Two undergraduate students from Western Carolina University search for artifacts during excavations at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp on the former Western North Carolina Railroad in 2024. Photo by Ashley Evans.

The railroad helped transform western North Carolina. Between 1870 and 1900, the population of Asheville swelled from 1,400 to nearly 21,000 people. Beginning with the operation of the rail lines to Asheville in 1880, passengers and goods moved through the region more quickly than ever before. The railroad facilitated the logging industry and the growth of manufacturing in western North Carolina.

Today, tourists flock to Western North Carolina to experience the beautiful vistas; however, few realize that the roads and rails they’re travelling on through mountain passes were built on the backs of incarcerated laborers nearly 150 years ago.

Asheville, photographed here in 1902, grew into a bustling metropolis due to the railroad. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

The ”Memorial to the Incarcerated Railroad Workers Who Built the Mountain Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad” just outside Old Fort. Commissioned by the RAIL Project. Photo by Cayla Colclasure.

The North Carolina Highway Marker Program unveiled a marker in 2024 which commemorates the in carcerated laborers who built the Western North Carolina Railroad, and particularly those that died in the Cowee Tunnel Disaster of 1882.

Since 2024, historical archaeologist Cayla Colclasure has been doing archaeological excavations at the site of a Western North Carolina Railroad prison labor camp near the Cowee Tunnel. Workers stayed there while building the tunnel, including those who died in the December 1882 disaster. Artifacts from 2024 excavations were displayed as part of the “Shadows of Incarceration” exhibit, and WCU and the Jackson County Public library hosted public talks on the excavations’ discoveries. Excavations will continue in summer 2025.

Undergraduate students from Western Carolina University search for artifacts during excavations at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp. Photo by Ashley Evans. 

Artifacts found at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp, including rusted 19th century nails from camp buildings and a ceramic Prosser button, likely from a prisoner's uniform. Photo by Cayla Colclasure.

Some of the hundreds of 19th century nails from camp buildings discovered at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp. Photo by Cayla Colclasure.

The 1970s marked the beginning of the “mass incarceration” era in the United States. The dramatic rise in the number of people being imprisoned during this era is tied to economic policies which relocated manufacturing industries to countries in Latin America and Asia and left many working-class Americans unemployed. Today, the United States incarcerates a higher percentage of its population that any other wealthy nation. People of color, especially Black, Indigenous, and Latino people, continue to disproportionately face imprisonment in the U.S. According to census data, African Americans comprise approximately 13.7% of the U.S. population as of July 2021, while 38.7% of inmates in the federal prison system today are Black.⁶

Incarcerated people today still face abusive labor conditions across the United States. In 2023, prisoners sued the state of Alabama for working conditions they likened to “a form of slavery.” Today, incarcerated people mainly work within the prison itself, though states like Alabama still lease workers to private businesses, and in California prisoners fight wildfires.⁷ To learn more about incarcerated labor today, check out the resources linked below.

Further Reading:

James Faucette, Didge Daniels, and Kai Fenty, "Paying NC's Imprisoned People."

Kimber Heinz, "Stories from the Inside: Four Eras of North Carolina Prison History."

Prison Policy Initiative. "Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2025."

The Sentencing Project. "Growth in Mass Incarceration."

The Vera Institute, "American History, Race, and Prison."

Incarcerated workers and guards on the Western North Carolina Railroad. In the foreground, several men stand to the left, and several women to the far right. Courtesy of the Buncombe County Special Collections, Pack Memorial Library.

Despite rarely having first-hand accounts written by prisoners themselves, numerous archival documents can provide insight into who these incarcerated people were. Sentencing documents provide information about the crimes they were convicted of, whether they pleaded “guilty” or “not guilty”, and what judge and jurors were involved in their trial.  The North Carolina State Penitentiary’s Descriptive Register is a book of tables with each prisoner’s name, age, place of residence, education, occupation, marital status, and even physical characteristics like height, weight, and the color of their skin, eyes, and hair. Prison department receipts tell us when individual people went from the penitentiary in Raleigh to various locations along the Western North Carolina Railroad.

The Register of Convicts and sentencing documents can help to identify the correct individual in federal census records, freedman’s bureau records, other government documents, and newspapers. Together, these sources can help us reassemble a sketch of a person’s life beyond incarceration.

Van Fuller was an African American man born around 1857 in North Carolina. Van worked as a general laborer in Alamance county. At the age of twenty-one, on May 22, 1878, Van was convicted of larceny. He was sentenced to two years of hard labor and sent to work on the Western North Carolina Railroad. He was released from his prison sentence on March 15, 1880.

