Wandering through the NC Piedmont

Lost Granville Grants

2011-12-20T12:43:00.000-08:00

Eve B. Weeks transcribed the Register of Orange some years back. The Register was a notebook used by the Clerk of Court from 1752 to 1768 to note minimal information about deeds that were proved at each session of Court. The list of deeds does not include legal descriptions of the parcels being conveyed, but it does give the names of grantors, grantees and the acreage for each parcel.

This list of deeds is important and useful for early Orange County land record research because all but one of the pre-Revolutionary deed books of Orange County were destroyed in the aftermath of the Revolution. Though one deed book survived and though many deeds were brought back in to be re-recorded, it appears that a whole lot of information was lost. For many parcels in Orange County, the Register of Orange is the only pre-Revolutionary information we have.

I find Weeks’ transcript particularly interesting because it includes references to at least 133 grants from Earl Granville which do not appear in the surviving Granville Land Office Records for Orange County (housed at the NC State Archive). In a few cases, I was able to trace some later title history for some of these lost Granville Grants by looking at the names of the parties to the deeds and the acreage. While I cannot be certain that all of the connections drawn below are in fact correct, I present my notes here. Please take the following with a grain of salt.

References such as w534 refer to line number 534 in Weeks's transcript of the Register of Orange. ODB 3/23 refers to Orange County Deed Book 3, page 24.

Here then are the Lost Granville Grants:

w534 Earl Granville to John Alston, 300 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 Nothing further in Weeks.

w738 Earl Granville to Joseph Anderson, 24 acres, proved: August 14, 1759 w701 James Anderson to Isaac Anderson 240ac? Nothing further in Weeks.

w842 Earl Granville to John Armstrong, 250 acres, proved: February 13, 1761 w2465 John Armstrong to Stephen Norton 250ac Nothing further in Weeks.

w211 Earl Granville to Thomas Armstrong, 300 acres, proved: March 9, 1756 w144 Thos Armstrong to Thos Harrison 300 ac. See also ODB1/47 Nothing further in Weeks.

w232 Earl Granville to James Bailey, 422 acres, proved: June 8, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w334 Earl Granville to Joseph Barbee, 640 acres, proved: December 14, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w467 Earl Granville to William Barbee, 585 acres, proved: September 12, 1758 Nothing further in Weeks.

w814 Earl Granville to William Blakeley, 362 acres, proved: November 11, 1760 w1721 James Blackley to James Dinkins 362 ac. Nothing further in Weeks.

w588 Earl Granville to Margaret Boggan, 216 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 w543 Margaret Boggan to John Brown 216ac Nothing further in Weeks.

w650 Earl Granville to James Bowie, 295 acres, proved: December 12, 1769 or 1759? Nothing further in Weeks.

w1188 Earl Granville to Henry Braswell, 346 acres, proved: November 8, 1763 Nothing further in Weeks.

w535 Earl Granville to Watson Bromfields, 320 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 Nothing further in Weeks.

w740 Earl Granville to Joel Brooks, 258 acres, proved: August 14, 1759 Nothing further in Weeks.

w2090 Earl Granville to John Brooks, 400 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 Nothing further in Weeks.

w597 Earl Granville to Frederick Brown, 233 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 perhaps w1668 Fred'k Brown to Phillip Cooper 116ac Nothing further in Weeks.

w608 Earl Granville to Robert Bumpas, 648 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 Weeks shows some Transactions within the Bumpass family but nothing that is clearly this land.

w2234 Earl Granville to Peter Burmor, 223 acres, proved: November 12, 1765 w2312 Peter Brusnor to Francis Nash 223ac. w2389 Francis Nash to George Lea 223ac.

w1194 Earl Granville to William Cannon, 328 acres, proved: November 8, 1763 Nothing further in Weeks.

w258 Earl Granville to James Carter, 640 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w463 Earl Granville to James Cary, 2 acres, proved: September 12, 1758 w2000 James Cary to Thomas King 2ac Nothing further in Weeks.

w1489 Earl Granville to Edward Chambers, - acres, proved: February 14, 1764 w1667 EdwChambers to Burges Harrelson 528ac ?? Nothing further in Weeks.

w288 Earl Granville to William Chambers, 200 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w255 Earl Granville to William Churton, 900 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w259 Earl Granville to William Churton, 510 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w271 Earl Granville to William Churton, 332 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w1169 Earl Granville to William Churton, 256 acres, proved: November 8, 1763 Nothing further in Weeks.

w260 Earl Granville to William Churton, 300 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 w1640 Wm Churton to Abraham Hill 300ac? Nothing further in Weeks.

w536 Earl Granville to George Clapp, 320 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 Nothing further in Weeks.

w626 Earl Granville to Thomas Clark, 304 acres, proved: December 12, 1769 or 1759? Nothing further in Weeks.

w472 Earl Granville to Francis Collins, 320 acres, proved: September 12, 1758 Nothing further in Weeks.

w807 Earl Granville to Samuel Craig, 237.5 acres, proved: November 11, 1760 Nothing further in Weeks.

w855 Earl Granville to John Curson, 337 acres, proved: February 13, 1761 w2671 John Carson to Daniel Cloud 337ac Nothing further in Weeks.

w2108 Earl Granville to Jacob Cushall, 228 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 w2643 Jacob Cushatt to Isaac Towns 228 ac Nothing further in Weeks.

w486 Earl Granville to Thomas Dobbins, 475 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 Nothing further in Weeks.

w351 Earl Granville to John Dunnagan, 640 acres, proved: March 8, 1757 w300 John Dunnagan to John Gray 640ac? Nothing further in Weeks.

w2519 Earl Granville to Thomas Dunnagan, 200 acres, proved: November 10, 1767 Nothing further in Weeks.

w1583 Earl Granville to John Forrest, 329 acres, proved: May 15,1764 Nothing further in Weeks.

w2048 Earl Granville to Gabriel Freeman, 500 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 Nothing further in Weeks.

w894 Earl Granville to Thomas Gibson, 200 acres, proved: February 13, 1761 Nothing further in Weeks.

w895 Earl Granville to Thomas Gibson, 50 acres, proved: February 13, 1761 See ODB 3/468 and 3/401. Nothing further in Weeks.

w2091 Earl Granville to David Hambree, 400 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 w928 David Embree to David Alley 400ac. Nothing further in Weeks.

w866 Earl Granville to Samuel Harrington, 394 acres, proved: February 13, 1761 Nothing further in Weeks.

w2041 Earl Granville to John Hawkins, 308 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 Nothing further in Weeks.

w314 Earl Granville to James H

ricks, 200 acres, proved: December 14, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w843 Earl Granville to Samuel Henley, 400 acres, proved: February 13, 1761 w2517 Sam'l Henley to Wm Hill 280ac?? Nothing further in Weeks.

w308 Earl Granville to John Holley, 200 acres, proved: December 14, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w728 Earl Granville to Nathaniel Howel, 700 acres, proved: August 14, 1759 Nothing further in Weeks.

w446 Earl Granville to James Hunter, 200 acres, proved: September 12, 1758 Nothing further in Weeks.

w476 Earl Granville to Harmon Husbands, 640 acres, proved: September 12, 1758 Nothing further in Weeks.

w477 Earl Granville to Harmon Husbands, 375 acres, proved: September 12, 1758 Nothing further in Weeks.

w1542 Earl Granville to Harmon Husbands, 696 acres, proved: May 15,1764 Nothing further in Weeks.

w265 Earl Granville to Osborn Jeffers, 605 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w269 Earl Granville to Osborn Jeffers, 126 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 w2653 Ozborne Jeffers to Jones Griffin 126ac. Nothing further in Weeks.

w473 Earl Granville to Francis Johnson, 640 acres, proved: September 12, 1758 Nothing further in Weeks.

w313 Earl Granville to Henry Johnson, 269 acres, proved: December 14, 1756 w339 Henry Johnson to Francis Shoemaker 50ac?? Nothing further in Weeks.

w210 Earl Granville to William Johnson, 540 acres, proved: December 9, 1755 w291 Wm Johnson to James Elliot 540ac. w292 Jas. Elliot to William Reed 540ac.

w480 Earl Granville to Francis Jones, 500 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 Nothing further in Weeks.

w469 Earl Granville to Robert Jones, 384 acres, proved: September 12, 1758 Nothing further in Weeks.

w470 Earl Granville to Robert Jones, 500 acres, proved: September 12, 1758 Probably a repeat of w480. Nothing further in Weeks.

w516 Earl Granville to Robert Jones, 384 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 Probably a repeat of w470 Nothing further in Weeks.

w95 Earl Granville to Edward Jones Saddler, 395 acres, proved: January 14, 1755 Nothing further in Weeks.

w215 Earl Granville to John Jones Saddler, 250 acres, proved: March 9, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w471 Earl Granville to Richard Kenady, 382 acres, proved: September 12, 1758 w705 Wm Kennedy to Francis Day 382ac. w704 Francis Day to William Castleberry 382ac.

w347 Earl Granville to Edward Kirksey, 300 acres, proved: March 8, 1757 Nothing further in Weeks.

w459 Earl Granville to Thomas Langley, 360 acres, proved: September 12, 1758 w187 Thos. Langley to Edward Williams 150ac?? Nothing further in Weeks.

w332 Earl Granville to John Lawrence, 640 acres, proved: December 14, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w335 Earl Granville to John Lawrence, 640 acres, proved: December 14, 1756 Repeat of w332? Nothing further in Weeks.

w2063 Earl Granville to Luke Lea, 700 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 w1405 Luke Lea to Thomas Rue 174ac? w1611 Luke Lea to John Graves 174 ac? Nothing further in Weeks.

w952 Earl Granville to Enoch Lewis, 550 acres, proved: November 10, 1761 Nothing further in Weeks.

