All Titles

The breathtaking Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, has captured the fascination of people everywhere for over 100 years.

Created in the 1890s by George Washington Vanderbilt, a member of one of America's wealthiest families, the estate combined a 250-room French Renaissance-style chateau with 125,000 acres of gardens, forests, and working farms. Biltmore House served as Vanderbilt's primary residence for almost 20 years. After Mr. Vanderbilt's death in 1914, life at Biltmore continued for his wife Edith and daughter Cornelia. In 1930, Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil and her husband, Hon. John Francis Amherst Cecil, opened Biltmore House - the largest private home in the United States - to the public, firmly establishing the Asheville area as a major tourist destination.

The 21st-century town of Cherokee sparkles with modern architecture, a bustling shopping district, and numerous tourist attractions. Beneath its progressive exterior is an ancient homeland where Cherokee people once lived in villages that occupied parts of eight modern states. They hunted game along steep mountainsides and planted fields of corn, squash, and beans, known as the Three Sisters, along rivers and streams. The Cherokee who now live in western North Carolina are descended from those who did not travel the Trail of Tears but remain on a portion of their original homeland. Today, the Eastern Band of Cherokee is a sovereign nation. The tribe works to preserve its language and culture through the promotion of heritage destinations. Sited at the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Blue Ridge Parkway, Cherokee is home to the Oconaluftee Indian Village, Unto These Hills, Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual, and Museum of the Cherokee Indian.

In the 1750s, Quakers from Pennsylvania and Virginia settled in the North Carolina Piedmont, eventually organizing Spring Friends Meeting in 1763. The Friends still gather by the spring and wait for the light to descend upon them 250 years later. Spring Meeting nursed the injured and dying in the American Revolution, said goodbye to members migrating to farmlands in the Northwest, stood against slavery in the antebellum years, helped reconstruct the South in the late 1800s, and held their pacifist beliefs throughout the 20th century. A record-setting World Series pitcher, leading educators, missionaries, and major figures in North Carolina Quaker leadership fill its rolls. Persevering through the ebb and flow of revivals and apathy, Spring Meeting has left its mark in history. Today the spring flows, the front door remains unlocked, and members still gather on First Sundays.

Located in the rural northeastern part of North Carolina, Somerset was cumulatively home to more than 800 enslaved blacks and four generations of a planter family.

When the institution of slavery ended in 1865, Somerset Place was the third largest plantation in North Carolina. During the 80 years that Somerset was an active plantation, hundreds of acres were farmed for rice, corn, oats, wheat, peas, beans, and flax. Today, Somerset Place is preserved as a state historic site offering a realistic view of what it was like for the slaves and freemen who once lived and worked on the plantation, once one of the Upper South's most prosperous enterprises.