Wilkesboro and the Appalachian Roots Series

(Photo by Amber Speight)

When Cleared for Planting opens in 1804, the Appalachian mountain area where Edgar lives and Emma moves is still part of Wilkes County. Watauga County won't be formed until 1849, which means the second book in the series, Sown in Dark Soil, will also be set in Wilkes.

Since Wilkesboro is the seat of Wilkes County, that's where the jail

and court house were located. When Edgar finds Emma gone, he wants to go down the mountain to Wilkesboro to get a posse to track her down because he feels she would have never left by choice, but he finally realizes his father is right, and they don't have enough to go on. They had no idea where to look.

The town of Wilkesboro was founded in 1778 by the legislature when the county was formed, but there had been settlers in the area even earlier. Lots in the town were sold in 1800, and the town took much the same shape as its center section has today. (These dates often vary, because it depends on what the writer judges as what constitutes the point when a town begins.)

During the Revolutionary, Benjamin Cleveland and others, hanged

Tory Oak Junior

Tories on an oak tree growing on what would become courthouse property. The tree became known as the Tory Oak. It was alive and well as I grew up in Wilkes County, and remained in place during my college years and two years of teaching in Wilkes. However, the tree became old and diseased, and a new little tree was transplanted from it. Today, we have the young oak tree that I knew as "Tory Oak Junior" growing close to where the original grew.

The courthouse and the jail have changed through the years as better facilities were needed. The first courthouse was a log structure, but it was moved back to give way to a brick building. The current old courthouse building, which was used for the courthouse until 1998, now houses the Wilkes Heritage Museum, a wonderful place to keep and display the history of the area.

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