The Legend of Bearwallow Falls
According to a family history written by local resident John Anthony Fisher III, the conservation area near Gorges State Park was originally acquired by an ancestor, James Washington Fisher, Sr. through a land grant, many of which were executed in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
By 1812, his son, James Washington Fisher, Jr, owned an area of approximately 50,000 acres stretching from present-day Lake Toxaway to Rosman.
James, Jr. was a contemporary of Daniel Boone and traveled with him on several expeditions through the Cumberland Gap into a wilderness area that was later named Kentucky.
Fisher was a Long Hunter (so named for their long flintlock rifles and because they would be away from their families for long periods of time), and he and other family members and friends were sometimes hired to provide protection for these expeditions. They also typically hunted this rough mountain terrain, making their living primarily by selling furs to furriers.
A well-known Southern author, William Gillmore Sims, joined Fisher’s hunting party for a time and later wrote about his adventures. [Aside: His popular books from 1830-1860 are “replete with local color” — i.e., perhaps best taken with a grain of salt.]
Bears were common in the mountains and in even larger numbers than they are today, and a waterway named Bearwallow Creek runs through this part of Upper Transylvania County. For those unfamiliar with the term, a “bear wallow” is a shallow depression in the ground created and maintained by bears through regular digging, trampling, or rolling.
In one of those stories, The Cub of The Panther, Sims graphically described a bear kill that may have led to the naming of Bearwallow Falls, a large cascading waterfall at the southern terminus of the conservation area.
Fisher family legend has it that there was a troublesome bear that eluded the hunters for quite some time. It continually destroyed corn fields and killed livestock, causing the family much grief. After quite a time tracking and fighting, the bear was finally killed and fell over the falls. Read an excerpt below, noting that his account of the episode may not (pun intended) bear up under today’s climate of political correctness.
The falls can currently be viewed by hiking a Gorges State Park trail to a viewing platform.
See this link for more details of the trail and/or watch the video below to see the view from the platform, as well as additional footage from below the falls.
To view either of the Google Earth images below in greater detail, position cursor over the image and right click, then select Open Image In New Tab.
A view to the south showing the entrance from US Hwy 64 to the new development, Village at LongCliff, featuring a 44-acre conservation easement at its center which includes Bearwallow Falls, visible top right of this image.
A view from Google Earth depicting the start of the Upper Bearwallow Trail in Gorges State Park to the viewing platform of the falls.