w51 Earl Granville to Enoch Lewis, 295 acres, proved: December 11, 1753 w714 Enoch Lewis to Richard Cheek 295ac. Nothing further in Weeks.

w739 Earl Granville to John Lewis, 600 acres, proved: August 14, 1759 Nothing further in Weeks.

w249 Earl Granville to Thomas Lloyd, 630 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w622 Earl Granville to Thomas Lloyd, 195 acres, proved: December 12, 1769 or 1759? Nothing further in Weeks.

w759 Earl Granville to Henry Maddock, 300 acres, proved: November 11, 1760 Nothing further in Weeks.

w2043 Earl Granville to Zachariah Martin, 180 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 Nothing further in Weeks.

w148 Earl Granville to James May, 240 acres, proved: September 9, 1755 Nothing further in Weeks.

w2135 Earl Granville to Henry Eustace McCulloch, 1000 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 Nothing further in Weeks.

w2136 Earl Granville to Henry Eustace McCulloch, 1120 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 Nothing further in Weeks.

w1189 Earl Granville to James McElroy, 550 acres, proved: November 8, 1763 w1497 Jas McElroy to Absolam McDaniel 350ac?? w1588 Jas McElroy to William Trogdon no ac. given?? Some subsequent deeds from Abs. McDaniel listed in Weeks, but no clear connection to this grant.

w857 Earl Granville to William McFurs?, 231 acres, proved: February 13, 1761 Nothing further in Weeks.

w1183 Earl Granville to James McWhithon, 693 acres, proved: November 8, 1763 Nothing further in Weeks.

w209 Earl Granville to Alexander Mebane, 320 acres, proved: December 9, 1755 Nothing further in Weeks.

w779 Earl Granville to Alexander Mebane, 612 acres, proved: November 11, 1760 w773 Alex'r Mebane to Thomas Ogle 612 ac. w1481 Thomas Ogle to Jacob Summers 612ac.

w275 Earl Granville to Benjamin Merritt, 75 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 w220 Benjamin Merritt to Ann Smith 75ac. w1942 Ann Smith to Martha Smith 75ac.

w762 Earl Granville to James Merritt, 450 acres, proved: November 11, 1760 Nothing further in Weeks.

w537 Earl Granville to John Mitchell, 500 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 Nothing further in Weeks.

w207 Earl Granville to Edmund Moore, 145 acres, proved: December 9, 1755 w503 Edw. Moor to William Jay 145ac. Nothing further in Weeks.

w251 Earl Granville to William Moore, 400 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 See ODB 3/373. Nothing further in Weeks.

w243 Earl Granville to Mark Morgan, acres, proved: September 13, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w828 Earl Granville to John Murdock, 355 acres, proved: February 13, 1761 w1960 John Murdock to John Emree 355ac. Nothing further in Weeks.

w492 Earl Granville to John Overton, 200 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 w713 John Overton to Robert Wilkins 170ac? See also ODB 3/526. Nothing further in Weeks.

w362 Earl Granville to Richard Parker, 456 acres, proved: March 8, 1757 w2142 Rd. Parker to Elijah Cain 140ac?? Nothing further in Weeks.

w465 Earl Granville to John Patterson, 530 acres, proved: September 12, 1758 w451 John Patterson to Charles Johnson 530ac. Nothing further in Weeks.

w204 Earl Granville to Robert Patterson, 640 acres, proved: December 9, 1755 Nothing further in Weeks.

w248 Earl Granville to David Pinkerton, 250 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w1549 Earl Granville to Samuel Portis, 700 acres, proved: May 15,1764 Nothing further in Weeks.

w1547 Earl Granville to Phillip Pryor, 238 acres, proved: May 15,1764 Nothing further in Weeks.

w2114 Earl Granville to John Rainey, 400 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 Nothing further in Weeks.

w353 Earl Granville to Thomas Ransome, 634 acres, proved: March 8, 1757 Nothing further in Weeks.

w161 Earl Granville to William Reed, 112 acres, proved: September 9, 1755 w747 Wm Reed to Barnaby Cabe 112ac. See ODB 1/88. Nothing further in Weeks.

w823 Earl Granville to William Reeves, 660 acres, proved: February 13, 1761 Nothing further in Weeks.

w2089 Earl Granville to AndrewRollinger, 275 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 Nothing further in Weeks.

w621 Earl Granville to Stephen Scarlet, 1 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 Nothing further in Weeks.

w2087 Earl Granville to John Sharp, 365 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 w906 John Sharp to Nathaniel Walton 200ac? Nothing further in Weeks.

w359 Earl Granville to Henry Simmons, 500 acres, proved: March 8, 1757 Nothing further in Weeks.

w2023 Earl Granville to Richard Simpson, 100 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 w434 Rd. Simpson to Daniel Adams 100ac?? Note that the deed to Adams was proved much earlier than the Granville grant however. Nothing further in Weeks.

w732 Earl Granville to Robert Stewart, 186 acres, proved: August 14, 1759 w1380 Robert Stuart to Francis Dorset 186ac. Nothing further in Weeks.

w1243 Earl Granville to Michael Synnot, 250 acres, proved: November 8, 1763 w1427 Michael Synnot to William Ray 250ac? Nothing further in Weeks.

w1947 Earl Granville to George Tabor, 269 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 Nothing further in Weeks.

w205 Earl Granville to Hosea Tapley, 400 acres, proved: December 9, 1755 See ODB 1/175. Nothing further in Weeks.

w245 Earl Granville to James Taylor, 356 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w246 Earl Granville to James Taylor, - acres, proved: September 13, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w400 Earl Granville to James Taylor, 276 acres, proved: December 13, 1757 Nothing further in Weeks.

w134 Earl Granville to James Taylor, 640 acres, proved: September 9, 1755 w546 James Taylor to William Few640ac? Nothing further in Weeks.

w556 Earl Granville to James Taylor, 640 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 w546 James Taylor to William Few640ac? Nothing further in Weeks.

w637 Earl Granville to James Taylor, 381 acres, proved: December 12, 1769 or 1759? w23 James Taylor to Thomas Wiley 381ac. w96 Thomas Wiley to William Reed 381ac.

w858 Earl Granville to William Ursery, 252 acres, proved: February 13, 1761 Nothing further in Weeks.

w206 Earl Granville to Aaron Van Hook, 400 acres, proved: December 9, 1755 Several VanHook to VanHook transactions, though nothing that is clearly this parcel. Nothing further in Weeks.

w2033 Earl Granville to James Vestal, 183 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 w2513 James Vestal to Enoch Pugh 183ac. Nothing further in Weeks.

w273 Earl Granville to John Wade, 430 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w366 Earl Granville to John Wade, 500 acres, proved: March 8, 1757 Nothing further in Weeks.

w367 Earl Granville to John Wade, 384 acres, proved: March 8, 1757 Nothing further in Weeks.

w2047 Earl Granville to John Wade, 620 acres, proved: August 13, 1765 w46 John Wade to James Wilkinson 620ac. Note that the Granville grant was proved much later than the deed to Wilkinson however. Nothing further in Weeks.

w230 Earl Granville to James Watson, 577 acres, proved: March 9, 1756 w177 Jas Watson to William Moreat (or Mowat) 577ac. See ODB 1/116. w/231 Wm Moreat to James. Watson 577ac. Possibly a deed of trust and a subsequent cancellation of deed of trust? Nothing further in Weeks.

w1590 Earl Granville to Robert Wells, 229 acres, proved: May 15,1764 Nothing further in Weeks.

w2257 Earl Granville to Robert West, 576 acres, proved: May 13, 1766 Nothing further in Weeks.

w90 Earl Granville to John White, 227 acres, proved: January 14, 1755 Nothing further in Weeks.

w262 Earl Granville to John White, 385 acres, proved: September 13, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w1544 Earl Granville to Robert Wiley, 700 acres, proved: May 15,1764 Nothing further in Weeks.

w1219 Earl Granville to William Wiley, 484 acres, proved: November 8, 1763 w2306 Wm Wiley to John Wiley 242ac? Also w2307 Wm Wiley to John Wiley 242ac? Two different transactions conveying the entire 484ac?? Nothing further in Weeks.

w317 Earl Granville to Robert Willson, 265 acres, proved: December 14, 1756 Nothing further in Weeks.

w690 Earl Granville to William Wilson, 416 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 Nothing further in Weeks.

w533 Earl Granville to James Woods, 200 acres, proved: March 13, 1759 Nothing further in Weeks.

November Fifth

2011-11-05T07:51:00.000-07:00

In 1991, as a 20 year-old rising Senior at the University of North Carolina, I did the most outlandish and absurd thing I have ever done in my life. Once and for all, here is the story:

Though my father was a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Washington, he was in reality what was known in former centuries as a Naturalist. He was fascinated by the natural world and its inner workings. I grew up helping him hunt in the woods for mushrooms to distill in his laboratory. Wherever we travelled, my father always made a point of knowing all the trees and wildflowers. We camped in the rain on the Olympic Peninsula, in the snow in the Canadian Rockies and in the heat and sun in the California deserts. If you keep up with me on FaceBook, then you already know that my father taught me to be likewise fascinated by the natural world.

When I was ten, my parents sent me to a summer camp that focused on science education. Nature Camp is tucked into a valley in the Blue Ridge in Virginia, inside the George Washington National Forest. Nature Camp taught me a tremendous amount about science and nature, but there was much more I came to understand over the 8 summers that I was a camper there.

At camp I learned that the natural world is under constant assault from the works of humankind. Our cars and factories pollute our atmosphere; our streets and houses pollute our waterways. Our unrelenting demand for metal, paper and most of all petroleum is drives us to tap into more and more remote areas, destroying the few remaining wild areas of our planet. But I also learned at camp that it doesn’t have to be this way. We can reduce our impact through conservation; we can use resources more efficiently; we can live our lives in ways that protect the natural world.

