At left and  right 
Isabella's
Social Calling Card
from mid-19th Century.
 As a top piece, the hand and
 the rose lifted at the wrist
 to reveal Isabella's  name underneath on the  card.

                
                
                 Joshua P. Stepp   Isabella Anna Porter
                         December 26, 1824    October 28, 1825
                              August 27, 1862    February 26, 1903
                          Swannanoa Valley,   Buncombe County,
                             Black Mountain,    North Carolina

               by Iris Teta Eubank Wagner

JOSHUA P. STEPP sat for this photo in 1861/62.  A tinted glass plate ambrotype in leather and velvet case, it was saved through the years by Joshua and Isabella's eldest daughter RACHEL JANE JONES, wife of MARCUS MALONEY JONES, and after that the photo was treasured by the youngest daughter FRANCES B. WHISENHUNT.

Joshua gave the photograph to Isabella and his young daughters Rachel, Rose, and Elizabeth  to remember him while away at the war.  Joshua never came back to them.

Isabella remained a widow until  her death in 1903,  though her opportunities for re-marriage were likely.   She was a prosperous widow.  In 1884 Buncombe County Deed Books show Isabella as the owner of over 2,000 acres along the North Fork of the Swannanoa -  land where her home was located - land where she and Joshua had begun their lives together, and where their three daughters had been born.
                                                                    

                                                                                              Pvt. Joshua P. Stepp
                                                                         
The ALEXANDER PORTER  family and the families into which Isabella and her sisters married were prosperous farmers in Buncombe. 

Reported assets on the 1860 U.S. census for Swannanoa township in Buncombe County  :
The Swannanoa, North Fork area
William Hemphill and Rosannah J. Porter Hemphill nearby, (Res.131, $10,000)
Thomas L. Young's widow (Jane Young Porter's brother ) Sarah Patton Young (Res.141,$9,000)
John H. Porter and Sarah Hemphill Porter (Res.142,  $5,000)
William and Sarah's father was Samuel Hemphill, born 1801, (Res. 222, $8,400)
Isabella and Joshua P. Stepp  (Residence 143, $6,000)
William Young Porter, unmarried, ( Res. 144,  $4,400)
Isabella's parents Alexander Porter and Jane Young Porter (Res.145,  $18,500)
William Gilliam and Elizabeth Louise Porter Gilliam, (Res.146, $4,500)
Joshua's parents Joseph Stepp and Rachael Waters Stepp (Res. 159 $28,500).

Isabella's three remaining sisters lived a few miles away, close to one another on nearby farms.
Reported assets on the 1860 census were :
William Stepp and Mary Adeline Porter Stepp, (Res. 221, $5,500)
John Stepp and Nancy S. Porter Stepp, (Res. 219, $5,500)
Richard J. Fortune and Martha M.Porter Stepp, (Res. 210, $2,800)
Richard's father was Fletcher Fortune, (Res. 211, $15,000)
William and John were sons of William Stepp born 1802, (Res.220 $18,500), who had settled in the Flat Creek section of east Buncombe.  He was first cousin to Joshua's father Joseph Stepp, born 1795.  Joseph Stepp's father Thomas, and William Stepp's father John were brothers, from Henry P. Scalf's account in his book The Stepp/Stapp Families of America. THOMAS STEPP and JOHN STEPP lived in Wilkes County enumerated on the 1790 U.S. Census.

Combined assets of the households noted above amount to $141,600.  Using these census records, the Stepp, Porter, Hemphill, Young, and Fortune families were among the prosperous farmers of Buncombe County.

1860 Slaveholding Families
In 1860, 293 Buncombe families were slaveholders, or 15.9 percent of the total population of the county.   Of those 293 Buncombe households, only 15 households had 20 or more slaves.  Joshua’s father JOSEPH STEPP was one in 15 households in the county which owned 20 or more slaves - Joseph owned 21. 

Forty families owned 10  to 19 slaves.  Isabella's father, ALEXANDER PORTER was one in 40 Buncombe households which owned 10 to 19 slaves - he owned 11.   His  children held individually from one to four slaves.  Joshua and Isabella held four slaves. 

