Site founded September 1, 2000, we passed 3/4 million page views in December 2005
These home pages remain free of any charge. We need donations or subscriptions/gifts for students, military and family. Please pass on this website link to your family, relatives, friends and clients.
(Seattle & Northern 1890)

Skagit River Journal

of History & Folklore
Subscribers Edition Stories & Photos
The most in-depth, comprehensive site about the Skagit.
Covers from British Columbia to Puget Sound. Counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan, Snohomish & BC. An evolving history dedicated to committing random acts of historical kindness
Noel V. Bourasaw, editor (bullet) 810 Central Ave., Sedro-Woolley, Washington, 98284
Home of the Tarheel Stomp (bullet) Mortimer Cook slept here & named the town Bug
(Click to send email)

Julius J. Conner and family, from
North Carolina and Tennessee to Skagit County

By Noel V. Bourasaw, Skagit River Journal of History & Folklore, ©2004
(JJ at 23)
J.J. in 1900 at age 23, when he married Sallie
      The story of Julius J. Conner is a fine exposition of how a family relocated from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Pacific Northwest. You will find below how J.J. and other members of the family made their mark on both regions. We are lucky to have the resources of his granddaughter Sara Butler, who made a scrapbook for her mother with both newspaper articles and photos spanning a century. In addition to a profile of the family's century-long history here, we explore in depth how their other family members who stayed behind made a mark on the ancient trail and road between North Carolina and Tennessee, with their businesses from cattle-raising to stores to tourist accommodations.
      This story also gives us a chance one more time to dispel the old put-down myth that people who migrated from Tarheel were ignorant crackers. After reading about this family, one would certainly be hard-put to do that. I did not grow up in a Tarheel family, but I was surrounded by them in the Utopia district on the north shore of the Skagit river, just west of Lyman and south and west of Minkler Lake. We were all poor out there in the boonies then, but each family made do and "putting on airs" was a sin just as much as any other. Some of the smartest folks to graduate from local schools were Tarheel and many of the wisest who lived here were the same. J.J. and his wife Sallie were both teachers back in Tarheel and, after moving to Washington in 1900, they lived in both Lyman and Sedro-Woolley, as well as a few other Skagit valley locations, but they always remembered their Tarheel roots.
      J.J.'s last business was the old grocery and service station, which was located at the corner of Borseth Street and the Cook road — across from Bingham Park, when that was the main road out of town. The building was opened in 1919 by the LaPlant family as the second gas station in Sedro-Woolley. The store went out of business sometime in the 1980s and then was partially restored by Domino's Pizza in 1992. Domino's moved to a downtown location in early 2004, but meanwhile, Peggy's Organica Bakery opened in the west portion of the building in 2002. Peggy's has expanded to fill the entire structure and will open their takeout section and caf?? by Christmas 2004. We have a feeling that Julius would have enjoyed Peggy's handmade breads, which probably resemble the kind that his mother, Margaret, and wife, Sallie, made a century ago in old wood-burning, iron stoves.
We have recently received a book about the Ocona Lufta Baptist Church in Swain County, North Carolina, in which the Conner family was especially active. Read more below about this church and the county, courtesy of Peggy Lambert, who read the original story on our site.
      We hope that other families who have preserved their Tarheel history will share copies of their information so that we can add to this experience. We are also working with a North Carolina professor/research who is plotting the migration of families and individuals across country from North Carolina to Skagit County from the 1880s on. As the saying used to go in the town of Sylva, whenever anyone was missing for awhile — no matter where they went, chances were that they would be described as "gone to Sedro-Woolley."
      The Conner story includes these sections:
Profile of J.J. and Sallie Conner family
By granddaughter Sara Butler, from memories of her mother, Helen Conner Butler
(Woolley house)
Son Frank visited in 1957 and this photo was taken on the front steps of the Conner house on the west side of Metcalf Street across from the ball park. From l. to r.: Goldie, Frank's wife, Sallie, J.J.
      Julius Jason "J.J." Conner (1877-1963) and Sarah Jane "Sallie" Parks Conner (1880-1965) were my grandma and grandpa and I remember them very well. They lived in a house right across from the Sedro-Woolley ballpark on the west side of Metcalf Street and they had a goldfish pond in their yard. I remember thinking that if I were real quiet, I could probably see fairies and enchanted frogs. But mostly all I saw were the hardiest goldfish in the world, who seemed to survive freezing winters and neighborhood cats. The house is still standing today in 2004.
