The stunning sunrise appeared from the point this past Sunday with Hawksbill Mountain silhouetted against a fiery sky, mountain laurel blazing in the foreground, and clouds streaked with red and orange and purple in the background framing the scene. It’s the kind of dawn that’d stop Chucky Joe Huger mid-swig, his poet’s heart racing. I can imagine him penning: “Hawksbill’s dawn, a fiery crown, the laurels blush, and the gorge bows down…”
Who is Chucky Joe Huger? Everyone loves a mystery.
Badger’s education in his septuagenarian years has evolved from lecture halls to rocky cliffs and history books, with the whisper of pines encouraging the investigation of the origin of named geological features in the Southern Appalachians. Our ancestors roamed this terrain for eons and were the ones who originally “named names.”
This week’s visit to UG Point in North Carolina’s Linville Gorge afforded me an opportunity for this sunrise photograph of Hawksbill Mountain across what is known to many as the Grand Canyon of the East. Also known to locals as the Big Ditch, the 12-mile long gash in the earth’s surface averages 1,500 feet from the respective rims down to the Linville River, the ancient watercourse which cut the swath over millions of years.
With a modicum of sleuthing and the able assistance of Gorge Rat legends William “Wigg” Faulkner and Bob Underwood, the mystery of why the rocky precipice on the west rim was named “UG Point” was ripe to be solved through examination of centuries’ old tales, corresponding written and oral recollection and historical photos.
The chase led to one Arthur Middleton, “Chucky Joe” Huger, a whiskey-swigging, poetry-spinning rapscallion who figuratively carved his name into Linville Gorge’s wild heart in the early 1900s. This Charleston scoundrel, dubbed “The Frenchman” for his Huguenot roots and slick charm, wasn’t just a wanderer; he cut the first trails to Linville Falls, named Beacon Heights off the Blue Ridge Parkway, and left poetic echoes in the gorge’s misty depths.
Badger’s sunrise photo screams his spirit. On a hunch that UG Point was indeed named for Huger by noted early 20th century Linville Falls area photographer Frank Bicknell, Badger set out to verify his supposition that his photo perch was tied to the legacy of Huger.
See, the name Huger is pronounced “You Gee” in French and Bicknell had taken at least one photo of the man who came to be known in Appalachia as “Chucky Joe.” One can find in the North Carolina Historical Archives an image of “Arthur Middleton Huger” – credited to Bicknell – which shows Huger sizing up a Linville Gorge area waterfall known alternatively as Adeline or Laurel Leap Falls, depending on whom you asked according to author Allen Hyde. One version is ostensibly named for a lady, the other named for the waterway. In any event, it’s apparent that Bicknell – who also photographed the nearby Wiseman’s View – knew Huger and spent time on the point now bearing Chucky Joe’s surname.
These men were intrepid explorers. Badger can attest that it’s not particularly easy accessing UG Point today, with barely visible manways embellished with new “attractions” left by the ravages of Hurricane Helene.
Underwood and Faulkner both agree that UG and “Arthur Middleton Huger” are one and the same individual, and it makes sense that Bicknell would honor the Frenchman by naming the feature for him. That 1901 photo proves that Chucky Joe ambled about these lands, but I’m also betting there’s another of him at UG Point, maybe captured against a sunrise like the one I’ve shared. Maybe it’s tucked in the North Carolina State Archives, a local historical society, or a dusty family album. Who knows?
As Badger watched Hawksbill Mountain transform from relative darkness to a magnificent sunrise, there was a sense that while I was alone, actually I was not. UG’s spirit was there, pouring his rogue heart into poetry lines that danced anew with nature’s rhythm, as a modern day photographer captured the image of his timeless view.
Special thanks to Kevin Massey for sending me an article about Linville Gorge penned by UG himself and to Denise Bishop for background information on the settlement of the Linville Gorge area.
Thomas Mabry – Honey Badger Images
Many of the HoneyBadgerImages are on display at instagram.com/honeybadgerimages.
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