"Papa never came back from the war."
There is no Confederate enlistment record for a Civil War soldier of the name Joshua P. Stepp, age 35, of Buncombe County, North Carolina.   Their eldest daughter Rachel Jane Jones lived  her   life  a  close  daughter  of  Isabella, and she was close to her sisters Rose and Elizabeth "Lizzie."   Rachel knew only  that “Papa never came back from the War.”   The date of death on his gravestone is August 27, 1862.  Joshua's youngest brother JOSEPH MONTRAVILLE STEPP called Mont Stepp, who survived the war, may have sought information about his older brother's fate.  Mont and his wife, Elizabeth Stepp Cordell, in 1882, built the Black Mountain Hotel on 108  acres  just west of the train depot.   Elizabeth was the daughter of the elder JESSE  STEPP, whose first husband James Mitchell Cordell died in the war.
 

Mont Stepp's Black Mountain Hotel, built 1882
Photo from Joyce Justice Parris, A History of Black Mountain, North Carolina, and Its People, award-winning history published by the Black Mountain Centennial Commission, 1992.
( Use of the photo courtesy of the Black Mountain Library. )

e

Mont Stepp was one of three commissioners who created the new town of Black Mountain.  Before 1893, when the town was officially incorporated, it had been known as Grey Eagle, lying within the township of Swannanoa.  The first mayor of the new town was T. K. Brown; Commissioners were P. Briggs, Joseph M. "Mont" Stepp, and S. F. Dougherty.  The completion of the railroad to Black Mountain in 1874 began to bring tourists eager to experience this extraordinary mountain area.  The tourist industry grew and brought a healthy boost to the economy of the area. 

Joshua and Isabella's daughters
RACHEL JANE STEPP and MARCUS MALONEY JONES were married in 1868 and lived for a few years at the home of his father JOSHUA R. JONES home in Hominy Valley.  Mark's great grandparents, Joshua Jones and Eleanor Medley Jones had been prominent settlers by 1800 in west Buncombe County across the French Broad River from the village then called Moriston (Asheville).  Joshua's home was on the rich bottom farm land of the Hominy Valley where a number of descendants live today. 

Rachel and Marcus lived for several years near his family in the Hominy Valley. Their eldest child Nora was born at the home in the valley. The road along which the old Jones home was located is now called Brookside Circle, which is a small section of the old state road Route 10, which ran from Asheville to the southwestern North Carolina counties.  The old home on Hominy was a two-story log structure which stood until it burned in recent years.  It was built by either Marcus's father JOSHUA R. JONES or his grandfather WILLIAM JONES,   The American Enka Corporation built a plant in Asheville in 1928, and the major portion of the plant site was acreage that had been the old JONES FARM, home to Eleanor and Joshua Jones and children in the early 1800's.  The old log  structure was used for a time for company offices. 

After the birth of Nora, Rachel and Marcus's children were born at “the Will Porter place” along  Swannanoa River's North Fork about 14 miles east of Asheville.  Rachel’s Uncle Will Porter,  who survived the Civil War, about 1872 gave Rachel and Marcus a 120-acre farm, located on the present site of the Presbyterian Children's Home, located between Lake Eden Road and Old State Highway 10, now U. S. Route 70. Youngest daughter Frances said the family always referred to this farm as their "home place."   Rachel was happy to be living nearer her mother and sisters. Rachel and Marcus lived at the farm until about 1900.  On the 1900 Census they are living in a smaller log home built closer to Isabella's home.

After the Civil War ended
After the war ended Isabella's daughters Rose and Elizabeth stayed with their mother in the Stepp home on upper North Fork.  Rachel and Marcus were near neighbors after the move from west Asheville to North Fork.  On September 18, 1890, Elizabeth and THOMAS RICHMOND RANDOLPH were married.  Mr. Randolph was from neighboring Yancey County.  He had a private tuition school on upper North Fork Road.  T. R. and Elizabeth's daughter "Lizzie" was born on March 29, 1892.  Elizabeth died at the child's birth.  A monument  at Patton Hill Cemetery marks her grave.    Isabella   had   ten   years  to enjoy  her grand-child Lizzie, and also little  Rosanna, "Annie," Rachel Jane's second eldest  daughter,  who  lived from time to time with Isabella's family during the 1870's and 1880's.