      The nice thing about living across from the ballpark was that the circus came to town every year and set up during the night. I remember the excitement of getting to stay overnight at grandma's and watching the circus workers using the elephants to pull up the tent ropes. Grandma always told the story of looking out her kitchen window one day to see two elephants in the yard. One of her boys had told the elephant handlers to bring them on over, they could water the elephants in his yard.
      J.J. was born in the mountains of North Carolina near Smokemont. Sallie was born in Swain County, North Carolina, not far away. Both were schoolteachers before they got married and J.J. went to business college in Columbus, Georgia. They were married on Aug. 15, 1900, in Asheville, NC. They moved to Washington that year and made their first home in Belfast, north of Burlington. Their home was by Friday creek at the corner of Prairie road and Old Highway 99.
      J.J. was a logger. The logging business was booming at that time. The Butlers were hard at work in the logging business as well, just across the hill to the south. The first three Conner children; Frank, born 1902; Ralph, 1903-1990; and Margaret, born 1907; were born during this time. In 1904, Sallie packed up the lunch basket and her two children and took the train back to visit her family in North Carolina. While she was there, she gave birth to Jack (1904-1978).
      In 1908, the family moved a few miles west over the hill to Bow, near Chuckanut drive and Samish bay. During this time, Helen was born (1910) and J.J. and his brother, Jim, ran a saloon. Apparently this occupation was not looked upon with favor by Sallie, as they only stayed in Bow for three years. It was years later that Helen found written on her birth certificate, "saloon proprietor" as her father's occupation. Her mother had not shared this information with her.
      Their third home was in Lyman in 1911 where J.J. ran a grocery store called Conner and Howard Groceries. They had a team of horses and they delivered groceries to the people in the area, since many did not have any means of transportation. Helen remembers their house burned down and they moved into another home by the Baptist church. She started school in Lyman and stayed there until fourth grade. Lewis (1911-1934), Don (born 1913) and Ona (born 1914) were born while the family lived in Lyman. Grandma and Grandpa Parks came out from Tennessee for a visit. Helen remembers going to the railroad station to meet them. During those days, no food was provided on the trains so people had to pack enough food to last them for the trip. Margaret still has the basket they packed with food for this trip.
      In 1918, Byron (1918-1966) was born and the family moved to Sedro-Woolley. J.J. went back to logging during this time, joining Uncle Jim to run a gyppo logging camp by Maple Falls. During the summers the family went to the logging camp. Favorite memories are of swimming in the mill pond and eating huge molasses cookies made by the camp cook.
      In 1939, J.J. went to work for Skagit Steel; the plant was right behind their house in Sedro-Woolley. Skagit Steel made parts for planes and machines used during World War II. Since this could have been a target for enemy aircraft, grandma used blackout curtains at night during the war so no lights could be seen. The whole town was blacked out during this time. After the war, around 1948, J.J. bought the little corner grocery store by the park and owned it for 12 years. I really don't remember much at all about the little store that Grandpa had, except where it was and what it looked like. I remember that Grandpa had a little path that he used, walking out the back door and over the railroad tracks, through the Skagit Steel yard and then to the store by Bingham Park.
      Memories of granddaughter Patti Conner Bourgault, daughter of Helen's brother Ralph . We moved to Sedro-Woolley in 1957 when I was in third grade to help Grandma and Grandpa Conner with the store, etc. I can remember my little short mother, Margaret Smith Conner helping run the store and pumping gas. Dad was the new manager of the local office of Puget Sound Power and Light. Sister Sally helped a bit and even raised a family of raccoon babies in the back room. I just remember sitting by the register, close to the penny candy, and helping write down in ledgers what the people bought. The old wood floor was creaky and there was the lingering smell of smoke from a fire. We jokingly called the store "the little mint" probably because it never really made any money.
      J.J. Conner died in Burlington on Oct. 30, 1963, and Sallie died on Dec. 23, 1965, also in Burlington; both were age 85 at their death.
The Saga of the Dock Conner Family
Transcribed by Don Conner, Yakima, Washington, Dec. 27, 1976
Story by Vic Beale, Knoxville Journal, Aug. 16, 1976
(Family at Indian Gap)
Jehu's wife Nellie and son Willard at age five, near the state line at Indian Gap in 1926. The family went there to salt their cattle and have a family outing
