In Search of the Road Builder

One of the rare non-rainy days this week I found myself wandering up to Jones Gap State Park. It was a beautiful brisk day as I walked along the trail, enjoying the rush of the Middle Saluda Waters. My mind, though, was thrown back several decades into the past, when I haunted these trails as often as I could.

I’ve got a long, long history with Jones Gap. I’ve been coming up here long before the state park was developed, when this was just wild land. The road just ended, but the trail continued. My friends and I would bushwhack the ridges on either side of the river, with ropes and climbing gear scrambling up to the sheer rock faces that we loved to climb and explore. One of our favorite spots was Rainbow Falls, which we found using just topo maps and compass in pre-GPS days.

Bob Donnan and I would wait until it was dumping rain, don ponchos, then do rain hikes. We would stand in one spot for a long time, meditating and becoming one with the forest. We also did many night hikes here, which started as a tradition of finding a rock to climb and howl on a full moon. On one of those full moon nights a young woman and I were hiking up the trail to continue that tradition (she was just a climbing partner, not a romantic one). I was hopping across a small stream when I landed wrong, twisted my ankle and fractured it. We had to make it a mile back down to the car in the dark with me limping on a broken ankle. I spent the spring term of my senior year at Furman in a cast. Ah, good times.

I’d also come up here just to picnic next to the sound of the rushing water, without partaking in any adventure sports. Sadly, the remoteness of the spot also meant that nefarious activities could ruin the idyllic setting. A former girlfriend and I were on our way to have a picnic next to the river when we were stopped by a woman in the road who said, “You better not go up there. There’s blood and fighting and who knows what all else.” We turned around and found another park for our picnic. I don’t think I returned to Jones Gap until the park was fully developed.

While I miss the wildness of those days, I do appreciate how nice things are now. The park is now closed a night, so no more full moon howling. You can no longer drive to the end of the road and park unless you have a handicap sticker. Parking is further back, but a lovely steel bridge takes you across the Saluda.

The Cleveland Fish Hatchery has been restored, somewhat. One of the ponds has been restocked with native trout.

I don’t think I ever came across these back in the wild days for whatever reason. We just didn’t come this way. Back then it would have been mostly just overgrown old stone walls. These images are from the Open Parks Network from when the park was being developed.

The visitor’s center was closed on this particular visit. That structure was built shortly after the park opened. Without leaves on the trees I had a clear view of the rock faces we used to climb. Pretty Place Chapel also lurks over the valley.

Probably my favorite spot (and the one where EVERYONE takes photos) is the old road bridge over the river. I’ve stopped here many times taking long exposure photographs with a tripod and DSLR, but today I just had my iPhone.

I walked up the trail a bit, but didn’t go far. I wasn’t prepared for a long hike. I was content looking at places and reliving memories. I was thinking that in warmer weather I’d like to bring my hammock up here and just hang out reading or playing banjo next to the rushing waters.

The other thought I had was about how this was once the main road from Greenville to Brevard. From 1848 until the early 20th Century this was a toll road built by Solomon Jones. Looking at the trail now I couldn’t imagine trying to take a car or even a wagon up this rough route.

Of course I wanted to know more about the man for whom the park and valley were named, and about the road itself. I started out by trying to find remnants of the road, without actually hiking the strenuous five miles up to Caesar’s Head. Instead, I drove up 276 to Caesar’s Head State Park. Inside the visitor’s center there is a relief map of the area. Jones Gap looks like a straight valley.

The Jones Gap Trail terminates at Caesar’s Head State Park, but that’s not the original road route. The original road joined what is now 276 just south of the NC-SC state line. That portion of the trail/road is now closed.

Just on the other side of the state line is the intersection with the road leading to the Greenville YMCA Camp and Symmes Chapel (Pretty Place). That road is named Solomon Jones Road, but it wasn’t built by him. Rather, it was named in his honor.

Through my cursory research prior to this trip I had a couple of reference points for Solomon Jones, but I’ll hold those descriptions for a bit later.

Solomon Jones – The Road Builder

Solomon Jones was born in 1802 in the Flat Rock Community of North Carolina along the headwaters of Mud Creek. In 1822 he married Mary Hamilton and became active in local politics, serving on the Public Health Commission of Hendersonville and as a property surveyor for public buildings. Sometime between 1840 and 1851 Jones purchased 4000 acres near Oil Camp Mountain and moved his large family to the area that would later bear his name.

Jones began building his eponymous road around 1840 and completed it around 1848. He was not a trained surveyor. The legend goes that he followed a sow to plot his path through the gap, but this is not likely. According to a book by Jones’s great-great-grandson…

Dynamite and blasting powder had not come into general use in the days of Solomon Jones, and the priceless tools were almost impossible to obtain….pieces of dry wood were driven into crevices of the rock and left until wet weather caused them to swell and burst the rock. Another process of removing the obstruction was to build a fire on top of the rock and when the heap of logs had burned down, barrels of water were dashed on hot rock causing it to crack and crumble.