 

     Elizabeth Stepp Randolph               e                        Rose Stepp Randolph

Having lost her sister Elizabeth, Rose welcomed having the care of little Lizzie. Mr Randolph and Rose were married and continued to live at the Stepp home place on North Fork. Isabella died on February  26, 1903.  Her grave is next to Joshua's memorial grave on Patton Hill.
_____________

Photographs from Frances B. Whisenhunt collection
 

 The Overnight Lodger from New York
Two  years  before  Isabella's death, a journalist from  New York in 1901, Mrs. S. P. Taber Willets, making her  way  up  through  the  North  Fork Valley  and a climb to the summit of Mt. Mitchell, stayed overnight with  Isabella,  Rose, eight-year-old Lizzie,  and  Mr. Randolph.    Mrs. Willets  wrote  an  account  of  her journey  in descriptive prose and imagery of  the old natural world of the mountains, and of the  character  and  hospitality of  Isabella and her family, and in appreciation of her mountain guide, Joseph Allison.

Mrs. Willets' account of her journey to Mt. Mitchell was published in the Asheville Citizen, January 27, 1952, by George W. McCoy.  A portion of the article was reprinted in the award-winning history by Joyce Justus Parris, A History of Black Mountain, North Carolina, and Its People, published by the Black Mountain Centennial Commission, 1992 .

                                                
Mrs.Willets had traveled from New York by train to Asheville and, (here the text is unclear) she probably went by train on to Black Mountain station, where after, she most likely set out on foot, carrying,

   Thomas R. Randolph

as she explained,  only an umbrella and a camera bag, making  her way on up through the valley.  By late afternoon, on inquiry, she was told by a citizen along the way of a generous wayside inn some few miles beyond, the home of Mrs. Isabella Stepp.  Mrs. Willets writes :

 . . Closer the towering mountains were crowding about me, rougher became the path and more boisterous the North Fork rushed over its rocky bed . . . the valley lay in shadow, and the setting sun was glinting the dark firs on the summit, when I saw the welcome doorway of an old farmhouse, embowered in vines and rosebushes.

   Mrs. Willets was greeted with a "generous hospitality" that gave her assurance that,

. . . the traditional courtesy of the southland had not vanished.  Professor Randolph was the gentleman of the house, and his cordial manner I will never forget.  His aged mother-in-law, Mrs. Stepp, was a true daughter of the hills, having spent her more than four score and ten years within their protecting arms.  The little motherless granddaughter Lizzie and her good Aunt Rose completed the happy household.

After the generous supper of biscuit and new butter, apple crust and apple jam, fried chicken, and coffee, we sat upon the front steps watching the stars and exchanging views of matters and things until the chilly night air warned us into the house.

Old fashioned furnishings had a fit setting on the white scrubbed oak floors, and but a few moments after mounting the billowy feather bed with its homespun blankets, I fell asleep listening to the unceasing ripple-ripple of the river stealing under the rhododendron at the foot of the yard.

My host, Mr. Randolph, had kindly offered to furnish me with a sure-footed mule and himself as escort to conduct me to the foot of Mount Mitchell, five miles beyond -- from which place the ascent is made.

The ascent was made from Mr. Tyson's Mountain House. Mrs. Willets' intentions were "to reach the summit in time to see the sunset, remain overnight for a view of the sunrise, and return to the Mountain House next day in time to reach Black Mountain Station for the return to Asheville."  Mr. Tyson furnished Mrs. Willets a guide on short notice. She describes her guide Joseph Allison . . .

. . . an old mountaineer of a type which now is scarce, in stature not tall, but wiry and alert, carrying his seventy-eight years as lithely as if it were forty, his snow white hair mingling with a full white beard gave him the patriarchal look which accorded well with his surroundings, the primeval forests.  Blue eyes and fair, low spoken and reticent, I should have judged my mountain guide a poet of the hills and so [perhaps he was] . . .
. . . It was noon when we entered the tall dark masses of rhododendron and laurel that overhung the entrance to the trail.  As we followed, it became more steep and obscure; it curved like a snake in and out among the broken rocks . . . a tortuous path it was, climbing upward for miles.

