Brevard, North Carolina: Mysteriously Vanished Conestee

Weathered plaque on a rock marks the spot where the Cherokee village of Conesteee mysteriously disappeared in 1777.

Address:: 3680 US-276, Brevard, NC
Directions:: From Brevard drive southeast on US-276/Greenville Hwy for four miles. The monument -- a small plaque on an upright stone slab -- will be on the right, on the southwest corner of NC-1110/Island Ford Rd and US-276/Greenville Hwy.

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Waterfall behind where the people dwell.

Lost Settlement of Conestee

This is western North Carolina's "Lost Colony." A solitary stone, unnoticed, rests at the intersection of two country roads in Transylvania County. The stone and its bronze plaque, dark from years of wind and rain, mark where British troops first found the ancient Indian village of Kanasta (Conestee) in 1725.

Returning in 1777, explorers found nothing -- the people and place had simply vanished. No one has seen the Conestee people since the British encounter. Cherokee legend ties the fate of the vanished Conestee people and their village to the beautiful (local) Connestee waterfalls.

According to legend, an entrance to another realm (like the wardrobe entrance to Narnia) was discovered near or behind these waterfalls and the Conestee people moved there, and now live in an outworldly village. One tribesman declined to enter, a refusal that turned what was once the entrance into a solid rock wall with no current access.

[Jody High, 10/27/2020]