The summer before I went to college I joined the staff of Nature Camp and I worked there every summer in college. That Fall I came to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Freshman. Outside the classroom, I got involved on campus by working at the Daily Tar Heel – doing paste-up for the editorial page every afternoon, selecting which letters-to -the-editor to print etc. But by my Sophomore year, I was sick of being on the outside of the discussion looking in. So I left the Daily Tar Heel staff and joined a relatively new student activist organization, the Student Environmental Action Coalition.

For the next 3 years, the University considered my major to be Geography, but in reality I majored in Student Activism. I was one of the central people in SEAC; for two years I co-chaired the Tar Heel Recycling Program (TARP). TARP was the first recycling program on campus and it was entirely student lead, funded and run. John Heiderscheidt, Bonnie Moellenbrock and I worked hard to both expand our recycling program and agitate for the Chancellor to increase and institutionalize waste reduction and recycling.

Ruby Sinreich and I worked on several environmental issues involving Chapel Hill Town government, advocating against raising the bus fare and in favor of building sidewalks and bikelanes. We fought the UNC administration (successfully) on their proposed Southern Loop and on the Pittsboro Street Extension, among other issues. In the Spring of 1991, Student Body President Matt Heyd appointed me as the Student Government Liaison to the Town of Chapel Hill and I became still more involved in Chapel Hill town government.

The summer of 1991 was my fourth summer on staff at Nature Camp. Working at Camp we got one day off each week. In the second week of Second Session, fellow Tar Heel Caroline Philson and I drove down to Chapel Hill for our co-inciding days off. On the way back, we stopped at the Orange County Board of Elections office in Hillsborough, where as a fresh-faced 20-year old, I filed to run for the Chapel Hill Town Council. By the time we got back to Nature Camp that night, I was being summoned to the phone in the back of the kitchen to be interviewed by reporters.

At the end of Closing Week at Camp, I did not take off on an August road trip west across the continent as I had in past summers. Instead I headed straight for Chapel Hill. Academically, the fall semester was more or less a blur for me; I spent all my time knocking on doors and organizing canvassers, not studying for exams. Friends like Ruby Sinreich, Caitlin Reed, Caroline Philson, Chris Marthinson, Mark Kleinschmidt, Donna Bell, Preston Dunlop, Richard Hess, and many others helped canvas neighborhoods, make yard signs, hand out flyers and everything else! We must have knocked on half the doors in Chapel Hill that fall.

Not long into the campaign season, one of the incumbents in the race, Joe Herzenberg, began giving me advice about people I needed to talk to and neighborhoods I needed to visit. It was an at-large pick-four race, so Joe and I weren’t necessarily running against each other; four of the thirteen candidates would win that fall. Joe and the other incumbent Roosevelt Wilkerson were a shoe-in for re-election, so the race was really all about which 2 of the 11 challengers would pick up the third and fourth place seats.

You don’t need to know much about the other candidates in order to guess that my candidacy was, from the start, a bit implausible. I had only lived in Chapel Hill for three years. I was just 20 years old, and I wasn’t even a property-tax-payer at the time. Meanwhile Joe Capowski, a middle-aged neighborhood activist and instructor at UNC was looking a whole lot more like the demographic profile of the Chapel Hill Town Council. But the environmental themes and issues addressed by my campaign resonated with a lot of people in Chapel Hill, and soon many people knew about ‘that student environmentalist candidate’ – even if they might not yet have been able to remember my name.

Local Sierra Club activist Greg Gangi strategized that the local Sierra Club chapter could maximize the impact of its endorsement by being the first in the season to issue endorsements and I was honored to receive their support. The progenitor organization of the Hank Anderson Breakfast Club soon followed suit and so did the Orange County Greens. All of these endorsements felt great and gave my campaign a lot of momentum. When the Independent endorsed my campaign, I was elated.

Cal Horton later told me that a few days before the election he saw Roosevelt Wilkerson leaving Town Hall on a Friday night and asked for a prediction about whether there would be any surprises on election day. Roosevelt Wilkerson looked at him stone-faced and said: “Mark Chilton is going to win.”

Election day was long, I stood outside the polls handing out flyers and talking to voters from 6:30 AM to 7:30 PM. When the polls closed, we all gathered at Estelle Mabry’s house. Early returns showed me trailing in 7th place but with only a modest margin separating me from a 4th place win. I was scheduled to go on WCHL and Village Cable simultaneously around 9 pm for an in-studio interview with the one and only Roland Giduz. So I drove over to McClamroch Circle to be interviewed listening to updates on 1360 AM.

Back in 1991, I ran on a platform of expanding public transportation, building bike lanes and sidewalks, reducing solid waste and increasing recycling opportunities. Many, many people deserve credit for where our community is today on these issues, but I played my part. Orange County was the first and only county to achieve the state mandated waste reduction goals and continues to lead all other counties in recycling and waste reduction. We have an expanded public transportation system with no bus fares at all on Chapel Hill Transit. Chapel Hill and Carrboro have built miles of new bike lanes, greenways and sidewalks and many other improvements are funded and/or in the works.

I am proud of all the environmental initiatives that I have helped further in both Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Back in the early 1990’s some elected officials would talk about Light Rail as being a distant dream for the Research Triangle, but next year we hope to vote as a County on whether to tax ourselves ¼ of a percent to actually build a Light Rail system.

Back then, when OWASA would talk about its 30 year water supply plan, fellow Councilmembers would smirk and whisper, “2022? I’ll be dead by then!” I whispered back: “And I’ll be your age.” In 1991, I was always the youngest person at any governmental meeting. Now, I am occasionally still the youngest person in a meeting, but it is getting rare. In the intervening time, we’ve upped OWASA’s water supply planning horizon to 50 years – through 2061! And I am the one who will probably be dead by then.

Over at the Village Cable studio on election night the cameraman said we were to go on the air in 30 seconds and I was sweaty and uncomfortable. The race was not over yet, but things were looking grim and somehow I was going to have to make my way through this interview while still unsure whether I had won or lost. “15 seconds.” Then suddenly the news desk called out new vote totals with all precincts reporting. Roosevelt was right. Three thousand and thirteen people went to the polls that Tuesday and marked their ballots for Mark H. Chilton, putting me in 4th place and picking up the fourth seat up for grabs that fall! Instantly I was a Cheshire Cat as we went live on Village Cable and Roland congratulated me on my victory.

After the interview, I drove back to Estelle Mabry’s house on Pritchard Avenue to find the house and yard exploding with disbelieving supporters and I started to realize how few of my supporters actually believed that I was going to win! As the party subsided, a core group made its way over to Joe Herzenberg’s victory party around the corner at Columbia Street Bakery.

After celebrating with Joe and his supporters, I finally got home probably near midnight. As Council-Member Elect of the Town of Chapel Hill, I slept that night as soundly as I had slept in months.

I’ve already gone on longer about all this than I should have, but my life changed forever that Election Day. This morning I have been thinking about that day a lot. You see, that was November 5th, 1991 - twenty years ago today.

The Alston Quarter or Porter Tract

2011-09-01T07:03:00.001-07:00

Some readers of this blog recently bought a copy of the map Old Land Claims of the Saxapahaw Quadrangle. They wrote to say that they live near Saxapahaw and enjoy going for walks in the area including near the Alston Quarter. I've written a little about the Alston Quarter before, but having learned a bit more in the last few years, I figured now would be a good time to post some information here about the origins of the Alston Quarter.

The Alston Quarter or Austin Quarter is a large area just east of Saxapahaw in Alamance County along Austin Quarter Road, and occupying the area north and west of the confluence of the Haw River and Little Cane Creek - part of the Saxapahaw Old Fields. It was a part of a larger tract of 3,025 acres which was one of the first European land grants anywhere within 75+ miles of here.

The 3,025 acre tract was granted to John Porter by patent bearing the date 12 Nov 1728 , although it may well have been granted a little later, but back dated. It seems that after the Lords Proprietors of Carolina sold 7/8ths of Carolina to the King of England in 1729, but before the King's new Governor arrived in early 1731, the out-going colonial administrators issued themselves and their cronies huge land grants all over North Carolina. These grants were issued in 1729 and 1730, but back-dated to look as though they had happened before the King bought the colony back, so that the King's new agents would never collect the payments for those grants - presumably the colonial officials were pocketing the money - if there was even any payment made for these grants at all. It's not clear whether the Porter Tract (i.e. the Alston Quarter) was among those that were obtained fraudulently or not, but it may well have been.

John Porter apparently sold this land to Roger Moore in the 1730's or 40's. Roger Moore’s 1751 will (NHDB C, pg 288) left to his son George Moore “all that Tract of Land I bought of Mr. John Porter, Decd., on the No. West [Cape Fear] River at or Near the Saxapahaw Old fields, being Three Thousand & Twenty five Acres.”

The property passed to George Moore’s sons who leased all 3,025 acres to one Thomas Davis shortly after the Revolution. Governor Samuel Ashe purchased the shares of several of George Moore’s sons, assembling for himself over 1,350 contiguous acres along Cane Creek and the Haw River, about 45% of the original Porter Tract.

One of Gov. Ashe’s deeds gives us a glimpse of how the Ashes were using the Porter Tract in the early 19th century, mentioning that the property was conveyed “with all the Rents Except the wheat and the Rent from John Smart and the Oats sewed by the said Ashe and others.”

Thomas S. and Richard D. Ashe subsequently sold this 1,350 acres to Samuel S. Jackson and Jackson sold the property to Joseph John Alston in the early 19th Century. The Alston name is the one that has stuck to this land, the area still being known as the Alston Quarter – or Austin Quarter - today.

