Revisiting the death of Jacob Mast Councill

 History has given us conflicting accounts of the death of Jacob Mast Councill, the Boone civilian who was one of the first casualties of Stoneman's Raid. My co-worker Terry Harmon and local historian Eric Plaag have sorted through the details in a Facebook thread you can read here or below. 
 Councill was one of three local men killed when the Union troops invaded Boone on March 28, 1865. Some think he was part of the local Home Guard and died defending the town. Others say he was farming when the Yankees rode up and executed him as he pleaded for his life.
 The names Mast and Councill are prominent in Watauga County. Boone was originally known as Councill's Store, named for Jacob's uncle, Jordan Councill Jr. 
 Jacob's home was located in downtown Boone on the same block where the Mast Store now stands. Jacob and his infant daughter (who died previously) were the first two people buried on a hilltop that is now the Boone town cemetery. Within a month, three Union soldiers were laid to rest nearby. 
 The Stoneman Gazette is indebted to Terry for sharing his historical and genealogical research with us. He is the author of Watauga County Revisited in the Images of America series, as well as other collections of local history. Terry works with Samaritan's Purse and supports hundreds of our employees working around the world.

‎Eric Plaag‎ to Watauga History Hunters

January 14, 2018 · Boone · 

Michael, I'm hoping you can clarify something for me about Stoneman's Raid. Sources seem to conflict about where the Jacob Mast Councill house/cabin was located. Some lump his death in with the skirmish in Boone, making it sound as though J. M. Councill was actually in a field IN Boone when he was killed. Other sources (like Polly Horton's account, published in the WD, 2-2-1928) suggest that his house was near the Benjamin Councill House at Vilas and that his death occurred the day before the raid on Boone (Polly Horton has them camping in Benjamin Councill's meadow after killing J. M. Councill). Arthur seems to confirm this, saying on p. 177 of HoWC that the Jacob Mast Councill house was known as the Mark Hodge[s] house in 1915 and stood behind Benjamin Councill's home ("due north" as he says on p. 319), which the 1-1-1931 WD tells us was in Vilas and burned in December 1930.

This placement at Vilas would seem to agree with the Angelo Wiser field map of the campaign (LOC, attached), which shows the Councill place in the Vilas vicinity. Chris J. Hartley, in his book on Stoneman's Raid, uses this map to suggest that it marked Jacob Mast Councill's home, but he also describes Jacob Mast Councill as "elderly," when we know that Jacob Mast Councill was only 35 years old, so I'm uncertain about Hartley's reliability.

Anyway, am I correct in thinking that the Jacob Mast Councill house was at Vilas?

Terry Harmon

January 14, 2018

Thanks for your post, Eric Plaag, regarding Jacob Mast Councill. I tried commenting on your post without success, so I will start this new post. This subject is of particular interest to me since it relates to my family. Polly Councill Horton (1846-1936) was my great, great-grandmother, and Jacob Mast Councill (1830-1865) was her half-brother. (Thanks especially for the 1930 WD reference as I had been trying to find out what happened to the old Benjamin Councill home at Vilas and had not yet discovered that article.)

My understanding is that Jacob Mast Councill lived in Boone. In the 1860 census, he is found living in the Boone Township, and his widow, Sarah Lewis Councill, is listed in the Boone Township in 1870 and 1880, so I think there is a good chance they lived there in 1865. Betty McFarland, in her narrative regarding “The James Hardin Councill House” within “Sketches of Early Watauga” (1973), states, “The son of Benjamin Councill, Jacob Mast Councill, gave the property for the first city cemetery. Jacob was killed during Stoneman’s Raid; an inscription in the Councill family Bible states that he ‘was killed by the Yankees March 28, A.D. 1865.’ At the time, he and his family were living in a house where the J. W. Jones home now is.” This would be the home of Dr. John Walter & Mattie Blackburn Jones, aka the present-day “Jones House” on King Street in downtown Boone.

It is interesting to note that, in “War Trails of the Blue Ridge” (p. 124), Shepherd Monroe Dugger describes the deaths of Councill and others as if they all occurred in Boone. He discusses how the locals “fired on Stoneman’s advance guard, precipitating in a fight in which the Confederate killed were Jacob M. Council, Warren Greene and Ephraim Norris….” He also writes, “The house of Jacob M. Council was both a morgue and a hospital that night….”