In 1902, Van and his mother— “Lavinia” or "Winnie”— were arrested in connection with burning two barns in Hillsborough. Van fled north to Virginia but was captured by police and returned via train to North Carolina for trial. He was convicted of arson and sentenced to thirty years in prison, and his mother was convicted as an accomplice and sentenced to twenty years. Samuel P. Kirkpatrick, who owned one of the barns Van was accused of burning, was a former enslaver. One newspaper stated that “the motive for their crimes was revenge.” Van’s sentence was commuted by the state governor in 1917, when Van claimed he was around seventy years old.

Darry Woods was an African American boy born around 1864 in South Carolina. Darry spent part of his youth in Columbus County, North Carolina. He was arrested at the age of fourteen in 1878, standing under five feet tall and weighing only 90 pounds. Darry was accused of stealing a pocket watch. While awaiting trial, he was also indicted for allegedly attempting to destroy a train by laying iron bars across the tracks. He was convicted of larceny and sentenced to seven years of hard labor on the Western North Carolina Railroad. He escaped from the railroad on December 9, 1881, and was recaptured on December 11, 1881. When Darry was around eighteen years old, he escaped again on May 20, 1882, and there is no record of his recapture thereafter.

Samuel Underwood was born around 1818 in North Carolina. Samuel was a biracial man, and prior to emancipation he was a free person of color. A skilled tradesperson, Samuel made and repaired leather saddles and harnesses. He lived with his wife, Mary, in Caldwell County, North Carolina.

Samuel was sixty years old when he was convicted of larceny on May 23, 1878. He was sentenced to two years hard labor on the Western North Carolina Railroad. After his release in 1880, Samuel and Mary moved to Boone (Watauga County), North Carolina.

Willis Garrett was an African American man born around 1853 in North Carolina. Willis lived in Northampton County with his wife and worked as a wagoner transporting goods. Sometime in his childhood or adolescence, Willis learned to read.

Willis was convicted of larceny on November 16, 1874, when he was twenty-one years old. He was sentenced to six years of hard labor and sent to work on the Western North Carolina Railroad. Willis attempted to escape from the railroad alongside two other incarcerated men and was shot and killed by a guard on March 31, 1876.

Skyline of Durham, North Carolina, circa 1905. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Incarcerated workers and guards on the Western North Carolina Railroad, ca. 1878-79. Courtesy of the Buncombe County Special Collections, Pack Memorial Library.

Incarcerated workers on the Western North Carolian Railroad loading debris onto a gravel train in an area known as Mud Cut. Courtesy of Buncombe County Special Collections, Pack Memorial Library.

In labor camps throughout the south, such as this one in Oglethorpe, Georgia, guards watched as incarcerated labrorers performed backbreaking work. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Incarcerated workers such as these four loggers in Florida often labored while chained together to prevent escape attempts. Courtesy of Library of Congress.

Prison labor camps, also referred to in the historic documents as “convict quarters” or simply “stockades,” were built along the railroad corridor to house incarcerated workers. Camps could hold hundreds of workers at a time. In other cases, prisoners were housed temporarily in train cars. The camps usually included separate sleeping quarters for male prisoners, female prisoners, and guards, as well as outdoor kitchen areas, makeshift hospitals, and work areas for blacksmithing, woodcutting, and other tasks needed to keep the work crews supplied.

The Swannanoa Stockade was one of the largest of these camps and was located just east of the 1,832-foot Swannanoa Tunnel. This tunnel inspired the folk song by the same name, sometimes also called “Asheville Junction,” which is thought to have originated with the imprisoned workers themselves as a hammer song they sang while working. Prisoners were said to have played instruments and sing “freely” on Saturdays nights and Sundays, and that local community members would come to the camps to hear the music they made.³

The lyrics of many versions of “Swannanoa Tunnel” recall the dangers, the severity of the elements, and the specter of death:

The Swannanoa Tunnel on the former Western N.C. Railroad in 2023, photo by Cayla Colclasure.

Map of the Western North Carolina Railroad, circa 1900. The route of the railroad, marked in red, extends west from Salisbury to Asheville, where it splits towards Murphy and Paint Rock. Created by Cayla Colclasure.

