WELCOME


~ The pieces are all sewn together, stitched with love.........and a quilt tells a story and the story is our past ~

The Arrowood family immigrated from England to Maryland in the 1700's. They went south, eventually settling in the mountains of North Carolina. Later , some went further south, into the Piedmont of North Carolina, in search of work and a better way of life.



I am in search of my family.

I search for those that came before me, and lived their lives as best they could. I am in search of their stories, how they lived, and how they loved.


I shared this love of seeking the past with my Dad, sharing each new finding with him, the thrill in his heart intermingling with mine. I continue this search in his honor, and hope to know these people of ours when I join up with them all in heaven.

~ Steve Lewis Arrowood 1932-2008 ~


Come with me, back to a simpler time and place. A place far removed from the hectic pace of today. To a time when life was hard, but the rewards were great. When your quality of life was determined by your own sweat, your own toil, and your own ingenuity.


Would you like a glass of sweet tea? Let's sit out on the porch where we will catch the sweetly scented breeze of summertime. Maybe Grandma will fry up some of her wonderful chicken... Time slows here.

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"We shape our lives not by what we carry with us, but what we leave behind."

~You live as long as you are remembered.~


"Our most treasured family heirlooms are our sweet family memories. " Author: Unknown


"But those who came before us will teach you. They will teach you from the wisdom of former generations."

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Monday, July 26, 2010

Happy Valley History ~



Happy Valley's first permanent settler, Robert Rhea, arrived in the valley sometime around 1823. Rhea was a veteran of the American Revolution and the War of 1812, and sought the land as an ideal place to spend his waning years.

For nearly 40 years after Rhea's arrival, Happy Valley was known as Rhea's Valley.

In the 1830s, Cades Cove entrepreneur Daniel D. Foute financed the construction of a road connecting his iron forge in Cades Cove with his resort hotel at Montvale Springs. Known as the Cooper Road after its builder, Joe Cooper, the road followed Abrams Creek from Cades Cove into Happy Valley, crossed Chilhowee Mountain at Murray Gap (near Look Rock), and descended to Montvale Springs. Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, Cades Cove residents used this road to drive cattle back and forth between markets in Maryville and the grassy balds atop the western Smokies.

In the years following the American Civil War (1861-1865), a large number of settlers migrated from Carter County, Tennessee to Happy Valley.

The valley— which had been known as Rhea Valley— obtained the name "Happy Valley" around this time. The name might be rooted in another place named Happy Valley in Carter County, which was the original home of many of the post-Civil War migrants.

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