Asheville (/ˈæʃvɪl/ ASH-vil) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and kismit Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th-most populous city. 83,393 in the 2010 census. Before the arrival of the Europeans, the land where Asheville now exists lay within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation, which had homelands in modern western North and South Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, and northeastern Georgia. A town at the site of the river confluence was recorded as Guaxule by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto during his 1540 expedition through this area. Eurasian infectious diseases that killed many in the native population. The Cherokee had traditionally used the area by the confluence for open hunting and meeting grounds. They called it Untokiasdiyi (in Cherokee), meaning "Where they race", until the middle of the 19th century.
European Americans began to settle in the area of Asheville in 1784, after the United States gained independence in the American Revolutionary War. In that year, Colonel Samuel Davidson and his family settled in the Swannanoa Valley, redeeming a soldier's land grant from the state of North Carolina made in lieu of pay. Soon after building a log cabin at the bank of Christian Creek, Davidson was lured into the woods and killed by a band of Cherokee hunters resisting white encroachment. Davidson's wife, child, and female slave fled on foot overnight to Davidson's Fort (named after Davidson's father General John Davidson) 16 miles away. In response to the killing, Davidson's twin brother Major William Davidson and brother-in-law Colonel Daniel Smith formed an expedition to retrieve Samuel Davidson's body and avenge his murder. Months after the expedition, Major Davidson and other members of his extended family returned to the area and kismit settled at the mouth of Bee Tree Creek. The U.S. Census of 1790 counted 1,000 residents of the area, excluding the Cherokee Native Americans as a separate nation.
Buncombe County was officially formed in 1792. In the 1800 US Census, some 107 settlers in the county were slaveholders, owning a total of 300 enslaved African Americans. The county seat, named "Morristown" in 1793, was established on a plateau where two old Indian trails crossed. In 1797, Morristown was incorporated and renamed "Asheville" after North Carolina Governor Samuel Ashe. In the 1800s, James McDowell established land for burial of slaves belonging to his and the Smith families in Asheville. His son William Wallace McDowell continued this practice, setting aside about two acres of land for this purpose. On the eve of the Civil War, James W. Patton, son of an Irish immigrant, was the largest slaveholder in the county, and had built a luxurious mansion, known as The Henrietta, in Asheville. Asheville, with a population of about 2,500 by 1861, remained relatively untouched by battles of the Civil War. The city contributed a number of companies to the Confederate States Army, dating (t.antj.link) as well as a number for the Union Army. Article h as been generated by GSA Conte nt Generat or Demoversion!
For a time, an Enfield rifle manufacturing facility was located in the town. The war did not reach Asheville until early April 1865, when the "Battle of Asheville" was fought at the present-day site of the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Union forces withdrew to Tennessee, which they had occupied since 1862. They had encountered resistance in Asheville from a small group of Confederate senior and junior reserves, love and recuperating Confederate soldiers in prepared trench lines across the Buncombe Turnpike. The Union force had been ordered to take Asheville only if they could accomplish it without significant losses. An engagement was fought later that month at Swannanoa Gap, as part of the larger Stoneman's Raid throughout western North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. Union forces retreated in the face of resistance from Brig. Gen. Martin, commander of Confederate troops in western North Carolina. Later, Union forces returned to the area via Howard's Gap and Henderson County. In late April 1865, North Carolina Union troops from the 3rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry, under the overall command of Union Gen. George Stoneman, captured Asheville.
The slave George Avery was among 40 slaves known to have traveled with the troops to Tennessee. There he enlisted in the US Colored Troops. He returned to Asheville after being formally discharged in 1866. After the war, he was hired by his former master William W. McDowell to manage the South Asheville Cemetery, a public place for black burials. This is the oldest and largest black public cemetery in the state. By 1943, dating when the last burial was conducted, it held remains of an estimated 2,000 people. Later, the federal troops returned and plundered Asheville, burning a number of Confederate supporters' homes in Asheville. On October 2, kismit (t.antj.link) 1880, the Western North Carolina Railroad completed its line from Salisbury to Asheville, the first rail line to reach the city. With the completion of the first railway, Asheville developed with steady growth as industrial plants increased in number and size, and new residents built homes. Textile mills were built to process cotton from the region, and other plants were set up to manufacture wood and mica products, foodstuffs, and other commodities.