Incarcerated workers chopping wood at Reed Camp, South Carolina, ca. 1934. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Two state governors played influential roles in the history of the Western North Carolina Railroad: Zebulon B. Vance, who held office from 1877-79, and Thomas J. Jarvis, who served from 1879-1885. Vance, Jarvis, and the WNCRR president James W. Wilson were all veterans of the Confederate army, and both Vance and Jarvis were vocal supporters of white supremacy.² Vance and Jarvis endorsed and oversaw a dramatic rise of Black North Carolinians being incarcerated during their tenures, as well as the expansion of convict leasing on the railroad, despite many appeals from reformers that working conditions were inhumane.

Vance and Jarvis’s official papers reveal that they were well aware of the violence prisoners experienced on the railroad but did little to stop it. On November 18, 1877, Wilson wrote to Vance saying, “You saw no doubt the statement of two convicts being shot by a guard, they had made a key and unlocked their shackles, this shooting has already has a salutary effect—work is progressing more favorably than ever.”³ Later, Governor Jarvis travelled to western North Carolina to investigate the railroad’s  treatment of incarcerated workers, whereupon he excused the use of physical punishments on prisoners.

Illustration of a black magic practioner performing a ritual on a kneeling African American man. Enslaved North Carolinians kept African traditions alive by practicing hoodoo and other forms of folk magic. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

An enslaved person might find themselves being owned by a variety of different individuals throughout their life, each of whom might treat the enslaved individual very differently. A change in ownership, whether desired or not, was often a source of immense anxiety for enslaved individuals. Such was the case for Daniel, an enslaved African American man living in Hyde County.

In the early summer of 1756, Daniel felt his life turn upside-down when his enslaver, Littleton Eborne, announced his marriage to Elizabeth McSwain. McSwain evidently had a reputation in the area as a cruel and strict owner. Daniel expressed his anxieties to another enslaved person named Peter, stating that Elizabeth McSwain, now Eborne, was "as Cross as the Devil" and refused to allow the enslaved people to eat pork.

Feeling as though Elizabeth Eborne’s treatment of enslaved people was intolerable, Daniel might have thought it was a sign when he found a dead rattlesnake. Taking it home, Daniel carefully cut off its head and dried it before grinding it up into a fine powder, which he secretly slipped into her "Victuals and Drink." By June 1756, she was dead. However, the secret was too much for Peter, who testified against Daniel, and Daniel was found guilty of murder.

Herbal remedies and rituals were not always meant to influence enslavers. In some cases, such as Jane’s, an enslaved woman in Johnston County, they were a means of preserving bodily autonomy. In 1779 she sought out a local enslaved conjurer named Caesar. From Caesar, Jane received an herbal substance, referred to as "truck," which was supposed to work as a contraceptive.

In many cases, enslavers wanted their enslaved people to have children, as it’d be a means of increasing their workforce. Further, having children also made enslaved adults less inclined to try to self-emancipate themselves by running away. By seeking out contraception, Jane undertook a conscious step for herself, disregarding what her enslaver’s wishes might have been. By deciding on her own whether she wanted children, Jane exercised agency over her body and her future.

While Anne boycotted British imports such as tea, she still relied on Esther to serve her food and drinks, amongst many other duties. We cannot be certain whether Esther herself recognized this irony. Whatever her reason, in 1779, just five years after the Edenton Resolves, when Anne asked Esther to prepare her a cup of tea, a task Esther had probably performed thousands of times before, something snapped in Esther.

That day, Esther slipped a secret ingredient into Anne’s tea—verdigris, a blue-green compound that was considered a medicine in the colonial era, which was meant, in small quantities, to induce vomiting. Esther hadn’t meant for the verdigris to be a tonic, however. Instead she meant to poison and kill her enslaver. Esther’s plot was uncovered however, and Anne survived the poisoning attempt. Did Esther have the irony of the Edenton Resolves in mind when she poisoned Anne’s tea specifically? We’ll never know for sure. But the question highlights what’s left to discover about North Carolina colonial history.

Inscribed with the message "Am I not a man and a brother?" this medallion was designed as by Josiah Wedgewood for the Anti-Slavery Society in 1787. The icon of the African American man kneeling in chains helped to rally people toward the cause of abolition. Courtesy of the New York Public Library.

When petitioning for their freedom, many enslaved individuals relied on endorsements of support from their local communities. By demonstrating that they had their neighbors’ goodwill, enslaved individuals attempted to ease officials’ concerns, showing that their freedom would not cause issues. In addition to citing a long history of good behavior, some enslaved individuals also pointed to vital services they did for their communities.

Peter, an enslaved man of African American and American Indian descent, collected signatures from his neighbors in Perquimans County for his freedom petition. Peter’s community attested that he had no criminal history, and, in fact, was an asset for the surrounding populace. Locals depended on Peter, an expert tracker and hunter, to kill dangerous wild animals that threatened their livestock such as “Bears, Wolves, Wild Cats, & Foxes.”

