of
the men who signed the Declaration of
Independence.
Census records from 1803 show that
424 white residents and 30 enslaved Black
residents lived in Walton County. But
those settlers who had land grants from
Buncombe County in North Carolina rejected
that their land on the Orphan Strip
was part of Georgia, and those with land
grants from South Carolina shook their
heads at the notion of the other two states
having any part of state ownership.
Walton County, Georgia, eventually
attempted to collect tax money and that
didn't go over well with settlers who believed
they were living in North Carolina.
Soon after Buncombe County, North Carolina,
men captured 10 Walton County, Georgia
officals, the conflict ended.
They refused to pay and the tensions increased.
The squabbling turned bloody on
December 14, 1804 when John Havner, a
Buncombe County Constable, died after
being battered with the butt of a musket.
In response, Buncombe County officials
called out the militia. Major James
Brittain marched a group of 72 men into
Walton County and joined forces with
24 North Carolinians living there. They
took 10 Walton County officials as prisoners
and transported them to Morganton,
North Carolina on charges of murdering
Havner.
That was the end of the bloodshed,
but the dispute continued until 1807.
In that year, state officials met to establish
a more exact boundary. Two college
presidents were given the task of making
scientific observations about the actual
boundary line.
Those two men-Joseph Caldwell of
the University of North Carolina and Joseph
Meigs from the University of Georgia-showed
that the true boundary was
a few miles further south than the Orphan
Strip. Georgia then conceded that
12-mile area was truly within North Carolina's
boundary.
Today that area is included within
Transylvania County, North Carolina.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023 27
Blue Ridge Country January/February 2023

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