      The upper end of Pigeon Forge [Tennessee] was one unbroken farm of 115 acres when Dock F. Conner was finally able to buy it for $17,000 in 1926. Dock had been coming through the farm for years, driving cattle on the hoof from the higher ranges of the Smokies, down the Indian Gap wagon road through the unpaved mountain hamlet of Gatlinburg, on down the twisting curve of the west prong of the little Pigeon river. Where the river flattens and the valley suddenly widens for the first time was where the farm lay, on the west bank of the river. Dock camped there with his cattle many a night, resting for the two-day push on to the livestock market in Knoxville.
      Sometimes to get a better price Dock would take his cattle by rail to the ultimate market, Chicago. He rode in the cattle car with them, to see that they were properly fed and watered, so they'd bring top price for condition. So Conner had the cash to buy the Pigeon Forge farm he had wanted so much for such a long time. And he made the money raising cattle on the free range of the Smokies, in the wake of the big logging operations, early in this century.
      The Conner homeplace was on the North Carolina side of the Smokies, a 300-acre farm that stretched up and down the banks of the Oconaluftee river [often referred to as the Lufty or the Luftee, and sometimes the Ocona Lufta], across from where Collins creek empties into it, and about two miles north of the present-day Smokemont Campground [North Carolina]. Dock's father, Rev. William Henry Conner (known locally as Henry), bought the Luftee farm from the Collins family before the Civil war. Henry moved to the farm during the war, when Dock was eight years old.
      His busiest years as a trader appear to have been when he was middle-aged and past. The farm on the Luftee was a collecting point for the yearlings he bought each spring, most on the North Carolina side in the counties of Haywood, Swain, Jackson and Macon. Each springtime, Dock and the late Good F. Ownby made the rounds of the families they'd been buying from down through the years. These mountain farmers would raise steers to yearlings, one of several head, in anticipation of the Conner-Ownby visit. [Journal Ed. note: Dock married Margret Emeline York at Smokemont on April 9, 1876.]
      Weighing was by guess, but it was said of them that they seldom missed an animal's weight by more than a very few pounds. They paid the farmer the most recent market price of which they were aware. They bought several head from a farmer on Deep creek in one instance, and when they got home they learned that the market was significantly higher than the price they had paid him. So they returned to Deep creek and paid the man the difference. It was a mountain way of doing business that enabled Dock to stay in business.
      When they had gathered enough cattle to make it worthwhile, they, meaning members of the Conner family usually would start a drive back into the mountains, looking for good grazing in the river valleys, on the heads of creeks and on the ridge tops. The pounds that the put on that summer, assuming that the market didn't go down drastically, represented a profit. Dock almost always sold off all his cattle in the fall. Sometimes he sent them east through Asheville to the market in Richmond, Virginia.
      Where the cattle had been grazing when it was time to take them out of the mountains often determined whether they would be driven north and west into Tennessee, or south and east through Carolina. The mountain land was still owned by the lumber companies until it was purchased for the creation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Logging on most tracts was completed in the 1920s or earlier, and from then until the [National] Park Service began patrolling was when the free range was most plentiful. Anybody who owned cattle was welcome.
      The Conner family started moving to Tennessee in 1937, first to Gatlinburg and then to the Pigeon Forge farm Dock had bought 11 years earlier. He lived his last years here with the family of his son Charles W "Charlie.". And less than a handful of years after Dock died in 1948, Pigeon Forge lots with 100 feet of road frontage and 150 feet deep were selling for more than he had paid for 115 acres.

The Conner Saga, part 2
Story by Vic Beale, Knoxville Journal, Aug. 30, 1976
(Jehu and Dock)
Jehu, Dock and Margret Conner, at left, with other unidentified members of the family, and hounds on front steps, in uniform of the mountains, gallus overalls, at the new house sometime after 1910. The others are unknown.
      All nine children of Dock F. Conner were born in the big log house built on the Oconaluftee river well before the Civil War. Their mother died there in 1895 when the youngest, Cretta, Charles and John, were two, four and six. "A faint memory of her" is all that the surviving son Jehu has after 81 years. Only the two oldest daughters, Jennie Paul, 95, of Brevard, North Carolina, and Ruth Whaley, 93, of Pigeon Forge, can remember their mother in a personal way. Cretta, also of Brevard, was too young to have any recollection of her, as was Charlie, now deceased. But photographers were far away, during Margaret York Conner's young womanhood in the remoteness of the Oconaluftee. And there was no known picture of her. A frequent lamen