Stories of Aaron Voncannon

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: North Carolina
Surnames/tags: Voncannon Vuncannon

1. Excerpt from "Fincannon, Cannon, Voncannon, Vuncannon, & Related Families" by Al. George Fincannon" pg. 33; Uploaded online by Ancestry.com user: Christopher Cafarell

The Family In The Civil War

"Most of the family served in North Carolina Regiments under Lee's Army in Virginia, sharing the hardships, death, and disease. They shared in his many great victories, as well as the setbacks leading to his final defeat. Others are known to have served in the CSA in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, and Mississippi. At least thee (perhaps more), served in the Union Army.

Aaron Voncannon (PV. 9.1) was a union man. At one time before he actually enlisted, he entertained two union scouts in his cabin. It is told that a certain Anthony Keller went with some friends to the cabin to arrest Aaron and his guests, but Aaron grabbed his rifle and ran to the woods. As Keller approached, Aaron shit him in the eye, mortally wounding him. Later, Aaron and his brother William (PV. 9.5) enlisted in the Federal Army.

Aaron was later captured by the Confederate Home Guard while he was home on leave and imprisoned at Salisbury. He dug under the fence and escaped back to his unit in Tennessee. Aaron returned to Banner Elk with his company then commanded by Captain James Champion of Ohio and helped capture the very Home Guard that had taken him. After the War, Aaron went west and died in Colorado.

It should be noted that the areas of Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina were mostly loyal to the Union in the War. Around Banner Elk, where Aaron lived 13 enlisted in the Union vs. only 1 in the CSA."

2. "THE VUNCANNON-VONCANNONS OF RANDOLPH COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA: A Study of Their Past History." By Samuel H. Vuncannon. Uploaded online by Ancestry.com user: Christopher Cafarell

"In the book, "War Trails of the Blue Ridge", a book covering the Civil War in the Blue Ridge area of western North Carolina, by Shepherd M. Dugger, there is a story about Aaron Voncannon. He was one of thirteen local citizens of the Banner Elk are who had enlisted in the Federal Service. Only one local citizen enlisted in the Confederate Service. The story is about a Confederate Deserter who is killed by a Banner Elk citizen.

The story goes like this. Two miles below Banner Elk at the place now "Memory" lived Anthony Keller, who enlisted in the Confederate service , but deserted and came home in his uniform. At that time, Lee Foster, a man over war age, stayed with us in father's absence. One night when the full moon was bright and we were all shelling corn, Anthony came to our door and called Lee out for a chat; then he came in and represented to mother that he wanted Lee to take father's rifle and go home with him that night to help kill a bear the next morning that had killed his hog that day, but he told a big lie, for Foster returned before midnight with the astounding report that he was killed. Keller had found out that two strange men, who were scouting from east of the Blue Ridge to the Federal lines in Tennessee, were spending the night with Aaron Von Cannon, who lived in a cove of Beech Mountain, and he had determined to arrest Voncannon and his guests. We figure that his intention was to turn his three prisoners over to the Home Guard who, for this service, would intercede with the army to not shoot him as a deserter if he returned.

Voncannon's cabin was entered and strangers seized as he snatched up his rifle from the rack and ran across the level yard and up the hill, in all fifty yards, and took protection behind the high stump of a broken off tree, from which he exchanged loud words with Keller, who commanded his help to go and arrest him, and when they refused he swore he would get him and starting got about half way, but still on the level sward, when Voncannon fired and Keller dropped with a bullet hole above his right eye and a long single barreled shotgun across his body. He laid there and groaned all night but was taken into Voncannon's house the next morning, where he died about ten o'clock. A puddle of his brains was left behind, which the chicken consumed, leaving a large blood spot on the grass. I saw him laid to rest in a little group of graves on the high bank of the creek below the Highway on the lands now belonging to J. F. Hampton of Linville.

When Keller fell his help fled and the prisoners who had been tied were released. The next I heard of Voncannon, he came home from the Federal army and had not more than kissed his wife and children when a mounted squad of the Home Guard approached his house. He ran across a rising field, the squad galloped their horses in pursuit, gained distance by their greater speed, and fired at him as the vent. Near the top of the hill he stopped behind a tree, presented his carbine at his front pursuer and pulled, but the lock hung up and would not fire, else there would have been a dead man on his return when he left. The brave horseman ran up and demanded his surrender. He said: "I will surrender if you will take me as a United States prisoner." He was sent to the prison at Salisbury, where he dug under, came home, went back to his command, came home again, and was with Champion and helped capture the Home Guard that had captured him. After two of his children married and he was getting old, he went with the remainder of his family to the West and died in Colorado.

Aaron was the second child of Jacob and Dolly Ann Voncannon who were the first Voncannons to move form (typo in source) Randolph County to the Banner Elk are of North Carolina.

Aaron died out West in 1911 and was buried in Kit Carson Cemetery, Taos, New Mexico."