While I believe Dugger is accurate in his placement of Jacob Councill’s death in Boone, I feel that he is mistaken on a couple of other accounts:

First, both Polly Horton and John Preston Arthur indicate that Jacob Councill was not a participant in a fight or skirmish with Stoneman’s men, but that he had been passively plowing when approached, shot, and killed. Dugger’s account seems to imply that he had been involved in the fight. Ina van Noppen writes that “Councill…had taken no part in the skirmish.” McFarland writes, “Jacob had been working in his garden on this property [the aforementioned property that later became the site of the J. W. Jones home] when he heard gun shots; being a member of the home guard, he prepared to investigate. It was then that he was shot.”

Second, regarding a Councill home being used as a hospital, in “A History of Watauga County” (page 177), Arthur writes, “The house from which the shooting [upon Stoneman’s men] had been done, now J. D. Councill’s, was converted into a hospital….” I believe Arthur correctly identifies the J. D. Councill home as the hospital rather than Dugger’s account of it being the Jacob M. Councill home.

To digress for a moment, just a few side notes regarding the “J. D. Councill” home: Arthur writes, “Some men in the house which stood where J. D. Councill’s house now stands…fired on the head of the column as it came down the road from Hodges Gap….After the firing from the Councill house, Stoneman’s men charged, and all who were in that house or near it ran through the fields toward the foot of Howard’s Knob.” I believe that Stoneman’s men fired back at the Councill home from whence they had initially been fired upon, thus van Noppen’s statement, “Mrs. James Councill, a young matron of Boone, hearing the noise, stepped onto the piazza to learn what was happening. ‘Immediately a volley of balls splintered into the wood all around her.’” Following the skirmish, this same Councill home became the Union headquarters. Robert Beall of Lenoir noted that Mrs. J. D. Councill, who had tolerated General Stoneman in her home and found him to be a gentleman, found George Kirk quite intolerable during his stay. Beall stated that the lady was kept as a prisoner in her room, her livestock slaughtered, and her farm a ruin. All of the fencing was destroyed, “the flowers and shrubbery trampled bare,” and all that remained of her animals were “beef hides, and sheep skins, chicken feather, and pieces of putrid meat.” The only member of the Councill family of Boone named J. D. Councill was James Dudley “Crack” Councill who was born in 1861, and his wife, Emma Winkler Councill, was born in 1871 – both obviously too young to have been the subjects of these accounts. I believe the references to the J. D. Councill home were to the home of J. D. Councill’s parents, and that references to Mrs. J. D. Councill were to J. D. Councill’s mother, Mary Cocke (Mrs. James W.) Councill, born circa 1834, thus van Noppen was correct in her mention of “Mrs. James Councill.” James W. Councill, was a farmer, blacksmith, and merchant, and had served the Confederacy in Company D of the 1st Cavalry Regiment of North Carolina for a year, from May 1861 to May 1862. James W. Councill lived at the site of the current downtown Boone Post Office. He, no doubt inherited this property from his father, Jordan Councill, Jr., whose store stood at this same site. Before the Town of Boone was formed, it was known as “Councill’s Store.” James W. Councill’s son, J. D. Councill, later lived at this same site.

As you mentioned in your post, Arthur continues, “The house in which Jacob M. Councill was killed is called the Mark Hodges house. It still stands, in rear of Benjamin Councill’s home, though untenanted now.” I believe the Benjamin Councill referenced here is Jacob M. Councill’s son, Benjamin James Councill. There were at least three Benjamin Councills, so it can be confusing. Jacob Mast Councill was a son of Benjamin Councill (1807-1877), a half-brother to Benjamin J. Councill (1845-1906), and father to Benjamin James Councill (1859-1938). To my knowledge, Jacob M. Councill’s son, Benjamin James Councill, always lived in Boone, and this is substantiated by census records. He is buried in the Boone City Cemetery, and his son, Edward Tracy Councill was, at one time, mayor of Boone. It would seem reasonable that Benjamin James Councill (Jacob’s only son, although not his only child) would have inherited his father’s property, probably including Jacob’s former home, and that Benjamin lived in his own home with his father’s former home nearby. If we can identify where Mark Hodges and Benjamin James Councill lived in Boone, we can use that to identify Jacob’s home.

I can’t explain the chronology of events stated in the WD interview with Polly Horton. I agree that it reads as if Jacob Mast Councill was killed at Vilas during Stoneman’s encampment at Benjamin Councill’s home, but my personal feeling is that that was somehow misstated or misinterpreted.

Regarding Jacob M. Councill’s age, as you stated, he was only 35 at the time of his death. Van Noppen writes, “Councill was a man too old for service,” so perhaps reference to his age is not that he was necessarily an old man, but simply that he was too old for conscription. Perhaps Michael or someone with more Civil War knowledge can attest to the age range for conscription. Tom Layton’s blog (http://stonemangazette.blogspot.com/…/blink-and-youll-miss-…) states that Jacob Councill “was the clerk of court for Watauga County, which exempted him from the Confederate draft.”

