Forest and Stream 
a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, $1. 50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 17, 1914 
VOL. LXXXII. —No. 3. 
22 Thames St., New York 
Through North Carolina By Canoe 
By HERBERT L. JILLSON 
Pinehurst, N. C., Dec. 20, 1913.—How many 
of those who love the “little river” know that 
the starting point of the most unique and pic¬ 
turesque canoeing trips in this country is to be 
found six miles from Pinehurst. Rising in the 
High Sand Hills of North Carolina, forty-four 
miles, the Lumbee (Lumber in geographies), Cro- 
aton Indian name for Beautiful Water, speeds 
southward into the Little Pee Dee, which in turn 
flows into the Great Pee Dee, twenty-nine miles 
above Georgetown, South Carolina, where the 
Great Pee De greets its ocean mother. The 
actual distance between these two points is three 
hundred and sixty-four miles. Five years ago the 
first canoe made the trip. 
History tells us that Sherman in his march 
northward from Charleston crossed the Lumbee 
at Gilchrist Bridge, just above Wagram. P. 
Blue’s Bridge, where four counties meet, is also 
a historical structure. The descendants of the 
family it is named from still live in the Sand 
Hills and are justly proud of a lineage which 
dates back to the time of William the Conqueror. 
All the early settlers along the river were Scotch. 
They entered the country in 1739 by way of the 
Cape Fear R-iver. Some of them came from 
the Island of Skye, on the coast of Scotland, and 
still keep in touch with their kin there. Wagram, 
a Scotch settlement at the end of the first wilder¬ 
ness, forty miles below Blue’s Bridge, is an inter¬ 
esting place to visit. It is the birthplace of John 
C. McNeill, poet of the Carolinas. He died 
in early manhood here, five years ago. The Mc¬ 
Neill plantation at Riverton, a suburb of Wa¬ 
gram, fronts on the river, and here the brother 
and sister of the poet continue to keep open 
house after the delightful Southern fashion. 
Half way between Maxton and Lumberton 
lies the Croaton Indian section. Here are three 
thousand five hundred Indians with an interesting 
history. In the latter part of the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury, that era of adventure and discovery, a 
company from England, the second colonizing ex¬ 
pedition sent across the western ocean by Sir 
Walter Raleigh, landed on Roanoke Island on 
the North Carolina shore and made a settlement 
which is known as the “Lost Colony.” In 1590 
only three years after the establishment of the 
colony, a relief expedition sent to the island 
found, so the legend goes, no trace of the orig¬ 
inal band, but burned in the timbers of a ruined 
fort was the word “Croaton.” The Croaton In¬ 
dians of the present day have blue eyes and coal 
black hair. Their odd speech, along with other 
characteristics, have led to the conclusion that 
they are the descendants of the “Lost Colony” 
crossed with the Croatons. The famous Henry 
Berry Swamp is located on the river nearby. 
Here the Lowrie outlaws lived for ten years in 
defiance of all authority. 
TWISTS AND TURNS. 
proach to the land of flowers and ease, as con¬ 
trasted, let us say, with the land of ice and in¬ 
dustry, of our northern tier of states. 
Lumberton is the only considerable town di¬ 
rectly on the river. From this point to the sea 
the Government has freed the course of snags 
and it is safe for the use of motor boats and 
launches. Here the river is about one hundred 
feet wife. There is a bluff thirty feet high, five 
miles below Lumberton, where sea shells of great 
beautiful grove of pines it affords an ideal spot 
for the camper. Fairbluff, where one can easily 
get supplies, is a pretty, restful little town of a 
handful of people. Six miles by water below this 
point one crosses into South Carolina, and twen¬ 
ty-five miles further on the Little Pee Dee emp¬ 
ties into the Lumbee, and steals away its name, 
a thing it never should have been allowed to do, 
if length and size count for anything in the 
“right of way” of rivers. Not far below the 
Going toward Lumberton the trip on the 
river averages three miles by water to one by 
land, though there are some “reaches.” Some¬ 
times the river makes a bend of two miles and 
you could hand a kiss to the other fellow’s girl 
across the narrow neck or ribbon of land that 
divides the stream. Occasionally one comes to 
huge cypress trees standing in midstream. These 
trees are called “dram trees,” for it is said when 
a raftsman came to one of these he was entitled 
to a drink of whiskey. As one approaches Lum¬ 
berton he leaves behind the holly and the mistle¬ 
toe and finds swaying gracefully the first sprays 
of grey Spanish moss. This moss marks the ap¬ 
variety are to be found, 
the Sand Hills now one hundred miles back 
from the sea were once the ocean shore. Bluffs 
like this front on the river every five or ten miles 
throughout the course. They make fine camp¬ 
ing grounds. Quail are plenty on the uplands 
back of these bluffs. Bathing facilities are af¬ 
forded on sandy points opposite the bluffs where 
the water is always deepest. There is no mud in 
this region, and there are no insect pests. 
Princess Ann Bluff, a few miles above the 
town of Fairfield, is seventy-five feet high and 
rises in a truly queenly manner above the sur¬ 
face of the river. With its natural spring and 