"The extreme top of this pinnacle, whereon sleeps the brave Prof. Mitchell has, comparatively, a small circumference, the descent being sharply defined on the west and north and south -- to the east the surface breaks into a huge slab of granite; down this we climbed to find ourselves beneath the shadow of an immense projecting boulder, overhanging a broad flat space, an ideal campground.
[Note:   In an attempt to prove the mountain to be the highest peak east of the Mississippi River, Dr. Elisha Mitchell, University of North Carolina professor, lost his life on the mountain, June 27, 1857. His body is interred at the summit of Mt. Mitchell on land donated by Jesse Stepp, who owned most of the Buncombe side of the mountain at the time.]

Mrs. Willets mentions that a short time into her climb she and her guide were joined by Senator Vance’s stepson Mr. Martin [Note: Mr. Martin was owner of Gombroom, North Carolina Senator Zebulon B. Vance's home in Black Mountain.] and a gentleman, Mr. Bryant, from a Charlotte, North Carolina, newspaper, who also intended spending the night on the summit   She continues in her description of  their camp:

. . .  they shared with us the cave-like shelter across whose front were laid the fir logs that crackled and blazed and sent showers of sparks against the black rock ceiling.  The coffee pot steamed over the coals, and its contents soon added comfort to the inner man, for the night dews were falling and made us draw near the campfire.  Guide Joseph laid the resinous balsam limbs across the leaping flames and brought fresh boughs to strew upon the ground for beds.
______

This is the boulder and cave-like shelter near the summit of Mt. Mitchell which  Mrs. Willets described as the
campsite. The men are sons of Marcus and Rachel Jones during a hunting trip with friends some time in the 1920's. .
 The cave-like shelter near the summit of Mt. Mitchell, 1920's.   At left is Dock Jones.  Man in light shirt with
  arm on mule is  Winfred Jones.   With dogs may be Arthur Jones, and an unidentified man.

                                                                               ____________________

Original Narrative copyright © Iris Teta Eubank Wagner 2009

 Sources

Joshua P. Stepp and Isabella Porter Stepp gravestones, Patton Meeting House Cemetery, Buncombe County, Swannanoa Valley, North Carolina, at BeeTree, off  Old Highway 70, on Patton Hill Road.

Information provided by Mrs. Frances B. Whisenhunt through information from her mother Rachel Jane Stepp.

Ancestry.com, Original Census Images of United States Census Reports from North Carolina , 1790 - 1930,  Counties: Wilkes,
Burke, Buncombe, Yancey, Mecklenburg

Ancestry.com, Original Images of  U.S.Census Slave Schedules reported in 1860.

Buncombe County, North Carolina, Deed Books # 45 p594,
 #27 p185, #47 p104,
 #32, p66, #39 p419, Buncombe County Courthouse,  Asheville, North Carolina.

Maj. William Y. Porter grave monument, Patton Hill Cemetery, Swannanoa, North Carolina.

John C. Inscoe, Mountain Masters, Slavery, and the Sectional Crisis in Western North Carolina, The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1989.

Inquiry to the National Archives and Records  Administration, 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C.20408-0001, 
May 26, 1999, form # A486954.

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Randolph grave monument, Patton Hill Cemetery,  Swannanoa, North Carolina.

Joyce Justus Parris, A History of Black Mountain, North Carolina, and Its People, Black Mountain Centennial Commission, Black Mountain, North Carolina, 1992.

Joan and Robert Goodson, editors and publishers, On the North Fork of the Swannanoa River 1800 - 1950, as told by contemporaries, Copyright 1997.

Henry  P. Scalf, The Stepp/Stapp Families of America, 1976

Buncombe County, North Carolina , Will Book A, pp46, 148  Buncombe County Courthouse, Asheville, North Carolina

Huggins, Burke County, North Carolina, Land Records, Vol. 3, 4  1755 - 1821

Hemphill Family Historical Committee, Margaret Hemphill Anthony, Chairman, and Mary Sue Hemphill Hendrix, Hemphills in North Carolina, pp 9 - 25.

John and Rosannah Hemphill Young Bible Record, Pack Library, Asheville, North Carolina

The Swannanoa Valley Museum, Black Mountain, North Carolina, Jill Jones, Director.