Finally, Jacob Mast Councill is buried in the Boone City Cemetery. If he was killed in Vilas, it would seem strange that his body would be carried to Boone for burial, especially since Stoneman’s troops were still in Boone within days of Jacob’s death. Had I been Jacob’s father Benjamin, considering that Union troops has just encamped upon and raided my farm and murdered my son, I would not be too keen on going to Boone where those same troops still remained. Of course, we have no indication how soon after Jacob’s death he was actually buried. Jacob’s father, the senior Benjamin Councill, eventually had his own burying ground at Vilas, although there is no evidence that anyone was buried there until Benjamin’s death in 1877, twelve years after Stoneman’s raid. Still, if they were prone to start a family cemetery at Vilas, it seems they would have done so with the death of Jacob, had he actually died at Vilas.

Anyway, just some information and thoughts that I hope will be of help and interest.

Eric Plaag Arthur’s account from 1915 offers several references to Jacob Mast Councill (usually rendered as Jacob M. Councill). On page 177, Arthur also seems to conflate Jacob Mast Councill’s killing with the skirmish at Boone. He adds, “The house in which Jacob M. Councill was killed is called the Mark Hodge[s] house. It still stands, in rear of Benjamin Councill’s home, though untenanted now. Arthur also explains that the house from which the shooting was done, “now J. D. Councill’s residence” [at the site of the present post office], “was converted into a hospital.” I agree with you, Terry, that Dugger (1932) appears to be flat wrong on this. This house would have been the James W. Councill house (see above). As for the Jacob Mast Councill house, on page 319, Arthur explains, “William Hodges lived a quarter of a mile east of the cabin in which Jacob M. Councill was killed by Stoneman’s men in March 1865. That cabin is still called the Mark Hodges house, as William’s son, Mark, built it. It is almost due north from Benjamin Councill’s present residence.” The digital copy of Arthur I have has a marginal note indicating that this is an error, since Mark Hodges was born in the cabin.

We've covered Polly Horton, but I want to include details here to fit her into this analysis. On February 2, 1928, a WD article offered Polly Horton’s recollections about the “first brick residence” in Watauga County, built in Vilas about 1845 by Benjamin Councill, Sr. Horton gives a detailed account of house building, then adds some context near the end of the article about Jacob Mast Councill. Speaking of Stoneman’s men, the article reads, “When they came into the valley of Cove Creek, they selected Benjamin Councill’s meadow, in front of the brick house, for their camp ground. Nearly all of the children were at school…. When Polly reached the old brick house, she found the Yankees camped all over her father’s meadow,” thus making Horton an eyewitness. She went on to explain that Stoneman’s troops looted the Benjamin Councill property. “Not satisfied with this, they went to the field where Jacob Councill was plowing and shot him down in cold blood…. After spending one night on the Councill meadow, the raiders went on to Boone, where occurred the battle in the home of Aunt Polly’s uncle, a house where the home of J. D. Councill now stands.” To me, Horton implies that the Jacob Mast Councill cabin was very close to the brick Benjamin Councill house built in 1845, but like you, I suspect that her 82-year-old mind had merged things in her head. While troops stopped briefly at Benjamin Councill's place to water horses on their way to Boone, they didn't remain there overnight; troops several days later did stay there overnight. 

There’s now no doubt in my mind that the Benjamin Councill, Sr., house in Vilas is the “Councill--rebel” notation on the Angelo Wiser field map of Stoneman’s route that I posted earlier. But it can’t be where the Jacob Councill cabin was, since the “Benjamin Councill’s present residence” in Arthur’s 1915 reference could only be—as you suggest—the home of Benjamin James Councill (1859-1938), since he was the only one of the three alive. That house--known as the "Mrs. B. J. Councill home" (Blanche Councill) after B. J. Councill's death in 1938--appears to have been badly damaged by fire in August 1948 (WD, 8-5-1948). I've struggled to figure out exactly where it was, but I suspect it was generally in the vicinity of the other Councill properties back of Earth Fare, and possibly the highlighted house shown on the attached crop from the 1947 Sanborn map.