In 1779 John Elliott, Mary Taylor and others obtained state land grants, which were in direct conflict with the 1728 Porter grant. For example, Elliott’s state grant NC387 would have included about 1/3 of the 1,000+ acres that Richard D. Ashe sold to Samuel Jackson. The state grantees were no doubt the families that the Ashe family considered their tenants, but at that time there were many Hawfields residents who were contesting the validity of the These claims must have been invalidated at some point, though I have found no record of any actual litigation over the Porter Tract.

The Cameron Trust of Wilmington, NC still owns about 1,000 acres at the confluence of the Haw River and Cane Creek – over 2/3 of the old Alston Quarter - almost 1/3 of the original Porter Tract, perhaps the single largest privately held lot in Alamance County today. But the chain of title to the Alston Quarter (indeed to all parts of the Porter Tract) involves no deed from Elliott, Taylor or any other state land grantees. Thus it appears that all modern land titles within the Porter Tract draw their authority from Porter’s Proprietary grant of 1728.

Kent Court and Eden Court

2011-08-10T13:45:00.000-07:00

Because construction is expected to start this Fall at the site of the former Perfomance Bikes in downtown Carrboro, my friend archeologist Steve Rankin suggested that Ernie Dollar, David Southern and I get together to look one last look at the area before the bulldozers come. As it turns out the few buildings that will be destroyed are cheap cinderblock structures from the 40's or 50's and will probably not be missed by many.

But we noted too that Boyd Street in Carrbro may have been part of an earlier network of streets that was at some point cut off when the end of Franklin Street was connected over to Main Street. Look for example at this detail from the 1915 Sanborn Insurance Map:

From August 10, 2011

Notice that the corner in the upper right of this detail is that of W. Franklin Street and Merritt Mill Road. A small network of streets (Kent Ct and Eden Ct) can be seen just west of this intersection and seemingly connected to Merritt Mill Road just north of Franklin Street - as if through the parking lot of Saint Paul's AME Church. While the 1915 map shows these streets as "arbitrary" (meaning locations not actually surveyed), we can perhaps assume that these locations are at least approximately correct.

It's tempting to think that Kent Court was an earlier manifestation of Carr Court (Tin Top), but this appears to have been further north of Carr Court - perhaps where Boyd Street is today. Boyd Street is highlighted in red below with dashed lines suggesting possible former connections:

From August 10, 2011

We didn't draw any definite conclusions about Boyd Street and Kent Court, but certainly Boyd Street was once part of a vision for a different street grid than the one that eventually prevailed.

The Old Pumphouse

While on our downtown Carrboro historical tour, we visisted the old hexagonal pump house off of Maple Street:

From August 10, 2011

An old plat of the former mill there shows a pumphouse in this location for pumping fire suppression water up to the mill in case of emergency. The pump symbol is circled in red:

From August 10, 2011

This very similar hexagonal building behind DSI Comedy Theatre must have been built by the same person and used for the same purpose:

From August 10, 2011

The same pump symbol is used on this portion of that plat:

From August 10, 2011

The plat is framed and hanging in the hall way of the second floor of the old part of Carr Mill Mall.

XPost: Civil War Experiences of Nancy Brewer

2011-05-18T05:35:00.000-07:00

[The following is a cross-post from the Southern Unionist Chronicles blog created by Victoria Bynum.

http://southernunionistschronicles.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/the-civil-war-experiences-of-nancy-brewer-a-free-woman-of-color/#comments

[It drew my attention because the incidentally mentioned husband Green Brewer is a figure in Chapel Hill history about whom little has ever been written or was even known. Green Brewer was appointed to the Chapel Hill Board of Commissioners (i.e what is now the Town Council) in 1869 by Gov. William W. Holden and is listed in census records as being African-American. Along with Thomas Kirby and Wilson Caldwell, he was one of three 19th century African-Americans who served on what-is-now the Town Council. I have written previously about Thomas Kirby:

http://piedmontwanderings.blogspot.com/2009/03/thomas-kirby-freedoms-lawmaker.html

[And I'll have to get started on Wilson Caldwell soon! Meanwhile, here is Victoria Bynum with the brave struggle of a free woman of color through the Civil War - and incidentally some detail on the end of Green Brewer's life . . . ]

The Civil War Experiences of Nancy Brewer, A Free Woman of Color

By Victoria Bynum

Renegade South

One of the women who will make a brief appearance in my book-in-progress, Southern Communities at War, is Nancy Brewer of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In 1871, fifty-year-old Nancy applied to the Southern Claims Commission for compensation for wartime damages caused by the Union Army (#11545). Specifically, she testified that soldiers under the command of Gen’l S. D. Hopkins had in April 1865 seized a horse worth $100, forty lbs of bacon worth $10, and 1000 feet of lumber worth $20, from her farm.

Nancy Brewer’s claim was one of many submitted under the act passed by Congress in March 1871 allowing for “Claims of Loyal Citizens for Supplies furnished during the Rebellion.” Hers caught my eye because she was both black and a woman. I opened her folder not so much to learn what she believed the government owed her, but to glean whatever insights I could into what Nancy Brewer’s life was like in slaveholding and Civil War Chapel Hill.

Given that Nancy was claiming loss of property, I was not surprised to learn that she had been a free woman even before the Civil War. Although she could not sign her own name, Nancy had also been a prosperous free woman. Two years before the war, she explained, she had bought a lot and a house in Chapel Hill for $400. She had also purchased her future husband, Green Brewer, out of slavery in order that they might live as a married couple.

These are the sorts of personal family histories that we might never know about without the existence of records that address totally unrelated issues that happen to involve African Americans. Nancy’s deposition further reveals the complexities of life for people who opposed the Confederacy, yet suffered depredations committed by Yankee soldiers. According to Nancy, her late husband, Green, had belonged to the Union League, and they had always sympathized with the Union cause because it was “God’s will for the colored race to be free.” But during the last months of the war, as Union Army encampments surrounded Chapel Hill, the Brewers’ pro-Union views did not protect their property. Soldiers had taken the Brewers’ horse despite her protest that without it they could not make a crop.

Testifying on Nancy’s behalf was another African-American woman, Nelly Stroud, a washer woman who now lived with her. Nelly admitted that the Brewers had not shared their political views with her while the war was raging. “It would not do for colored people to talk here,” she explained, “a still tongue made a wise head.” But Nelly had little good to say about Union soldiers either. During the war, she washed and cooked for them, but feared them at the same time. They threatened to “show me the devil” if General Johnson did not surrender, Nelly told Commission agents. When asked why they would make such a threat, she responded that “I just believe the Devil made them do it.”

Thomas M. Kirkland, a white merchant, also testified on behalf of Nancy Brewer. Kirkland claimed to have known Nancy’s husband, Green, for about ten years, though he quickly explained that he had not been on “intimate” terms with him during the war because Green was a black man. In typical paternalistic fashion, he characterized him as “sober & upright,” and generalized that almost all blacks were loyal to the U.S. Government during the Civil War.

Nancy Brewer’s claim was approved by the Commission. This final comment from a Claims Commission officer appears on her file, giving us further valuable information about the experiences of this African American couple of the Civil War Era South:

The claimant is a colored woman & a widow—her husband having died since the war. He was formerly a slave, but she had bought him & he belonged to her!—or rather was freed during the war—. He was a rather superior colored man. After the war, Governor [William] Holden appointed him a magistrate—Loyalty proven.

Farewell Forever Old Road to Durham?

2011-05-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered why there is no rail line between Chapel Hill and Durham? Do you want to know how we can ever create one? Do you want to know how you can help? Let me tell you . . .

University Station

When the North Carolina Railroad was built across the Piedmont from Goldsboro to Salisbury in the 1850’s, there were several competing proposals about the route of the rail line. A route through Chapel Hill was considered for the NCRR, but the Hillsborough alternative was ultimately built. The nearest point to UNC on this line was not in any existing community, so a stop was established five miles east of Hillsborough at what became known as University Station. Students were dropped off there and would either walk or pay for a wagon to take them 10 miles to UNC. For about 25 years, this route was UNC’s connection to the railroad and the rest of the state. But this was never viewed as a satisfactory arrangement.

The former station house at University Station, east of Hillsborough, NC

In February of 1861, the legislature created a corporate charter for the University Railroad Company to establish a rail connection from Chapel Hill to some point on the North Carolina Railroad. The charter called for the commencement of construction by 1863 and completion by 1867. Of course, the Civil War derailed these plans, but even at this early date, engineers considered whether it was better to connect to the NCRR by following what we now call Old Chapel Hill-Durham Road or by building a line to University Station. “That route was surveyed by Prof. C[harles] Phillips fifteen years ago when the prospect of a railroad or a plank was agitated for the University. It is but eight miles, four miles shorter than any road leading from Durham could be made, and is said to run mostly on a ridge and will require but little grading.” (NC Presbyterian, 2/12/1873).

By the beginning of 1878, the Trustees of the University had come to feel that a rail connection to Chapel Hill was essential, resolving that they “look with deep interest to the early completion of the railway communication between Chapel Hill and the steam lines of travel already in existence, and would urge upon the Legislature of the State and upon the people of the country the duty and value of a speedy establishment of such line.” (UNC Trustees Minutes, 1/16/1878).

A Rail Line to Durham?

Immediately Durham interests sought to secure a connection from Chapel Hill to Durham. The Durham Tobacco Plant editorialized in 1879: “Durham can and will do more for such a road than any other point . . . this would be on a direct line to Oxford and connected with the Clarksville branch and thereby make it a very important road. The charter should be granted running from Durham.” The Chapel Hill Weekly Ledger (3/8/1879) agreed: “Durham will help us build the road if we build it to that place – she has promised and is able to aid in its construction. There are many reasons why the road should be built to Durham. It will be beneficial to both towns to a greater extent than if it were built to any other point.” These pleas did not fall upon deaf ears, but in 1879 when the legislature authorized the creation of the State University Railroad Company (SURR), the question of where to connect was left in the company's hands.

