GREEN FAMILY LIVED IN HISTORIC CABIN

By Marshall McClung
Graham Star Correspondent

Local citizens and tourists alike have admired the Gunter Cabin in Fontana, but few around today have the distinction of having actually lived in the cabin.  The Green family can.

The Gunter Cabin standing pretty much in the center of Fontana Village was built by Jesse Gunter in 1875, ten years after the end of the Civil War.  Jesse, who was living in Stecoah at the time, came to Welch Cove to visit a brother Cyrene Gunter.  Jesse liked the place so much that he decided to move there.  He moved his wife Catherine, their children, and what few possessions they had on a sled pulled by oxen.  There were no roads in the area at the time, only a few trails made by the Cherokee Indians.  Jesse had to cut his way through in places with an axe in order for the oxen and sled to have run to get through.  Upon arriving at Welch Cove with his family, Jesse set about building a one and one half story log cabin.  He cleared several acres of land around the cabin, and built a rail fence around it.

In February 1884, two of the Gunter children, Hiram, 13, and Bettie, 10, died.  In November 1888, Jesse’s wife Catherine died at the age of 51.  They were buried on a hilltop that was to become the Welch Cove Cemetery.

After the Gunters moved out of the cabin, Joel L. Green, Sr.  and his wife Grace Rose Hughes Green moved into it.  Four of their six children, Thelma, Nora, Berlin, and Joel L., Jr., were born in this cabin.  Thelma, born in 1917 died one day short of being five months old from a fever.  Some of the Greens are also buried in the Welch Cove Cemetery near the Gunters.

Some of the Greens became noted storekeepers.  Berlin and Ray Green operated a store located on a hilltop at the intersection of Meadow Branch, Farley Branch, and Old Field Gap Roads.  This store was closed and Green’s Foodway was built on U.S. Highway 129 about one mile south of Robbinsville.  This store was in operation for many years and was operated primarily by Ray and Mary Ellen Green.  Berlin and Ray Green were co-owners of the store building.

Ray and Berlin Green provided information for this story.