ii6 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
caught trying to get through with a deer on his 
shoulders. 
One cannot help noticing, when wandering about 
the winding roads of Flat Rock, the white pines and 
hemlocks there, and that the soil is gray. White 
pines and hemlocks are the right trees for such a 
place, where one looks over broad meadows and into 
apple orchards, and where trees and shrubbery are 
grouped to please the eye, the native rhododendrons 
giving a fine patrician touch to the effect of the 
whole. The box hedges and the shrubberies, the high 
fences along the roadside at Flat Rock, speak of 
another civilization than that of the mountains, as 
does the picturesque church of St. John-in-the- 
Wilderness behind its screening trees, and it is very 
pleasant to pause a little in this corner of the great 
wilderness, set apart and beautified by the "quality " 
of a past generation. 
It was the builder of the Lodge, Mr. Charles Bar- 
ing, with three or four others, who founded the com- 
munity of Flat Rock, to which were quickly added 
the homes of many of the most distinguished men 
in the history of their state. Among the names of 
these pioneers in the forest of Arcadia, we find Rut- 
ledge, Lowndes, Elliott, Pinckney, Middleton, and 
many others. Coming somewhat later, as friends of 
Mr. Baring, were Mr. Molyneux, British Consul at 
Savannah, and Count de Choiseuil, French Consul 
at the same place, the beautiful homes of these dis- 
tinguished foreigners still gi'acing Flat Rock. 
Perhaps the most cherished name in this moun- 