Because the line to Durham was longer and more expensive, it was clear that a line to Durham could only be justified by investment from Durham. The Chapel Hill Ledger (11/8/1879) reported that a meeting of the incorporators resolved to take subscriptions for $10,000 to run the line through Durham. Battle relates in his History: “I spent a day in the endeavor to persuade [Durham residents] to do this, but met with no response . . . One merchant replied, ‘Your road is against the interests of Durham. Trade would stop at Chapel Hill.’”

In early 1880 the Chapel Hill Ledger (1/10/1880) reported: “An interesting debate was participated in . . . as to what point the road should be run . . . Messrs. Battle and Hoke favoring University Station . . . They would be glad to see the road go to Durham if the requisite amount could be raised. Messrs. [Julian[ Carr and [Paul] Cameron warmly advocated Durham as the point to which the road should be run. Mr. Carr pledged himself to raise $4,000 in Durham . . . K P Battle offered a resolution to locate the road from Chapel Hill to University Station.” The resolution passed.

The State University Rail Road

So ultimately the rail line was built to University Station, rather than Durham. Ironically, Jule Carr wrote a letter to the Ledger (1/24/1880) casting doubt on the success of a route that did not connect at Durham: “I trust that your railroad to University Station may prove of as much benefit to the good people of Chapel Hill as some of your very clever citizens seem to think it will, but, to be honest with you, I have very little hope of it myself.” As it turned out, the railroad to University Station was not only a benefit to “the good people of Chapel Hill,” but it was so successful that it spawned a new town that would, thirty-three years later, be named for Mr. Carr.

"The Whooper" ran from University Station to Carrboro for over 40 years.

Whether the community leaders of old made the right decisions could be debated. On the one hand, the route actually got built and served (and still serves) important functions for southern Orange County. That rail line spawned the Town of Carrboro, which (pardon my bias) I view as a good thing. On the other hand, had they worked harder to connect UNC to Durham, our region and its challenges would look quite different today.

Will Rail Ever Come?

Now at last we may be coming to the time when the problem of a rail connection to Durham could actually be solved. Two years ago the General Assembly authorized Triangle area Counties to implement an additional ½ percent sales tax to support public transportation. While other funding sources were considered by the Legislature, only a sales tax was ultimately permitted, and only on the condition that it be approved by a county-wide referendum in each county.

After years of careful planning, Triangle Transit and Orange and Durham governments are finally coming together around a plan to build a light rail system to connect from Durham to UNC. The plan is essentially this:

Orange and Durham County voters would go to the polls in November of 2011 or 2012 to consider a referendum on whether to increase the sales tax in each county by ½ of a percent to finance a major expansion of public transportation. If approved, the new public transportation plan would include:

1. Major bus service upgrades along US 15-501 and NC 54,

2. A Bus Rapid Transit system on Martin Luther King Boulevard,

3. A new Carrboro-Chapel Hill- Durham regional express bus service.

4. Expanded service on the 420 Bus Route between Hillsborough and Chapel Hill.

5. Full Chapel Hill Transit service on Saturdays (expanding the limited existing Saturday schedule).

6. Limited Chapel Hill Transit service on Sundays (currently there is no service),

7. A new Efland-Hillsborough-Durham regional express bus service along US-70,

8. A major evening service expansion on Chapel Hill Transit,

9. Permanent funding for bus service within the Town of Hillsborough (currently grant funded, but with funds running out in 2014 unless this referendum is passed),

10. Commuter rail service from Durham to RTP starting in 2018. This service would eventually extend far into Wake County as well, but only after Wake implements the same sales tax. This service could be further expanded to serve Hillsborough and points both further east and west, but that is not a part of the immediate plan, and

11. Light Rail service from UNC to Duke, Downtown Durham and NCCU in 2025. This service could be expanded to points further west at some point in the future if further funding were to be identified.

How to Get Involved

The next six weeks will be critical to making this plan come to fruition. The Orange County Board of County Commissioners will need to pass a resolution placing this issue on the ballot in order for us to get to vote on it in November.

We need to vote on this referendum THIS YEAR. All environmental indicators show that we should have implemented a system like this a decade or more ago. Orange County’s Green House Gas (GHG) Inventory shows that over half of all GHG emissions in our community come from automobile traffic and a major expansion of public transportation is the single greatest opportunity to reduce those emissions. The price of gas continues to spiral out of control and there is no end in sight. The sooner we move to a more sustainable future centered around public transportation, the better off both our region and our planet will be.

As well, 2011 will be a great time to vote on this matter. The political pendulum is singing back in the direction of environmental protection and sustainability and we should ride that wave to victory this November. If you agree with me that this plan needs to be the future of Orange County, then please let your County Commissioners know: Now is the time and this is the plan!

You can email the entire County Commission by emailing the Clerk of the County Commission at:

dbaker@co.orange.nc.us

Postscript

Battle tells us in his History: “When the grading was finished the ladies of the village gave the employees and convict [laborers] an excellent dinner.” There was also a grand ceremony to mark the occasion. Cornelia Phillips Spencer’s daughter Julia drove the last spike in the rail line. As Battle says“Speeches were made by President Battle, Mr. Jones Watson, and others.” And Julia Spencer wrote a song for the occasion, which I take the liberty of excerpting here:

"Farewell, old wagon/Jolting hack and phaeton/Farewell forever/We’re going to take the train . . .

"Farewell forever/Old road to Durham/Farewell forever/We’ll travel now by train . . .

"And all along the coming years/That time for us may fill/We’ll bless the men that brought the road/To dear old Chapel Hill . . ."

Sources consulted:

Battle, Kemp P., History of the University of North Carolina, Vol. II, UNC Press, 1912.

The Chapel Hill Ledger, George T. Winston, ed., 1879-1880.

Hoke, William F. papers, North Carolina State Archives.

Hoke, William F. papers, Southern Historical Collection, UNC-CH.

Love, James Lee, ‘Tis Sixty Years Since, UNC Press, 1945.

The Tobacco Plant, Caleb B. Green, ed., 1879-1882.

Trustees Minutes, UNC Archives, UNC-CH.

The Weekly Ledger, Cornelia Phillips Spencer, ed., 1878-1879.

Wilson, Louis R. ed., Selected Papers of Cornelia Phillips Spencer, UNC Press, 1953.

Content within the Bounds of Reason

2011-03-28T15:53:00.000-07:00

Could there ever be any semblance of justice for any of North Carolina’s Native Americans? Perhaps.

Before the Europeans

I am not an archeologist or anthropologist, but it is clear from historical records that the area that is today Orange County was inhabitted by Native Americans long before the advent of Europeans. The closely related Eno (a.k.a. Occaneechi or Sapponi) and Saxapahaw (a.k.a. Sissipehaw) people lived throughout the Haw and Eno River valleys. There were numerous Native American villages in this area, but there was a particularly prominent village called Acconeechy (or Occaneechi) on essentially the same site that is now Hillsborough.

The Native Americans also had a major trade route which extended for a thousand miles from the vicinity of modern Petersburg, VA to Mobile, AL. This trade route, called the Trading Path passed through Acconeechy town on its way across what-is-now Orange County. The Trading Path was such a prominent feature of the pre-European landscape of Orange County that old land records frequently mention it. Even today the Trading Path is still well traveled. The modern route of Saint Mary’s Road and Old NC 10 are pretty much exactly the Trading Path.

Here in southern Orange County, there is also vestigial evidence of former Native American settlement. Old Field Creek, which flows northeast out of Chapel Hill into New Hope Creek was almost certainly the site of some sort of Native settlement. The term ‘old field’ in old North Carolina land records refers to lands that were developed agriculturally by Native Americans – land that had been cleared before the arrival of Europeans – literally old fields – ancient fields. Further to the west of here, the Haw Old Fields had belonged to the Sissipehaw or Saxapahaw people into the 1720’s, when a major smallpox epidemic ravaged the Native Americans of the North Carolina Piedmont.

The Saxapahaw Old Fields

That great North Carolina explorer and chronicler John Lawson wrote of his journey through this vicinity in his book A New Voyage to Carolina. In traveling through the area in 1701, Lawson remarked: “Here is plenty of good Timber, and especially, of a Scaly-bark'd Oak; And as there is Stone enough in both Rivers, and the Land is extraordinary Rich, no Man that will be content within the Bounds of Reason, can have any grounds to dislike it.” Lawson does not much discuss the Native people in this area, but he does refer to the Hawfields in saying: “The Savages do, indeed, still possess the Flower of Carolina, the English enjoying only the Fag-end of that fine Country.”

Though Lawson gives few details in this part of his book, he does say that the Native Americans were living there, and in the same breath he hopes for colonization: “It is call'd Hau-River, from the Sissipahau Indians, who dwell upon this Stream, which is one of the main Branches of Cape-Fair, there being rich Land enough to contain some Thousands of Families; for which Reason, I hope, in a short time, it will be planted.”

It is clear that from earliest times the Europeans admired the area that is now Orange County. Lawson related in 1701: “The Virginia-Men asking our Opinion of the Country we were then in, we told them, it was a very pleasant one. They were all of the same Opinion, and affirm'd, That they had never seen 20 Miles of such extraordinary rich Land, lying all together, like that betwixt Hau-River and the Achonechy Town.”

European settlers kept essentially no records of the Native Americans they encountered upon arriving in Orange County and so it is unclear how many Native Americans there were at the time of European settlement. But it is clear that there were at least some Native people still here at that time.

