Silers gather in Macon for 172nd ‘family meeting’
The Silers were at it again.
For 172 years, they have held their Family Meeting in Macon County. Do not call it a reunion — although technically it is. To the Silers, it is a meeting, such as a corporation’s annual gathering of stockholders.
They came together 177 strong, for their latest.
The Siler Family Meeting is the oldest continuously held family meeting/reunion in the United States according to National Geographic, Parade Magazine and other sources, including Google, which calls it the “Oldest Family Reunion” in the United States. It’s the Methuselah of America’s family get-togethers. Nationally, an estimated 8 million Americans attend family reunions yearly. But not with the continuity of the Silers’.
The Siler name is stamped on Siler Bald (Macon County), Silers Bald (Great Smoky Mountains National Park), Joanna Bald (Graham County) and Albert Mountain (Macon County). Family legend has it that the peaks were named after Siler family members by the cartographer who roomed with the Silers when mapping Western North Carolina.
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The Silers’ meetings, akin to pigeons coming to roost, are traditionally held on the first Saturday of August. They elect officers and keep minutes. The meeting is called to order with an antique hand carved family gavel. They sing, vote on motions and resolutions and eat.
And do they eat.
Everyone is urged to bring enough dinner for their family and a few others. They spread dinner out potluck style.
The Siler Family Meeting was established in 1853 and has weathered a Civil War, world wars, polio epidemics and Covid.
The family would meet at a kin folks homeplace, in the reaches of the hard scrabble coves near Franklin. The meeting has drawn as many as 300 Siler descendants from across the world and back to their Macon County home-spun roots for an afternoon of fellowship, food, business, and fun. There is a recitation of the past year’s newcomers, births, marriages, and remembrance of those who have passed on. They spin family facts mixed with myths.
In the late 1700s, Weimer Siler and his Irish wife ventured into North Carolina from Pennsylvania, settling in what is now Siler City after hearing sweet potatoes grew well there. Sweet potatoes are still found in abundance at their meeting.
After later moving to Buncombe County, Weimer’s son, Jacob, came to Macon County in 1817 to claim land. He then invited his brothers, William, Jesse, John and their families to join him.
In 1853, Jacob invited them all to a New Year’s celebration, thus beginning the Family Meeting tradition. The family “partook bountifully of the good things spread before them,” according to letters and minutes. Jacob was named the chair of the meeting, and speeches followed.
The Silers were noted for hiding and protecting Cherokee during the “Trail of Tears” removal. Several Cherokees are buried in the St. John’s Episcopal Church Cemetery in Macon County’s Cartoogechaye Community.
Since its genesis, the family has migrated from meeting in homes to church yards, to camps, to school cafeterias, to event venues able to handle large crowds. The Family Meeting was moved to August during the Civil War.
In the past, when the meeting was held in the countryside, the children snuck away from the adults to a nearby spring or creek to catch tadpoles and salamanders or play cutthroat dodgeball with their cousins.
Lucy Siler, who grew up in Franklin and now lives in Charlotte, is chair of the current meeting. She reflected on the many meetings she has attended. The success and longevity of the meeting is steeped in tradition although many Silers no longer live in Macon County.
“They want to keep their hometown feeling,” Siler said when asked why the Silers and their kin continue getting together.
The meeting recognizes the youngest, the oldest, and whoever traveled the farthest to get back to their Siler roots, even if only three or four hours. Those who marry into the tribe become a Siler, regardless of birth or married name.
This year, the two who traveled the furthest came from Italy and London. The oldest man was 89 and the oldest woman 99. The youngest was 13 months.
There are a few speeches and music accompanied by guitars, including a solo or two. And then, of course, the family business.
In the tradition of well-run meetings, the minutes from last year’s meeting are approved before being posted. The minutes of nearly two centuries of the meeting are archived at the local Fontana Regional Library, the Macon County Public Library. The family has a website, and most all their business is shared over the internet, connecting Silers who have roamed across the world. There remains a group of direct descendants in Franklin.
Dale Neal, a former Asheville Citizen Reporter and a writer of things Appalachian, wrote about attending the 165th meeting in 2016.
“The gathering comes with the usual trappings of Southern summer get-together with the usual array of meats, casseroles, deviled eggs, desserts and sweet tea. Nancy Siler remembers her father used to bring a leg of lamb and a cousin always had her lemon sponge cake,” Neal reported. More than one offering is a family closely held secret recipe.
Family reunions cut across rural, urban, ethnic, racial and religious lines.
“People want to reconnect with their roots. The family are the people who make up the first important group for any individual, it’s who you are,” Neal quoted Larry Basirico, emeritus professor of sociology at Elon University.
Basirico is a noted expert in the study of family reunions. His latest book, “The Family Reunion Survival Guide,” offers practical advice for planning family reunions and avoiding conflicts.
Every year, a branch of Weimer Siler’s sons volunteer to be the hosts. It takes a team of labor to put the meeting together. The hosts volunteer two to three years in advance. The largest meeting was 300 people. The last meeting in a home was in 1972.
The Silers, although scattered, pledge to continue coming together to oversee their family business with dinner, opening the meeting with “Bless be the Tie that Binds.”
The meeting ends with the family and their guests standing, holding hands, and singing “God be with you till we meet again.”
Then the Silers drift away — until next August for their 173rd meeting.
The following is a resolution voted on and adopted unanimously at the Oct. 12, 1865 Siler Family Meeting following the Civil War.
Cartoogechaye, Macon County, North Carolina
October 12th, 1865
Preamble and Resolutions, which were unanimously adopted — (Offered by J. R. Siler)
Whereas in October 1861, while the great conflict between the North and the South, was shaking the whole fabric of our government, our family meeting defined their position by a resolution unanimously passed, by taking sides with the South.
And whereas, it is but justice to ourselves and our posterity that the records of our family meeting should show to posterity, what position we accept under the changed circumstances that now surround us.
And whereas, the four years of bloody war, in which both parties lost thousands of men and millions of treasure, evinced to the world, that notwithstanding the gallant South was forced to submit to the overpowering North, had made the United States the greatest country in the world; -
Therefore Resolved, That, trusting to the faithful historian to do both parties justice, we bow to circumstances as they are; and as the government offers us terms on which we claim their protection, it is our duty to bear true allegiance to the constitution, submit to the requirements of the authorities, keep down all exciting political discussions and endeavor to make good and quiet citizens of the U. States.
Resolved, That, although we have lost so many noble friends — our country is filled with widows and orphans and disabled soldiers — our servants are liberated — our currency worthless and many other things look gloomy and unpromising; yet we will not despair, but go to work, like the faithful ant, to repair the desolations already made and trust in Providence that good will yet result from it, and that we will be a great and happy people.
