Waightstill
Avery Gash was a son of Leander and Margaret Gash, making him a great-great
grandson of Waightstill Avery.  Avery had
been a lawyer and an officer in the North Carolina militia during the American
Revolution. 

Waightstill
Gash was well educated, studied law under Col. W.W. Jones and was admitted to
the bar in 1881.  He was a prominent attorney
and businessman in Brevard for many years.

On
June 16, 1897 Gash married Elise Walker, a widow from Georgetown, South Carolina.  The couple built a home on Gaston Street in
Brevard where they lived with Mrs. Gash’s two daughters.

The W.A. and Eliza Gash House once stood on S. Gaston St. across from the Library amphitheater.

The late
Victorian style home was distinctive with a tall side gable roof and a recessed
Gothic arch surrounding the upper half-story northeast window.  A polygonal tower with pyramidal roof and a
wrap porch with chamfered posts and delicate sawn brackets adorned the front.

Waightstill
and Eliza Gash died within four months of each other in 1906.  Mrs. Gash’s daughters owned the home until
1920 when they sold it to the editor of the Brevard News.  It was later owned by the Wauchope family for
many years.

The
house was located next door to Brevard’s upper grades elementary school which
opened in 1948.  That building is today
the Community Services building which serves numerous county offices, including
Cooperative Extension, the Health Department, Building and Permitting and the
Planning Department.

There
were a handful of houses, similar in style and size built along South Gaston
Street from Jordan to Maple between 1900 and 1940.   The
Waters House, located across from the Baptist church, was also late Victorian
with some Queen Anne style details.  Another
large two-story home, on the corner of Gaston and Jordan, served as the Moore
Funeral Home from the 1938 until 1978.

The
only one of these houses that remains is a bungalow, built in the late 1930s,
on the corner of Gaston and Maple.  It
currently serves as the Transylvania County Family Resource Center.

Photographs
and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina
Room, Transylvania County Library. Visit the NC Room during regular library
hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional
photographs. For more information, comments, or suggestions contact Marcy at [email protected]
or 828-884-1820.