Even as late as 1770, the former Native American presence in our county was still palpable, as John F. D. Smyth related in A Tour of the United States of America Containing an Account of the Present Situation of that Country: “I have reason to believe, that some of the Haw fields have been cleared of woods by the Indians, in ages past, who were undoubtedly settled here; many insignia, and vestiges of the remains of their towns, still remaining.”

How the West Was Lost

Unlike some parts of the United States, there was never any treaty or agreement signed between the Europeans and either the Saxapahaw or the Eno people. Instead of relying on the terms of some sort of dubious treaty, the Europeans pointed to a still shakier source of land title authority.

Sir Richard Grenville

In 1585, Sir Richard Grenville, the head of Sir Walter Raleigh’s first colonization party sailed to the Outer Banks. Grenville and his men then explored along the outer banks encountering various Native settlements including the village of Aquascogoc. The Englishmen accused the Algoquin natives of stealing one of their cups and in retaliation sacked their village and burned their chief at the stake. With this moral foundation, Grenville laid claim to ‘Virginia’ on behalf of Queen Elizabeth. As conceived at that time, Virginia included the entire east coast, from the Spanish colonies in Florida north to the French settlements in Quebec. Of course, the resulting Roanoke Island Colony soon became the Lost Colony. Still, the Crown maintained that Grenville’s 1585 ceremonial declaration entitled the English to most of North America.

Queen Elizabeth did little with the area that became North Carolina after the disappearance of the Roanoke Island Colony. In the early 1600’s, English colonization shifted to Jamestown, VA and Plymouth, MA. Charles I attempted to restart colonization in North Carolina in 1629, but he was executed by Oliver Cromwell in 1630. After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II rewarded his allies with huge and valuable real estate grants. Through several twists and turns of fate and history, one man wound up with a deed to the northernmost sixty miles of North Carolina – literally a swath of North Carolina extending due west from the Outer Banks, bounded on the north by what is now the Virginia State line and extending south to what is now the southern boundary of Chatham and Randolph Counties, NC. That man happened to be the grandson of Sir Richard Grenville: John Carteret, Earl Granville.

The Origins of Land Title in Orange County

Lord Granville’s deed included all of what is now Orange County. And from 1744 until his death in 1763, Lord Granville issued deeds to the European settlers who came and staked claims on the land that had once been the land of the Eno and Saxapahaw. These deeds from Granville comprised a major portion of modern Orange County. Probably somewhere around half of Orange County’s current land area traces its title history back to one or another of Granville’s grants, including most of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Hillsborough as well as many other areas of the county.

John Carteret, Earl Granville

After Granville’s death, his estate was embroiled in a grand legal battle in the English courts in London and the estate was not settled until well after the American Revolution. During the 15 years between Granville’s death and the Revolution, much of the rest of Orange County was occupied by European immigrants. But these relative newcomers were unable to obtain title to the lands that they were occupying because of the on-going legal battle over Lord Granville’s estate. This problem (which existed affected many counties) was at the top of the non-military agenda of the newly impaneled legislature of North Carolina. The issue was such a priority that despite the then on-going Revolutionary War, the General Assembly passed legislation making it clear that the lands in North Carolina formerly belonging to Earl Granville (as well as the King) were forfeited to the new State of North Carolina.

So it was that in 1778, the legislature created the North Carolina State Land Grant system. Virtually all of the remaining land in Orange County that had not already been granted by Granville was soon granted to the settlers who were then on the land. Thus, the other half of Orange County’s land area traces its title history back to one or another of these State Land Grants.

So, regardless of whether a particular piece of land in Orange County was originally granted by Lord Granville or by the State of North Carolina, the ultimate source of its legal authority is founded on a brief ceremony conducted by Sir Richard Grenville 200 miles east of here, 426 years ago, immediately following the sacking of Aquascogoc.

Justice Too Long Delayed?

My point in recounting this long tale of woe is this: Across America there were many different methods used to cheat, steal and defraud the Native Americans out of their land, but in the area that is now Orange County, the land was simply occupied by the Europeans under the pretense that Grenville’s 1585 claim staked on the Outer Banks wound up vesting valid title in the hands of Earl Granville and later the State of North Carolina. No person of conscience could seriously believe that this was a just or even legally valid result.

Many people would probably argue that we cannot be held responsible for the wrongdoing of our forbearers and others would argue that whatever injustices happened in the past, the victims of those wrongs have been dead for centuries. But it seems to me that all of us who own real estate in Orange County benefit to this very day from unjust acts carried out centuries ago – not in some abstract or theoretical way, but in a way that history still demonstrates. And though the victims of those injustices have indeed been dead for centuries, their descendants are still among us here today.

http://www.obsn.org/show/page/the-voice-of-the-occaneechi-nation

In fact, not only are their descendants among us, living along the border of Alamance and Orange County, but they are organized and working on economic development through heritage tourism. I believe that in the past they have sought help from both the Orange and Alamance Boards of County Commissioners and that they maintained the small Occaneechi Village that once stood behind the Orange County Courthouse in Hillsborough.

So, my question is this: While we will never be able to lift the moral and ethical cloud that hangs over the actions of our predecessors, could there ever be a way to lift the legal and moral cloud that hangs over all modern land titles in Orange County? What if, as a County, we were to explore a partnership with the Occaneechi Band to promote heritage tourism and economic development through their proposed park/museum, and as a part of such a partnership the Occaneechi Band might agree to what would essentially be a quitclaim deed to the entirety of Orange County?

2011-01-27T12:02:00.000-08:00

Early Land Claims on the Efland Quadrangle NOW AVAILABLE!

2011-01-15T17:12:00.001-08:00

I have wrapped up my work on mapping the early land claims that lie within the USGS 7.5' Efland Quadrangle. The resulting map includes parts of the Pollock Tract 1, the Conner Tract and a tiny bit of Moseley Tracts 1 & 2 in the Saxapahaw Old Fields as well as numerous grants from the State of North Carolina.

The map includes land claims on Back Creek, Mill Creek, Haw Creek, Little Back Creek, Little Cane Creek, Seven Mile Creek, the Eno River, the Three Mile Branch, Turkey Hill Creek, McGowans Creek, Rocky Creek, Crabtree Creek, Dry Run, Gray's Creek, and a little bit of New Hope Creek among others. Here is a low-resolution image of the map:

For a much higher resolution 11" x 17" color copy of the map, send a check for $10 to

Mark Chilton

203 Ashe Street

Carrboro, NC 27510

Land owners and claimants depicted:

Robert Baker

William hasten

Elmore Handley

James Wilson

Joseph Hastens

James Gill

John Bowls or Bowles

Jacob Mason

Andrew Mitchell

Robert Cheek

Aaron Arnold

Thomas Estridge

Thomas Dixon

Solomon Austin

Frederick Williams

Thomas Cate or Cat

Barnard or Bernard Cate or Cates

John Workman

Rachel Thomas

James Thomas

Jesse Benton

John Minnis

Robert Witty

Robinson Mumford

Tomas Watts

Thomas Mulhollan

William Raspberry

William Bailey

John Bailey

Hames Ross

William Hamilton

George W Trice

Thomas Mulhollan

James Smith

Nathaniel Christmas

Isaac Kirk

Barnard Lassley or Lashley

Allen Sykes

Reuben Smith

Jame Mebane

Smauel Strudwick

Samuel nelson

Alexander Mebane

Robert Hollowell or Wolloway

James Smith

Wilson Brown

Thomas Squires

Wesley Miles

David Tate

Charles C Smith

George Tate

Edward Wilson or Willson

David Douglas or Duglas

James Cheek

Ed Thomas

Constantine Sellers

William Mebane

Henry Patillo

Archibald Hamilton

Robert Peasley or Paisley

Robert Cate or Cates

Thomas Bradford

David Bradford

Andrew Patton

George Bradford

alexander McCrackin or McCracken

William Armstrong

George Horner

James Faucett

James McGowin or McGowan

Peter Mallett

German Baxter

Peter Writesman or Wrightsman

William Churton

Thomas Wilson

James Dickie

James Rayley or Reilly or Riley

Henry Lemmon or Lemon

William Austin

James Watson

John Gray

Thomas Hart

William Alston

John Hunter

Nathaniel Rochester

James Taylor

Joseph Maddock

Andrew Mitchell

Gabriel Johnston

John Gray

William Lockhart

Joseph Sharp

Robert Erwin

William Faucette

John Creage or Craig

Jacob Lake

James Armstrong

Robert Faucett

William Shepherd

William Kerrigan

Elisha Kirk

Early Land Claims on the Mebane Quadrangle NOW AVAILABLE!

2011-01-15T16:55:00.001-08:00

I have wrapped up my work on mapping the early land claims that lie within the USGS 7.5' Mebane Quadrangle. The resulting map includes parts of the Everard Tract, the Little Tract, the Lovick Tract, the Forster Tract, the Nugent Tract, Moseley Tract 1, Moseley Tract 2, and Pollock Tract 1 in the Saxapahaw Old Fields as well as numerous grants from the State of North Carolina and part of Henry McCulloh's Great Tract #11. This map covers the area of Swepsonville, Hawfields, and Mebane among others.

The map includes land claims on Back Creek, Quaker Creek, Mill Creek, Haw Creek, Jumping Run, McAdams Creek, Rocky Branch, Nelson Branch, a little bit of Big Alamance Creek, Hawfields Branch, Stony Branch, Plum Branch, Mulberry Branch, Meadow Creek, and Little Back Creek among others. Here is a low-resolution image of the map:

For a much higher resolution 11" x 17" color copy of the map, send a check for $10 to

Mark Chilton

203 Ashe Street

Carrboro, NC 27510

Land owners and claimants depicted:

Thomas Freeland

William Gant

Matthew Rippy or Rippey

Edward Rippy Rippey

James Freeland

Thomas Taylor

John Butler

William Hodge

George Hodge

James Hutchinson or Hutcheson, John McCrory

Hugh Crafford or Crawford

William Scott

Jacob Bason

William Means or Manes

Jane Albird

John Baldridge

William Craig

John Stockard

James Stockard

John Huffman

Billy Gosling or Gousling

Jno McCrory

Robert Faucett or Fosset Jr and Sr.

