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Ancient mound and town site return to the Cherokee
Land Trust plays key role in unique property transaction
By Colin McCandless

The Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians met Monday to approve a plan for a unique partnership with the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee and provide funding for the purchase of 71 acres encompassing the Cowee Mound and the ancient town of Cowee.

The Land Trust for the Little Tennessee holds an option to buy this portion of the old Hall Farm property in the Cowee Community of north Macon County and has campaigned to preserve the historical site and return it to the Cherokee, executive director of the LTLT Paul Carson said.

As a result of the acquisition, it is estimated that the land, located along the Little Tennessee River north of Franklin off Highway 28, will return to Cherokee hands by late February.

“We realized the Cherokee were the logical people to own the property given its historical significance,” Carson said.

“Cowee Mound in Macon County is an important historical and cultural site to the Cherokee people,” said Michell Hicks, chief of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee in a statement to the press. “The collaborative opportunity presented to us by the Land Trust of the Little Tennesee, which includes our ownership of the property, is unprecedented.”

The Cowee Mound is the most intact Mississippian-period archeological site in Western North Carolina, Carlson said.

The mound was the heart of the town of Cowee, once the chief commercial and diplomatic center of the mountain Cherokee in the 18th century.

On the eve of the American Revolution, Cowee was the target of three British and Colonial campaigns between 1760 and 1776, including the punitive expedition led by General Griffith Rutherford. British and Colonial forces vied with natives for control of this principal trade route through the Southern Appalachians.

When Naturalist William Bartram visited Cowee in 1775, he described it as a flourishing hub of commerce, particularly for the deerskin trade, and observed that the focal point of the town's bustling activity was at the mound.

Evidence indicates thousands of years of continuous agriculture around the Cowee settlement and it is believed that the mound dates back 1400 years.

The Cowee Mound and Village Site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

“The potential for interpretive use and as a historical site are extraordinary,” Carlson said. “It's a cultural site, not just a river protection site,” Carlson said.

Carlson explained the historical continuity of the Cowee settlement after the Cherokee lost control of one of its most important sites to private proprietorship in the 1820s.

For the past 175 years, The Cowee Mound and the surrounding land that comprised the town had been owned by generations of the Hall family, before transferring to the late James Porter through his wife Katherine Hall Porter, who died in 2002, Carlson said.

Carlson said Katherine fought doggedly to protect the integrity of the property and defend the history of the site.

When an ailing James inherited the land he expressed his interest that the land be owned by the Cherokee. The LTLT worked with James and his heirs to arrange a sale of the property to ensure its conservation. “Katherine Porter left a wonderful legacy of conserving the Mound, and it was James' desire to have the Mound return to tribal ownership,” Carlson said.

The LTLT and the Cherokee have been working together since then to ensure that this exchange is realized and that the land around Cowee Mound will be defended from here on out.

Earlier this year, the LTLT secured a grant from the NC Clean Water Management Trust Fund to cover a portion of the land purchase while protecting a half-mile of Little Tennessee River frontage, Carlson said. The Cherokee will finance the remainder of the purchase and will assume ownership next year.

Cowee Mound lies between two previously conserved tracts-a parcel of the Needmore Tract now opened by the State of North Carolina, and the upstream half of the historic Hall Farm that was conserved by LTLT in the 2005 through the acquisition of a working farm conservation easement.

(Click on image at left for a larger view.)

The Mound and surrounding will be conserved by Tribal historic preservation interests and by a conservation agreement with the State of North Carolina.

Carlson said the land would continue to be managed as it is now, for habitat protection and in regards to agricultural history.

There are plans to enhance the historic interpretation of the rich heritage site, part of which will include continuing the thousand-year agricultural traditions on the land.

Terms built into the project prevent the settlement from being commercialized.

“We are committed to preserving this important cultural site and making a wonderful environmental resource available for future generations,” Hicks said.