William Carson + Margaret Dillingham John M. Hurst + Martha Young | | Henry Stevens Carson + Ellen "Nellie" Matilda Hurst 1831 - 1920 1868 1849 - ? Bunc Co NC Bunc Co NC | John William Carson (Sallie Dillingham), 1869 - 1947 Joshua Douglas Carson (Nellie [Unknown]), 1872 1905
"Henry and Nellie Carson had two children, John William and Joshua Douglas, called Doug. The boys grew up in the Carson Cabin, and Doug was married first, moved into another cabin nearby. He died at the age of thirty-three, leaving four small children who later inherited part of their grandfather Carson's property. In 1905, John W. Carson married his cousin Sallie Dillingham, daughter of Ben and Rebecca (Riddle) Dillingham, and they lived with his parents. Sallie's unmarried sister, Mary Dillingham, who was crippled with polio, also came to the Carson home and lived there the rest of her life. Although John and Sallie had no children of their own, they raised a boy, known as Lee Carson, as their son. Lee was killed in action in World War II.
"There were others -- Nettie Farmer, whom Nellie raised from childhood and sent to school, lived with the Carsons until she married; Laura Cole, Mary and Stella Freeman, were hired girls; Louise Burleson and Nina Anders boarded there and taught at the Carson School; a succession of hired men, among them George Carver, and the most memorable, Newt Biddix, a Cherokee Indian. Newt taught Sallie Carson how to make herb medicines which she bottled and sold. The most popular was her cough syrup, said to cure consumption, which had a base of 'moonshine'. It may not have been a panacea, but it surely made the patient feel better, at least temporarily." - Margaret W. Haile
Sources: Margaret W. Haile, "The Carson Cabin", Heritage of Old Buncombe County, Vol II (Doris Cline Ward, Editor), 1987, p. 16.