Edward Linch or Lynch

John Galbreath

Milley Faucett

Charles Stanford or Standford

Anthony Stanford or Standford

James Burch or Bunch

William Galbreath

John Bason

Mary Albird

James McAdams or McCadams

Griffith Thomas

Daniel Handley

James Dixon

Nathaniel Patterson

Timothy Hughes

William Rainey

John Sloss

Rowland Hughes

Harry Anderson

John Allen

Thomas Lockhart

Robert Patton

Alexander Kilpatrick or Kirkpatrick

Nicholas Conce or Counce

Stephen White

John Hidge

Robert Baldridge

Samuel Patton

James Fruit

James Kennedy

Moses Crawford

Richard Foster or Fouster

John Armstrong

William Clendenin

Archibald Mahon

Walter Burnside

Jane Russell

James Trousdale

Eli McDaniel

Samuel Hunter

John Homes or Holmes

William Galbreath

Thomas Strain

Richard Gott

Benjamin Stone

James Cokely or Cokeley

Robert Hunter

John Campbell

Adam Davis

Henry McCulloh

Henry Eustace McCulloh

William Phillips

Conrad Long

Adam Drollinger or Trollinger

Jacob Henry Trollinger

Robert Burnside

Matthew Scoby

Matthew Lyon

John Pugh

John Kennedy

Daniel Pugh

John Wilson

Lewis Joans or Jones

Michael Whatley

Jeremiah McCracken

Samuel McCracken

William Gordon

Baxter King

Thomas House Sr and Jr

James Young

John Stephens

John Minnis

Jacob Morris

Jacob Moinus

James Andrews

John Jones

James Stewart

Rubin Smith

John Woods

George Johnston

Thomas Bradford

John Justice

Samuel mcAdams

Robert Johnston

William Dobbins

John McAdams

William mcAdams

Alexander Mebane Jr and Sr

Samuel Nelson

James Smith

William Chance

Joseph shaw

Robert Small

William Tate

Henry Wasson

Robert mcCarney

James Bowles

Patrick Dunn

John Moore

Edward Carrigan or Kerrigan

Martha Catchim

Hugh McConwell

John griffis

Phillip Goodbread

Alex Hughes

James Davis

Martin Mehaffy or Mehafie

Archibald Hamilton

Robert Peasley or Paisley

Henry Patillo

David Duglas or Douglass

John Tate

James Murdaugh

George Allen

Joseph Sloss

Ephraim Tyree

Early Land Claims on the Burlington Northeast Quadrangle NOW AVAILABLE!

2011-01-15T15:10:00.000-08:00

I have wrapped up my work on mapping the early land claims that lie within the USGS 7.5' Burlington Northeast Quadrangle. The resulting map includes parts of the Everard Tract and Pollock Tract 2 in the Saxapahaw Old Fields as well as numerous grants from Earl Granville and the State of North Carolina.

The map includes land claims on Back Creek, Quaker Creek, Boyds Creek, Stag Creek, Storm Creek, Owens Creek, Deep Creek, Jordan Creek, the Rocky Fork, and Stony Branch. Here is a low-resolution image of the map:

For a much higher resolution 11" x 17" color copy of the map, send a check for $10 to

Mark Chilton

203 Ashe Street

Carrboro, NC 27510

Land owners and claimants depicted:

James Davis

John Moore

James Mebane

Thomas Lynch

John Jonathan Sample

Alexander Mebane Jr.

Worham Glenn or Gleen

Elizabeth Lynch

James Murray or Morrow

Jesse Fulton

John Forrist

Robert Fulton

William Bradford

Samuel Whitesides or Whitsett or Whitsell

James Bird

David Lynch

John Revis

Empson Bird

John Ward

Andrew Robertson

Richard Bird

Ezekiel Chance

John McMinimy or McMinaway

John Reed

Moses Parker

Thomas Willingham

John Furry or Turry

John Ray

James Forrest

George Fossett or Faucette

John Cohorn or Cohoin

William Walker

Jonathan Carswell

Robert Barnhill or Barnwell

William Garner

James Garner

Daniel Handley

Henry Wasson

Henry Murray

William Murray

Walter Murray

James Anderson

John Waldraven

Benjamin Roney or Roaney

James Roney Roaney

John Butler

John McCrory

John Boyd

James Freeland Jr

Hardy Hurdle

Andrew Huffman

Henry White

Nehemiah Powell

James Dickie or Dickey

John King

Edward King

Robert Means

William Williams

Nathan Camp

Obadiah Martin

John Boyle

John Pryor

John Swinney or Swaney or Swenney

Samuel Actor or Ector

James Murray

John Starks

Levi Hall

James Hall

Ephraim Logue

William Whitehead or Whitsad or Whittad or Whitted

Richard Loadan

James Bracken

James Tate

Thomas Hart

Thomas Roberson or Robertson

William Daily

Hugh McAdams

Robert Faucett Jr

Robert Faucett Sr.

Edward Pickett

Billy Gousling

Thomas Taylor

William Eccles or Echols or Eckles

John Eccles or Echols or Eckles

William Hopper

John McQueston McQuiston McCuiston McQuester

The Hermitage

2010-12-23T23:36:00.000-08:00

The two of Alamance County's most prominent historical figures lived just opposite Swepsonville near the confluence of Big Alamance Creek and the Haw River. Archibald D. Murphey was the founder of lower public education, a great proponent of internal improvements (canals, plank roads etc.), a lawyer, a judge and a state senator.

Judge and Sen. Archibald Debow Murphey

Murphey nearly went bankrupt in the banking crisis of 1819 and was forced to surrender his extensive real estate holdings to his friend and creditor Thomas Ruffin. Ruffin became an even more eminent (and later infamous) figure serving on the NC Supreme Court and authoring the Court's opinion in State vs. Mann.

NC Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin

The homeplace of Murphey and later Ruffin was called the Hermitage. According to the Papers of Archibald Debow Murphey (pp334-335), the Hermitage stood "three miles south of the site of Graham and about half a mile from the stage road leading from Hillsboro via the Hawfields to Salisbury." Murphey (and later Ruffin owned) the waterpower site which later became Virginia Mills in Swepsonville. "The mills were about two miles to the east [of the Hermitage], at the confluence of Haw River and Great Alamance."

The site of the Hermitage is shown on W L Spoon's 1893 Map of Alamance County:

The Papers of A D Murpehy described the site: "A lane ran southward from the public road to the front gate, where it turned to the right and ran along the northern border of the yard and into an enclosure containing the kitchen, servants' quarters stables, and other outbuildings. On the eastern side of the dwelling-house, about thirty feet from it, stood Murphey's law office, and under the office was a wine cellar. Further east was an orchard. In the rear of the house was a garden, which adjoined a lot lying on Great Alamance Creek."

"The house was a plain, substantial wooden building having two stories in the central portion and one and a half in the winds on the eastern and western sides. At the right end of a large hall as one entered was a room called Judge Ruffin's room after he took up his abode there, and at the left a library and parlor. These rooms formed the first stories of the wings. At the back of the hall were the dining-room and a guest chamber, and behind these a narrow hall, with a pantry and storeroom at its ends, and a piazza overlooking the garden and creek. Upstairs, in the central portion of the house was another large hall, and in the rear two bedrooms, a storeroom, and a back hall. Two spacious guest chamber, with four dormer windows in each, formed the second floors of the wings."

As authority for such a detailed description of the house, the editor of Murphey's papers tells us: "For this description I am indebted to Col Bennehan Cameron, of Stagville, who often visited the Hermitage during his boyhood."

A Tolerable Bateau Navigation

2010-12-10T11:53:00.000-08:00

Here's an excerpt from my next forthcoming book A Tolerable Bateau Navigation: The Story of the Deep and Haw River Navigation Company, 1796-1881. You can order the book via email: Mark_Chilton@hotmail.com

Round IV on the Upper Cape Fear: A Bateau Navigation 1828-1832

By the fall of 1828, the Fayetteville Observer was already complaining again about the Cape Fear Navigation Company’s emphasis on the Upper Cape Fear: “We understand that the hands employed upon our River are at work 20 or 30 miles above this town; to which no one could have a reasonable objection, if the Navigation Company had really removed the obstructions between this place and Wilmington, and had the funds left to prosecute the works above . . . The Navigation Company may possibly be promoting their own interests by their operations; but the merchants and boat owners here complain, and apparently with reason, that they pay heavy tolls, for no good that they can see except to furnish money to prosecute a visionary scheme of opening a navigation to Haywood, or Murphey’s Mills [Swepsonville]. Is there no remedy?” In response, the Board of Internal Improvements’ engineer Alanson Nash supervised the removal of snags below Fayetteville and the construction of an additional wing dam at Spring Hill Shoal (Observer 10/30/1828). Nash also reported that more such improvements were needed at the ferry at Elizabethtown and at the old ferry site a few miles below (1828 Report).

The summer of 1829 was a time of great optimism for the Cape Fear Navigation Co. The renewed investment from the State of North Carolina was making it possible to make major progress on improving the river above Fayetteville and the passable condition of the lower Cape Fear was allowing the Company to collect significant tolls. As the Recorder reported (6/10/1829) the CFN Company’s Directors at their annual meeting found “the affairs of the Company in a much more prosperous situation than at any other meeting during the time they have had the honor to direct its concerns.”