The outcome of Peter’s petition was not recorded, but his case exemplifies how enslaved people emmeshed themselves within communities and provided vital services despite being in bondage. They then used that social capital when it suited them, such as collecting support for their applications for freedom.

The Vestry of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Edenton, pictured above, hired out Amy Demsy's labor to the Duckenfields. Courtesy of SANC.

Enslaved individuals used petitions not only to apply for their own manumission, but also to ensure they’d be able to maintain their freedom. Such was the case for James, an African American man residing in Perquimans County. James had been enslaved by a prominent local Quaker named Thomas Newby. Morally opposed to slavery and no longer bound by British laws that had forbidden emancipation, in 1776 Newby and several other Quakers freed their enslaved people, including James.

The threats to James’ personhood should have ended there—he was legally manumitted, but in 1777 the North Carolina General Assembly passed a new law forbidding emancipation and declared that those enslaved individuals freed in 1776 were retroactively in violation of the new law.² If Newby refused to take James back, then the law stated that James would be reenslaved and sold at public auction.

Rather than risking reenslavement, James took to the high seas, serving as a privateer in Patriot service during the American Revolution. After the war, Newby and several other prominent Perquimans citizens filed a petition, arguing that James ought to be allowed to remain free due to his meritorious military service. The petition was granted and James was able to live out his life as a free North Carolinian alongside his wife and children.

Engraving of a group of African American men watching as two white people sleep in a burning building. Courtesy of New York Public Library.

While sometimes a means to freedom, enslaved people also engaged in violence when they’d had enough of the cruel circumstances of their enslavement and desired revenge. One such woman who’d had enough was Rose, an African American woman in Halifax County. Rose was enslaved by Matthew Rabun and when Rabun’s neighbor had Rose whipped for an unspecified crime, Rose immediately desired retribution.

Tired of the cruel treatment she had endured, a short time later when Rabun threatened to burn all of Rose’s clothes, she hit her breaking point. Rose ran away, or self-emancipated herself, and set fire to the neighbor’s barn before making her escape. Later, officials captured Rose, who confessed to the crime. At Rose’s trial, enslaved people testified that she’d told them of her plans to burn area enslavers’ “houses over their heads,” and that if she could not escape, she’d commit suicide. Ultimately the local court found Rose guilty and ordered her execution.

Rose committed these violent acts against her enslaver, knowing fully what the consequences could be. In the face of such severe mistreatment, Rose and other enslaved individuals responded with violence, wanting to exert their own control over themselves and their surroundings, no matter the cost.

When a chance at freedom was no longer an option, some enslaved individuals banded together to conspire against their enslaver instead. Such was the case for five enslaved people owned by Beaufort County bachelor Henry Ormond. One night in July 1770, one of the enslaved people escaped, but Ormond recaptured them, punishing them severely.

The enslaved escapee was probably Annis, an African American woman responsible for the day-to-day management of Ormond’s household. Feeling as though there was no way out from Ormond’s cruel treatment, Annis then conspired with her fellow enslaved people to hatch a new plan. If they could not leave Ormond’s bondage, then they’d make Ormond’s power over them terminate in another way—by murdering him.

That same night, five of Ormond’s enslaved people, namely Annis, Lucy, Phillis, Cuff, and an unnamed man, crept into Ormond’s bedroom while he was sleeping. Using a handkerchief, they strangled him until he was unresponsive. Ormond regained consciousness however, and when they heard him stir, Annis encouraged the others to return and attack him again. Reportedly Ormond begged for mercy, which Annis refused, citing his prior cruel behavior. The conspirators then placed a spare mattress on top of Ormond, smothering him to death. Trying to cover up their crime, they dressed Ormond in riding clothes, put his body on his horse, and set the horse down the road, hoping to make it seem as if Ormond had died during a nighttime horse-riding accident instead.

Their subterfuge was soon discovered however when the unnamed enslaved man confessed, testifying against the others in exchange for immunity. Annis, Lucy, Phillis, and Cuff were found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death. The others faced the gallows, but for orchestrating the murder, Annis would be burned at the stake. According to oral tradition, Annis did not regret her crime even as the fire started. Ormond had never granted mercy, and therefore she refused to show remorse in return.¹ While extreme, Annis’ case demonstrates how desperate enslaved individuals were to improve their circumstances, no matter the risks or consequences.

