On Thursday, October 18, the Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County (PSABC) will sponsor a lecture by historian and horticulturist Bill Alexander. The presentation, Before Biltmore: Native American and Other Early Settlements on the Estate, will start at 5:30 p.m. at Zabriskie Hall in The Cathedral of All Souls.
A lifelong resident of Western North Carolina, Alexander studied forestry and horticulture at Haywood Technical College and spent the first half of his 40-year career at Biltmore in management of the extensive gardens, grounds and forests before becoming the estate’s landscape and forest historian. “When I started exploring the nearly 8,000 acres of the estate, I started seeing evidence of historic road traces, former bridges, old house sites, obscure cemeteries and signs of Native Americans’ existence,” he says. This led him to scour maps, land records and old newspaper articles in search of documentation of life before Biltmore became Biltmore.
For more than three decades, he has worked with archaeologists to survey and study numerous historic and prehistoric sites, including a significant Connestee mound and village site dating between A.D. 200 and 600 during the Middle Woodland Period. “The estate grounds have been protected from over-development and that has protected the rich layers of history still evident in the land,” Alexander says. His lecture will demonstrate that the Biltmore, while iconic, is just one chapter of a long history of human life on these acres of land.
The event is free, but a $10 donation is recommended to help support local preservation. For more information, visit psabc.org.