Solomon Jones, the Roadbuilder, 1961, but Rev. Carl Cox

With such crude methods it’s no wonder it took him eight years to complete the road. The one thing I haven’t discovered is whether or not Jones built his road over his own land, or if he somehow obtained right-of-way. However it was done, the Jones Turnpike became the main route from Greenville to Brevard. Jones built a toll gate near the large house he built for his family in the River Falls area.

Solomon Jones was a Unionist and did not support the Confederacy during the Civil War. In 1865 he even ran for Congress on this platform.

During the war itself Jones was arrested and brought to Greenville. Then governor Benjamin Perry intervened on his behalf because of Jones’s work on the roads and because of his charity toward the widows and wives of Confederate soldiers. He was released and allowed to return home.

Sometime after 1870 Jones moved from Oil Camp back to Hendersonville. In 1879 he purchased Walnut Mountain and renamed it Mount Hebron. There he built an observation tower and a carriage road up to the summit. He charged 25¢ per person to visit the tower.

Solomon Jones died in 1899 at the age of 96. He was buried on Mount Hebron on the carriage road that he had built. He had commissioned his own headstone prior to his death which read as follows:

Here lies Solomon Jones, the Road Maker, a true Patriot. He labored 50 years to leave the world better than he found it.

In addition to the Jones Gap Road and the Mount Hebron carriage road, Solomon Jones was credited with Cashier’s Valley Road in Transylvania County (U.S. 64 from Rosman to Cashiers), Flat Rock Turnpike in Henderson County and the Green River Turnpike in Henderson County.

Solomon’s son, Hicks Jones, kept Mount Hebron open as a tourist attraction. It continued well into the 20th Century.

But what about Jones’s road? It shows up on several early maps. Kyzer’s 1895 township map of Greenville County shows the road along with “the winds”, pronounced with a long “i” sound. These were the switchbacks that led to the crest of the ridge.

The Jones Gap Turnpike was a beautiful route according to newspaper reports of the time, but it was difficult to maintain. It was subject to landslides and other problems.

Wagons had a hard time with the road, but automobiles had an even harder time. By 1910 the road was not being maintained and alternate routes were being considered. In the 1930s the Geer Highway, now US 276, was completed from Travelers Rest to Caesars Head, and the old Jones Gap Road became redundant. Even so, the Jones Gap Road still appears as a legitimate roadway on a 1940 SCDOT map.

I wasn’t quite done with Solomon Jones, though. I really wanted to find his final resting place. After leaving Jones Gap State Park and Caesar’s Head I drove over to Hendersonville. I’d found a “Hebron Road” in Google Maps and on that road was a church named “Jones Gap Baptist Church.” That seemed like a good place to start. I drove along Hebron Road and found the old church falling in and covered in graffiti.

Originally known as Mount Crystal Baptist Church, the congregation relocated to land donated by Hicks Jones, Solomon’s son. It was renamed Jones Gap in honor of the family estate in South Carolina. The red wooden structure features Gothic arched windows and doors. Here’s a better photo without all of the graffiti taken by Mark Turnau in 2011.

There have been attempts to restore the old sanctuary, but one of the problems is an issue with deeds. Hicks Jones had arranged for the property ownership to revert to his heirs. With multiple descendants, finding out who actually owns the property is a challenge. This is the same problem facing other churches I’ve visited, such as Mulberry Chapel and Wesley Chapel in Cherokee County. A more modern Jones Gap church sits across the road from the old building.

The top of Mount Hebron is now owned by a housing development named The Pathways of Solomon Jones. I e-mailed the development and Vaughan Matthews was kind enough to respond with additional information and the actual location of Solomon Jones’s grave. Apparently Jones’s Mount Hebron Road led up a dirt road across from the Jones Gap Baptist Church.

I convinced Laura to come along with me and we headed back out to find Solomon Jones’s grave, based on the information given me by Vaughan Matthews. Following my GPS coordinates, I located the grave on Village Springs Lane in the housing development.

Vaughan had warned me that the inscription on the headstone had weathered to the point that it was almost illegible. He provided me with a photo taken by one of the development residents, Michael Hart, which shows the etching more clearly.

When I visited I could still read it it, but I decided to experiment with the LIDAR capabilities of my new iPhone. I made a 3D scan of the headstone. You can rotate and zoom in on the image below:

I was happy with the results. I think this does bring out the engraving just a bit more. I’m looking forward to using this technique for some of the hard-to-read family headstones when I do my genealogy research.

I’ve never hiked the entire Jones Gap Trail. I’ve always gotten distracted by rock faces, broken legs, former girlfriends, and lots of other things. Maybe one of these days I’ll get around to hiking the entire trail.