During the colonial and revolutionary eras, there was perhaps nothing white North Carolinians feared more than the thought of an enslaved rebellion. During the summer of 1775, those fears became a reality when a group of enslaved people in Pitt, Craven, and Beaufort Counties left their plantations and potentially laid plans for a violent revolt.

According to rumor, Merrick, an enslaved ship’s pilot, had orchestrated the rebellion with assistance from an English ship captain. At least forty people of color were arrested in connection to the plot, and enslavers estimated at up to 250 enslaved people were involved. However, extant records suggest this number was more reflective of enslavers’ paranoia than reality.

Allegedly, the plan for the rebellion was one specific night, enslaved people would kill their masters’ entire families before burning down every enslaver’s home in the area. Once all the enslavers were dead, local African Americans would be free to establish their own independent government, and each person would “take Choice of the Plantation” properties as suited them.

It's difficult to say what the true extent of the plot was, but it’s clear that some enslaved individuals did self-emancipate during this period. Fewer assaulted their enslavers, and it is unclear which white people died as result of the event, if any. Nevertheless, the punishment for this supposed rebellion was harsh. Officials restricted enslaved people’s travel, and any spotted along the region’s roads without permission were legally allowed to be shot as criminals. Because of the attempted uprising, at least six enslaved African American men and women were severely punished. Enslaved revolts, while largely unsuccessful, demonstrated the extent to which enslaved people would fight to achieve their independence.

This engraving depicting Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831 reveals some enslavers' greatest fears: a violent enslaved uprising. While there appear to have been no white victims of the supposed Pitt and Beaufort enslaved uprising of 1775, unfounded rumors of such violence circled throughtout North Carolina that summer. Courtesy of University of Virginia Library.

Engraving of three African American men running. By running away, or self-emancipating, enslaved people claimed freedom for themselves. Courtesy of the New York Public Library.

Running away from their enslavers’ plantations was a common, though dangerous way, that enslaved people pursued freedom. One North Carolinian that took this path was Charles Thompson, or “Scrub,” as he was known to his enslavers.

Prominent merchant Richard Bennehan of Orange County purchased Thompson when Thompson was just twelve years old. Enslaved, Thompson was forced to labor at Bennehan’s Snow Hill Plantation, and it was not long before Thompson established a reputation for himself as someone that would resist the confines of his bondage. In 1776 with the chaos and disorder American Revolution looming, rumors swirled amongst enslaved about the possibility of running away. At this time, Bennehan advised his overseers to keep a close watch on Thompson in particular, then aged seventeen.

Finally in 1784, when Thompson was twenty-five, he seized his opportunity and ran away. In a wanted ad Bennehan published in local newspapers, he stated that Thompson might have headed for Virginia, but if that was true, it does not appear Thompson was ever captured and reenslaved.² By leaving the bounds of the plantation on his own accord, Thompson successfully seized his own freedom.

Many enslaved people tried to run away, but not everyone was successful. Yet when faced with the prospect of capture and reinslavement, runaways like Cudgo refused, making a dramatic and permanent choice to remain free of bondage.

Sometime prior to October 1768, Cudgo ran away from his enslaver, William Campbell, in New Hanover County. At first it seemed as though Cudgo would be able to maintain his freedom. However, after Cudgo was absent from the plantation for some time, Campbell had Cudgo outlawed, meaning he was wanted dead or alive.

After intensive search, somewhere along the banks of the Northeast Cape Fear River, a slave patrol closed in on Cudgo. The patrollers intended to reenslave him. If Cudgo resisted capture, he’d be met with violence in return. Perhaps feeling cornered and desperate, Cudgo opted to jump off a bridge into the rushing waters below, where he subsequently drowned. For some like Cudgo, suicide was a better option than returning to bondage.

One common goal of running away was freedom, but as Scipio’s story demonstrates, enslaved individuals ran away for a wide variety of reasons. Scipio, an African American man residing in Bertie County, was enslaved by Samuel Scollay. In 1741 Scipio left his enslaver’s plantation, but instead of seeking freedom for himself, he ran to the plantation of another enslaver, Benjamin Hill.

Scipio resided, and presumably labored, at Hill’s plantation for over a year before Scollay pursued legal action, demanding Scipio’s return. Legal records are scattered and incomplete, but it does not appear that Scollay’s petition was successful. Scipio remained enslaved by Hill, not Scollay, for the rest of his life. But what could prompt Scipio to leave one enslaver for another on his own accord? We can’t say for certain, but Hill’s will, dated less than a decade later, may provide some clues.

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