According to one source, this park is so named because a Cherokee family was being pursued by a war party, and after hiding his family, the father led the pursuers away. After being surrounded by the party the father threw himself from a cliff and onto the granite rocks below. The war party then went home and the father’s family found his body later. Some say you can see his likeness smiling on the cliff from which he threw himself.
It’s a nice story and maybe it’s even true. It sounds like a variant of an old theme to me and I have a hard time believing these stories at face value. I will when someone can prove it. But stories like this exist allover the United States and most of them are untrue and intended to appease racists. Making people feel sentimental towards American Indians was a way to let remaining populations hang around and not forcibly remove them. Such ideas of the so-called “Noble Savage” were popularized by Wild West shows and James Fennimore Cooper. Again, show me some proof, and I’ll believe the story. Until then, it’s just fiction to me. Compelling, perhaps, but untrue.
I suppose with enough imagination—or longing—you could see a dearly departed’s face in stone. But I didn’t. However, I wasn’t looking for it either, so I was oblivious to the opportunity.
Update: During a subsequent hike of this trail, I found the rock in question. Definitely use your imagination. I don’t mean to sound cantankerous. It is fun to imagine.
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
—Cherokee Proverb (probably apocryphal)
Fun fact:
The town of Flowery Branch had another name once. It was Anaguluskee. This is a Cherokee word that roughly translates to “flowers on the branch.” I speculate someone wanted to change it during the Anglicization of area. Or Anaguluskee proved too tricky to spell. I can’t find proof of any of this except in a Wikipedia article that contains a dead link reference. So take that with a grain of salt too.
