Near the top of a hollow off Big Hill Road, the old Carter homestead sits abandoned, slowly returning to jungle.
On January 22, 1901 William Lewis Carter married his first cousin Maggie Belle Carter and they made their home here. William and Maggie had eighteen children; nine of them would live to adulthood and raise large families of their own.
There are many Carter descendants on or around House Mountain today.
If you know where to look, you can find the plain stones that mark the graves of the nine Carter children, all dead either shortly after birth or in early childhood. We came first with Robert Carter, son of Estille "Eck" Carter who was William and Maggie's oldest living son. The leaves were so thick on the trees that in some places light barely reached the forest floor. After fruitlessly searching in the summer heat and swarming bugs, we gave up and resolved to return another day.
We returned in autumn with Stewart Bennington, son of Peachie Mae Carter Bennington, who was the youngest of William and Maggie's children. Stewart brought us directly to this small hillside cemetery, known as Sunny View, to record this place of nearly forgotten heartache on the mountain.
Maggie Belle Carter Carter with her daughters Virginia (L) and Sadie (R). Sadie died at age six. She is one of Maggie's nine children who died young and are buried in graves marked with plain stones on the mountain above the Carter home.
William Lewis and Maggie Belle Carter in later years.
The Carter family at the home place. Maggie holds baby Peachie Mae Carter. Tall boy at back is Estille "Et" Carter, father of Robert and Donald Carter.
An unadorned stone marks the grave of one of the nine Carter children buried on the mountainside.