One of the most interesting movers and shakers in the early days of Macon County was Nimrod Simpson Jarrett, born July 28, 1799, in Buncombe County. He began his career working for a ginseng or “sang” broker on Jonathan’s Creek in Haywood County, but was living in Franklin by 1829 with his wife, Nancy Avaline McKee, whom he had married in 1826 and with whom he had 13 children.
Jarrett became a colonel in the Macon Militia during the Cherokee Removal, and when the sale of Cherokee land began immediately after, he aggressively bought and sold land. He soon became one of the largest landowners in Western North Carolina’s history. As his capital increased, he invested in mica and talc mining and state-chartered road-building ventures that enhanced trade and modernized stagecoach lines.
His first recorded business venture included an 1829 license to retail “by the small measure” spirituous liquors from his home. His competitors were Dillard Love and Benjamin Brittain, whom the Macon Court licensed the same day. Love was to sell from his store in Franklin and Brittain from his home.
Jarrett’s name increasingly shows up on jury lists, business transactions, land purchases and sales, sheriff’s sales, slave purchases, and larger projects, such as interest in the Cowee Turnpike Company, which he purchased from William Holland Thomas, [American merchant, lawyer, politician, and Civil War soldier, who became noteworthy in history for being adopted by the Cherokee tribe.] Jarrett purchased “Lots 10 and 12” on Franklin’s Main Street from 1830 to 1832.
Intricacies of the time period
Jarrett’s life and his death reflect the moral complexity of this period of Western North Carolina history. Jarrett owned between six and 12 slaves, as did many other wealthy planters of the Southeast. Yet, slavery was not universally endorsed by every Western North Carolina family. In fact, in contrast with Jarrett was Felix Walker, whose original land holdings comprise much of the modern Qualla Boundary.
Walker was an American patriot and Revolutionary War veteran who speculated in land. He abhorred slavery. He wrote a short biography of his life. From an entry describing the early 1790s, he wrote: “… But on reflection, collecting my scattered fragments and little remaining strength, abandoned the iniquitous practice of buying and selling human beings as slaves, which I found to be in violation of my conscience, in direct opposition and in the very face of all morality and religion, and have ever since that conviction abhorred the principle and the practice.”
Numerous other early Americans, including William Bartram, who traveled through what became Macon County in 1776, also condemned slavery.
From Franklin, after the opening of Cherokee lands westward across the mountains, Jarrett built a house at Aquone. In 1855, the house caught fire and their small child perished. The Jarretts did not rebuild on their property in Aquone but instead moved farther west to Apple Tree [near Nantahala Lake].
The murder
On Sunday morning, Sept. 15, 1871, Nimrod rode off on his horse from his home at Apple Tree along the road to Franklin [Wayah Road] so he could attend court the following morning. He had ridden less than a mile from his house when he was shot in the back of his head by a bushwhacker named Bayless Henderson, from Tennessee.
Henderson was a transient who had hung around in Franklin long enough to find out that Jarrett would be traveling to town with cash. Henderson planned what he thought would be a perfect murder-robbery. He found a convenient campsite across the Nantahala River near the Old State Road and located his ambush spot, which was very likely in the thick cover of rhododendron that grew all along the road.
As Jarrett passed by, Henderson made his shot. He dragged Nimrod’s body a few yards off the road and riffled him. He hid the booty (money) in the woods and headed back towards Franklin.
Less than a mile away, Nancy Jarrett heard the gunshot in the direction her husband had just taken.
Alarmed by the shot and the fact that no one in the area hunted or fired weapons on Sunday mornings, she rode after her husband. She found the place of ambush and his body nearby. She rode for their nearest neighbors. The alarm spread frantically to Franklin, where a posse of neighbors and townspeople gathered at the murder site.
Henderson had emerged from the woods and joined the posse, thinking that no one would suspect him. The posse followed tracks across the river and near to Henderson’s campsite. Suspicion turned to Henderson; when checked, his four-barreled pistol had an empty barrel. He was immediately arrested by the posse.
From jail, Henderson persuaded a neighbor to check on the hidden money. The neighbor did so but had the money examined. It was found that three pieces of it had been given to Captain Jarrett prior to his murder.
Henderson was brought before the Macon County Court, but escaped shortly thereafter. Authorities caught up with him and found Jarrett’s watch sewed into Henderson’s vest.
With the evidence mounted against him, Henderson was hung not in Franklin, but in Webster, (for reasons unreported) which is in Jackson County near Sylva, on Friday, June 6, 1873, in front of the jailhouse door. Newspapers reported that more than 3,000 people showed up for the hanging.
Local historian Lamar Marshall’s 5th great-grandfather was Thomas McClure and his other ancestors include Blythes, McGahas, Chastains, and Moodys.