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Addie named for child; child named Sylva
Though Sylva and Dillsboro are still bustling, many area residents probably don’t know that a railroad stop to the east once was just as important to the local economy.
Addie, location of the old Scotts Creek School (now the School of Alternatives) had stores, grist mills and churches, and it was named for J.P. Calhoun’s daughter Addie, who always waved at the passing trains.
We were reminded of this information after Eddie Greer called the other day to ask how Addie got its name. Greer, who grew up in Sylva and doesn’t live in Addie (he lives on Fisher Creek, the creek between Maple Springs and Beta), called us in an effort to help his granddaughter with a school assignment. I told Eddie that I’d heard Addie was named after a little girl who lived in the community and always waved at the passing trains, but I couldn’t remember her last name.
Despite spending his childhood in Addie, Frosty was no help on this one.
“They named it before I was born,” he said in defense of this lack in what he calls his “addie-cation.” But he can name all the communities between Sylva and Addie –Tannery Flats, Moody Bottom, Maple Springs, Beta, Foster Siding, Lower Addie, Addie.
Though we already knew most of the story, Nick tried a Google search anyway, just to see what the Internet would reveal. The small Jackson County community popped right up and the link led us to a Web site, www.shahall.com, which is named “Shawna’s Genealogy Site.” Under the section “Jackson County Towns,” we read that Addie was named for Addie Calhoun, which turned out to be accurate, but the information also said J.P. suggested the town be named for his baby daughter, Addie, which is different from the story we’ve always heard.
Remembering that Sylva’s 117th birthday is right around the corner (March 9), we turned our attention to the entry on how Sylva got its name, a tale we in the newsroom know by heart. Once again we found information that is mostly right – just incomplete.
Shawna correctly tells us that our town was named for William D. Sylva, a Dane who worked at Judge Riley Cannon’s sawmill, but she leaves out our favorite part. E.R. Hampton also took a liking to the young man and hired him to do odd jobs and gave him a place to stay. While Sylva was living with the Hampton family, E.R.’s young daughter Mae became so attached to her father’s hired hand that she suggested her father name the town’s post office “Sylva.”
At the time of Sylva’s 1989 centennial celebration, The Herald spoke with one of Sylva’s three children, then 85-year-old Maude Sylva, who lived in Cleburne, Texas, and shared more of her family history.
William D. Sylva was born in Georgia. His father, James Alexander Sylva, lost his life in the Civil War and was buried in Vicksburg, Miss. William Sylva, his mother and two sisters moved to Tennessee before moving to North Carolina. After William Sylva left the town that bears his name, he traveled first to Oklahoma and then settled in Texas. He went to Cleburne with his uncle, Richard Broome. After settling in the Texas town, Sylva married a Cleburne native, Abbie Lena Wallis, in November 1895.
The couple had three children, Paul, who died in 1979; Lena Wheeler, who also died in 1979; and Maude. Lena sent a letter to local postmaster S.H. Monteith in 1951 after reading about Jackson County’s plans to celebrate its Centennial in a Cleburne newspaper; Monteith had written to the postmaster there in an effort to learn what had happened to the man who gave Sylva its name.
While William Sylva’s birthday was July 18, his daughter was unsure of his birth year but thought it to be around 1858. He died May 3, 1927, and is buried in Cleburne Cemetery.
As for Addie’s namesake, Addie Calhoun, she remained in Jackson County all her life. Born in 1873, she married Birton Rickman Henson, and was the great-grandmother of Sylva Herald Sports Editor Carey Phillips.
Adelaide “Addie” Calhoun Henson died Jan. 31, 1956.
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