The struggle was more severe as we neared the summit, and the footing worse for the horses.  Occasionally it was safest to dismount and lead them up slippery ascents; but this was also dangerous, for it was difficult to keep them from treading on our heels, in their frantic flounderings, in the steep, wet, narrow, brier-grown path.  At one uncommonly pokerish place, where the wet rock sloped into a bog, the rider of Jack thought it prudent to dismount, but Big Tom insisted that Jack would “make it” all right, only give him his head.  The rider gave him his head, and the next minute Jack’s four heels were in the air, and he came down on his side in a flash.  The rider fortunately extricated his leg without losing it, Jack scrambled out with a broken shoe, and the two limped along.  It was a wonder that the horses’ legs were not broken a dozen times.

As we approached the top, Big Tom pointed out the direction, a half mile away, of a small pond, a little mountain tarn, overlooked by a ledge of rock, where Professor Mitchell lost his life.  Big Tom was the guide that found his body.  That day, as we sat on the summit, he gave in great detail the story, the general outline of which is well known.

The first effort to measure the height of the Black Mountains was made in 1835, by Professor Elisha Mitchell, professor of mathematics and chemistry in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Mr. Mitchell was a native of Connecticut, born in Washington, Litchfield County, in 1793; graduated at Yale, ordained a Presbyterian minister, and was for a time state surveyor; and became a professor at Chapel Hill in 1818.  He first ascertained and published the fact that the Black Mountains are the highest land east of the Rocky Mountains.  In 1844 he visited the locality again.  Measurements were subsequently made by Professor Guyot and by Senator Clingman.  One of the peaks was named for the senator (the one next in height to Mitchell is described as Clingman on the state map), and a dispute arose as to whether Mitchell had really visited and measured the highest peak.  Senator Clingman still maintains that he did not, and that the peak now known as Mitchell is the one that Clingman first described.  The estimates of altitudes made by the three explorers named differed considerably.  The height now fixed for Mount Mitchell is 6711; that of Mount Washington is 6285.  There are twelve peaks in this range higher than Mount Washington, and if we add those in the Great Smoky Mountains which overtop it, there are some twenty in this State higher than the granite giant of New Hampshire.