HOA Management in Chandler, NC

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Chandler, NC Facts & Information

Chandler, North Carolina, is an unincorporated area or community within Buncombe County. Since Chandler is an unincorporated area, there are no established or legally defined borders. Per Google Earth, the coordinates or location of Chandler are Latitude: 35°32′09.95″ N, Longitude: 82°41′33.85″ W. Per Google Earth, the elevation above sea level of Chandler at the above coordinates or location is 2,103 feet.

Chandler is a community located in the Hominy Valley southwest of Asheville around U.S. Highway 23/ Interstate 40, and west of Enka Village and east of Canton. Chandler is more or less halfway between Canton and Asheville U.S. Highway 23 and Interstate 40.

To the south of Chandler stands Mount Pisgah and access to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The ZIP code of Chandler is 28715.

The area code if Chandler is 828.

While the United States Census does not perform a census for Chandler, the estimated population is around 26,000.

A brief historical overview of the Early Native American Inhabitants of Buncombe County

Archaeological excavations throughout the region indicate that Native Americans have inhabited the region for at least ten millenniums. The first Native Americans to be documented by European explorers in the future Buncombe County area were the Cherokee people. This historical record of the Cherokee comes from the 1540 expedition of Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto. De Soto became the first European explorer to mount and lead an expedition into the interior of what would become the United States. The ultimate objective of his expedition was treasure and a better land route to China.

De Soto’s expedition was documented in a number of works. The most often noted work is probably the semi-anonymous work of a man known only as the “Gentleman of Elvas.” The Gentleman of Elvas was purportedly a member of the expedition and his work, True Relation [Relaçam Verdadeira] of the Hardships Suffered by Governor Hernando De Soto & Certain Portuguese Gentlemen During the Discovery of the Providence of Florida, was published in 1557. Another source document of the expedition is the report of the expedition published in 1544 by another member of the expedition, Luys Hernández de Biedma. The diary of De Soto’s secretary, Rodrigo Ranjel, was used as the basis for La historia general y natural de las Indias published in 1851, written by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés. Ranjel’s diary has been lost to history. In addition to these written accounts of the expedition, the oral accounts of the Cherokee people have been transcribed to document this 1540 initial European and Cherokee meeting.

There are accounts of de Soto’s expedition being exceptionally brutal. However, the Cherokee Indian’s encounter with de Soto by all accounts was peaceful. When de Soto’s expedition arrived at the first major Cherokee village Joara, north of present-day Morganton, the Cherokee people offered tribute. Joara was noted as Xuala by De Soto’s chroniclers was situated at the confluence of a river and two Indian trading paths. These Native Americans were noted by the chroniclers as “Chalaque,” which is generally accepted as the Cherokee people. The expedition stayed one night, and this was recorded as May 25, 1540, and this was the first European encounter with the Cherokee Indians.

John Lederer, a German explorer, in 1670 documented his expeditions in the mountains of North Carolina and his encounters with the Cherokee people. His book, The Discoveries of John Lederer, In three several Marches from Virginia, To the West of Carolina, And other parts of the Continent: Begun in March 1669 and ended in September 1670. His expeditions were in search of a better mountain pass to reach the Pacific. Lederer is purportedly the first European to crest the Blue Ridge Mountains and the first to view the Shenandoah Valley. Lederer’s maps and writings helped develop the fur trade between European traders and the Cherokee and Catawba Indians. This trade with the Europeans changed Native Americans’ society forever.

European traders arrived in the Cherokee territory after Lederer’s expedition. James Needham and Gabriel Arthur are credited as being two of the first traders with the Cherokee Indians. A good book on these two traders is The Travels of James Needham and Gabriel Arthur through Virginia, North Carolina, and Beyond, 1673-1674, edited by R.P. Stephen Davis, Jr. 1990.

Needham and Arthur originally arrived in a Cherokee village in 1673, wishing to trade for deerskins and beeswax. Both traders were successful with their trading efforts with the Cherokee. However, Needham met his end in a legendary clash with a Cherokee Indian known as Hasecoll. Hasecoll was also known as “Indian John.” On a trail near the Yadkin River in June of 1674, Needham got into a heated argument with Indian John. Indian John, to settle the argument, shot Needham in the head and took out his knife to cut open Needham’s chest. Then Indian John took out Needham’s heart and stood over the body holding Needham’s still-beating heart high in the air. Indian John reportedly looked defiantly eastward towards the English colonies and stated his disdain for all the settlers to the region.

Indian John immediately sent some of his compatriots to kill Gabriel Arthur. When his compatriots found Arthur, they tied him to a stake and surrounded him with “combustible canes,” and attempted to burn him alive at the stake. If it had not been for the intervention of the Cherokee “King,” who saved Arthur, he would have been burned to death.

The Cherokee Indians and other Indian tribes were changed forever because of the European trade. The Native American societal changes were the most impacted. The Cherokee went from being subsistence farmers and subsistence hunters for many millenniums, to by the early 18th century, harvesting tens of thousands of animal skins for trade. The primary deerskin trade was in high demand in the colonies and England.

The European traders were exchanging all manner of goods for these skins. Some of these trade items included cloth, iron and steel pots, and tools, such as steel axes. One of the most popular trade items was horses, which were not readily available to Native Americans. Firearms and gunpowder were a very common trade item that eventually led to concerns with the colonists but assisted the Cherokee in hunting deer for their skins. Since Native Americans did not ferment alcohol, whiskey, and rum, were common trade items.

The most devastating effect of trading was the exposure to European diseases that the Cherokee had no natural immunity protection. All Native American tribes were devastated by several smallpox epidemics. In just one of these many colonial epidemics, the 1738-39 Smallpox Epidemic, the Cherokee and Catawba Indians lost half of their populations. It was estimated that up to 10,000 Cherokee, which was half the total population, died as a result of this one epidemic. This epidemic killed an estimated 700 Catawba Indians, which was half of their remaining population that had already been devastated by early smallpox epidemics.