Manage

Like

 · Reply · 51w · Edited

Eric Plaag Anyway, this would suggest that the Jacob Councill cabin may have been in Boone, as you believe, and the Book G deed you found lends credence to this (though I don't think that was the cabin lot). I also think I’ve found the smoking gun on all of this. Deed Book M, Page 35 (July 30, 1887) addresses the following. My apologies for the lengthy legalese, but I think it’s necessary: “Know all men by these presents that we B. J. Councill, John F. Hardin, and his wife Mattie, being the heirs at law of Jacob M. Councill, deceased, are owners in common, having bought the undersigned interest of Charley Blair in said estate. Said lands [of the] estate of the said Jacob M. Councill, deceased, consists of what is known as a part of the old Benjamin Councill tract, the old Hodge tract, the Lewis tract, and the Shoulder tract, about three hundred acres more or less. And whereas the division line between us, the said B. J. Councill, John F. Hardin, and his wife, has never been established by us, now therefore we hereby establish and agree upon the division line between us, to wit: Beginning at the ford of the branch where it crosses the main road below the old Councill house place, running up said branch a north course to the Hodge line corner on a rock, then north 5 deg West up the said branch 20 poles to a rock in the branch at the fork below the Mark Hodge House, then north 19 deg west 13 poles to a rock, then north 18 deg east 16 poles passing a large sugar tree to a chestnut on top of the ridge, then north 22 deg west 62 poles to a double chestnut (small) on the side of the mountain, then north 5 deg east 23 poles to a hickory on the mountain side, then north 21 deg east 19 poles to a white oak on the shoulder of Howard’s Knob, then a north east course to H. W. Hardin’s corner on a ____. The above described line to be the established line of division between us ignoring all other division lines heretofore made between us.” 

This places the Mark Hodge House—I think—somewhere in the vicinity of that giant garden property that’s being developed between Evergreen Lane and Glendale Drive. This just seems weird to me, because it’s well east of the James W. Councill house site in the middle of Boone, and if we assume that Jacob Councill was killed as the soldiers entered town, independent of the skirmish, that would mean that the troops who killed Jacob Mast Councill were beyond Boone before the skirmish occurred in Boone. I wonder instead if the chronology in both Spencer and Arthur is correct, and all of us interpreting them for the past 150 years (including Polly Horton) have made errant assumptions that aren’t based in fact in order to reconcile the narrative that Jacob Councill was off in a field somewhere, minding his own business when Union soldiers surprised him and killed him, as contrasted with the obvious pandemonium of the Boone skirmish. 

Put another way, Arthur clearly suggests that Jacob Councill was killed after the action at Boone, “when one of Stoneman’s men came to the door and shot him dead, notwithstanding his protestations.” Beall’s 1910 version places Jacob Councill’s death after the Boone skirmish, too. I wonder if what happened was the Boone residents at the James W. Councill house scattered when the Union troops answered their fire, running northeasterly toward Howard’s Knob (as several sources tell us), and as Union troops pursued them, one of the soldiers came upon Jacob Mast Councill in his field or barn, assumed he was one of the fleeing defenders, and simply shot him. That makes more sense to me than any of the other convoluted explanations we can invent from the available evidence.

1

Manage

Like

 · Reply · 51w

Eric Plaag One other thing: Regarding Betty McFarland’s account saying that Jacob Mast Councill “gave the property for the first city cemetery,” I have never found a shred of evidence for this, and as you know, I’ve extensively researched the deed history on the cemetery. All data I’ve gathered suggests that this land belonged to Benjamin Councill, Sr., Jacob Mast Councill’s father, while the bulk of Jacob's land was on the north side of King Street. See Deed Book T, Page 583 (March 12, 1898), for a parcel immediately south of the Boone Cemetery, which makes clear reference to “the old grave yard as platted out by the administrators of Benjamin Councill at or about the time they made sale of the old Councill lands.” This seems to be a clear reference to Benjamin Councill, Sr. The two earliest stones at the cemetery (in terms of placement, not date of death) are those of Sarah A. Councill (1861-1863), Jacob Mast Councill’s daughter, and Jacob Mast Councill himself. This strongly suggests that it was initially used as the Councill family plot, which would explain why Sarah A. Councill was placed here, and of course various Councills owned all of that surrounding land in the vicinity at the time. Indeed, the 1879 tombstone orders for the three Union soldiers refer to the cemetery as the “Councill Cemetery,” even though several non-Councill family members were buried there by then. I suspect that McFarland made an assumption that since Jacob Mast Councill’s daughter was there, he must have given the land for the cemetery. 

Anyway, thanks for working through this with me.

Manage

Like

 · Reply · 51w

Eric Plaag Also...I believe the George Folk deed you found may have been for the lot where the Jones House stands. See Arthur, p. 301. The Jordan Councill, Jr., house stood where the Daniel Boone Hotel later stood (see WD, 9-24-1924), and the Folk deed describes the lot as being west of Councill's garden fence and north of King Street.