In fact, the papers were full of promising reports about navigation of the upper Cape Fear in the summer and fall of 1829. By July, the Recorder said that work on the Buckhorn locks was complete and that hands had been moved down to Smiley’s Falls (7/20/1829), allowing Haywood businessman Jonathan Haralson to send his boat the Clara Fisher to Fayetteville with 27 bales of cotton using hired boat hands (see also Observer 5/28/1829). Work was still progressing at Smiley’s Falls in September, but Archibald D. Murphey was able to send his boat from Haywood to Fayetteville (Recorder 9/23/1829). And still another trip through Smiley’s Falls reportedly at low water and at night was approvingly noted in October that year (Observer 10/22/1829).

The newspaper accounts certainly make it appear that the navigation of the Upper Cape Fear was complete by the end of 1829. As the Recorder (9/23/1829) put it: “The river, for the first time this season, is in good working order and nothing is wanting but hands for which liberal wages are offered.” But high-water in the winter of 1829-30 must have been hard on the works put in place in 1828 and 1829, as the summer of 1830 saw a furious new round of improvements under way above Fayetteville.

In 1830, the BII’s superintendent on the river, Abraham G. Keen built a breakwater dam at Haralson's landing, blasted ledges and built wing dams at Upper Little river falls, built more wing dams at Williams' Falls, and removed fish traps at Borough Shoals. They did more blasting and built more wing dams at Stewart's Creek ledge, at Shaw's Upper Falls and Wirt's Fish Stand Falls, at Thorington Creek Shoals , and at Jones Falls and Massie's Fish Stand Falls - to say nothing of wing dams built at M'Craney's Fish Stand Falls, Dry Creek Shoals, Norrington's Falls, Ford Shoals, Mrs. Atkins Ferry Shoal, John Atkin's Fish Trap Shoals, M'Neal Shoals, Guess Ford Shoals, James Battle's Falls, Blalock's Falls, and Brazier Falls. And they also built "several other dams." To his credit, Mr. Keen complained only that "[o]wing to the extreme low water this summer, I had a great deal of unnecessary work to do to enable us to get up the river with our loaded boats." (1830 Report)

The sweaty and noisy summer of 1830 must have resulted in a notable level of success. The BII met in June of 1830 at Haywood (Observer 6/10/1830) and “proceeded down the River in one of the Company’s boats, accompanied by several of the neighboring planters, and there being no obstruction in the River for ten miles, they had a pleasant passage to the dam across it near the Buckhorn Falls . . . The Boat then entered an outlet from the river which leads to the Buckhorn Canal. The river being low, Mr. Keene had some fears that it would not be found sufficient to carry the boat through the Locks; but the event found his fears groundless . . . and when [the boat] again entered the river, it met with but few obstructions. It had indeed to pass a number of inconsiderable falls, and some very shoal places; but from the sluices cut through the former, and the activity of the hands in managing over the latter, but little inconvenience was sustained from either.” The report allowed that the passage through Smiley’s Falls was rapid, but successful owing to wing dams, sluices and blasting that had been going on. Along the side of these long Sluices are erected substantial Stone Walls, which serve for towing paths for ascending boats.” (See also Observer 7/15/1830)

In fact, the level of optimism about the improvements to the upper Cape Fear was so high that some quarters seemed to think that boats, rather than wing dams were the missing ingredient. “As soon as it shall be generally known that there is a good navigation opened between Haywood and Fayetteville,” the Observer opined, “there is no doubt that the planters within a reasonable distance from the River, will avail themselves of this easy mode of sending their crops to market.” (Observer 6/10/1830) Even George M'Neill, no admirer of the Board of Internal Improvements, grudgingly admitted: "[T]he River was sluiced through Smiley's falls, and other falls between Fayetteville and Averasborough, which afforded a tolerable navigation for such bateaus as could pass the Canal and Locks at Buckhorn falls." (1838 Report)

The Backlash

In late 1830 increasing frustration with the Navigation Company led to sharp criticism in the newspapers. An anonymous letter to the editor of the Observer of 11/25/1830 bemoaned the navigation problems below Fayetteville and asked: “Why have not the stockholders for the last 3 years foreseen these fatal consequences at their general meetings? The only answer that can be given to that question is that the well known zeal manifested by Mr. [CFN Co. President James] Mebane in promoting operations above Fayetteville, and his representation of the 650 shares of stock owned by the State (and which generally constitutes a majority of stock represented at those meetings) precludes the possibility of any successful argument in favor of the true interests of the Company.” Still more criticism was published 12/2/1830 and on 12/23/1830. The Observer reported that a group of Wilmington residents had organized a petition to the legislature to revoke the CFN’s power to charge tolls on the river because of the shortcomings of the Company’s efforts between Fayetteville and Wilmington.

This critical sentiment was also reflected in the CFN Company’s annual report to the BII in 1830. "When the work now in progress, under the direction of your Board, between Fayetteville and Haywood is completed, it is hoped that the large sum expended at and about Buckhorn Falls will not be entirely unproductive. The Canal at and near Fayetteville is not likely to yield the company any income; but, on the contrary, it is a continual expense." (emphasis in original).

In 1831, there was evidently renewed unhappiness with the company in the legislature, as the Board of Internal Improvements was directed to assess the question of what had been accomplished by the Company . . .

For the rest of the story, please order a copy of the book via email: Mark_Chilton@hotmail.com

McCulloh's Petition to the King

2010-12-05T08:13:00.001-08:00

I transcripted this from a hand written collection of Henry McCulloh's writings contained in the Manuscripts collection of Duke University:

General Observations in Relation to the Steps which were taken previous to the Earl of Granville’s division of the Two Carolina’s with the Crown

Lord Granville by His Petitions to His Majeesty humbly Prayed His Majesty that his one eighth part of the Soail of the Two Carolina’s might be set out and alotted to him in such part of the said Provinces asshould be Agreed on between such Persons a His Majesty should be pleased to appoint and such Persons as the said Lord Granville should name on his part.

His Majesty was pleased to referr the said Petition to the Right Homble the Lords of the Committee of Council and their Lordships referred the same to the Right Honble the Commissioners of Trade and Plantation for them to Consider thereof and Report their Opinion thereupon.

And in pursuance thereof their Lordships did Report That they conceived the method proposed by the said Lord Granville would be the most Effectual.

Which said Report the Lords off the Committee of His Majesies most Honble Privy Council did agree to and on the Twenty Fourth of August 1742 made their Report thereupn to His Majexty and gave it as their Opinion that the said Lord Granville’s Property should be Separated from that of His Majesty, and humbly proposed that proper Persons should be appointed as Commissioners on His Majesties behalf not exceeding Five who in Conjunction with the like Number of Persons to be appointed by the said Lord Granville, should be Impowered to Sett out and Alott to the said Lord Granville One full Eighth part of the said Provinces of Carolina in such part of parts of the siad Provinces as should be Agreed upon by the said Commissioners. And that they should be required to make a Return of their Proceedings to His Majexty in council within Eighteen Months from the dates of His Majesties Order. And alsoto lay before His Majesty A Plan containing a full and exact Description of the said Land together with the respective Boundaries thereof.

And for the better Guidance of the said Commissioners that it might be Advisable for His Majexty to require the said Commissioners to follow and Observe such Direstions and Instructions as might be given from time to time either by His Majesty or by those who act under His Majesties Royal Authority.

Which Report His Majesty was pleased to Approve of as may more fully and at large Appear by His Majesties Order of Council dated Fifteenth day of September 1742.
And in pursuance thereof His Majesty by His Royal Instructions thereupon given the Tenty fifith day of April 1743. Required and Commanded the Commissioners to make a Return of the whole of their Proceedings within Eighteen Months from the date of the said Order, and also required them to transmit a full and Exact description of the Lands so to be set out and Alotted to the said Lord Granville with the respective Boundaries thereof. And that the said Commissioners should follow such Instructions as might be found necessary to be given to them either by His Majesty or by those who act under His Majexties Royal Authority.

His Grace the Duke of Newcastle (as Conceived at Mr Belaquier’s Request) wrote a Letter to the Governor of North Carolina dated the Ninth of June 1743, including a Plan drawn in London of such part of North Carolina as was deemed to be an Eighth part of the whole of the said Province but His Grace did not direct that the Commissioners should follow the said plan and only sent it as what might be of Service to His Majesty’s Commissioners in making the said Division.
Mr. Belaquie by his Letter dated eleventh June 1743 to Col. Edward Moseley who was Lord Granville’s Agent inclosed to him a Map or Plan of said tract drawn by Mr. Warner in London with directions hiw to proceed in that matter for Ld. Granville’s Service.

And Mr. Belaquier in his Letter to me dated Eleventh June 1743 wished that his Lordship had Signed a Commission at Hanover Appointing Commissioner sin his behald, and had given the necessary Instructions to Mr. Moseley which were to be Communicated to me. That he had Transmitted to mr Moseley a Copy of the Duke of Newcastles’s Letter to the Governour dated the Ninth of June 1743 Including a Map or Draught of such a Tract of North Carolina adjoining to Virginia as is deemed to be an Eighth part of the whole, together with some ____ amd directions upon the same as what may possibly be of use to His Majesties Commissioners. And Mr. Balaquier further said that he had in Command from his Lordship to Assure Mr. McCulloh that His Lordship would be Obliged to him for his Complyance with the several Matters above mentioned.

I pray leave to Observe that as Lord Granville was then Secretary of State and that His Majexty had Commanded the Commissioners to Observe such Instructions as were given to them by those who Acted under His Majesties Royal Authority I did not Conceive myself to be at Liberty to Oppose Mr. Moseleye in any Matter which related to His Lordship.

The Commissioners in behalf of the Crown and those Appointed by Lord Granville met together in October 1743. And on looking into His Majesties Orders of Council and the other Letters and Papers transmitted to them Did not Apprehend themselves to be at Liberty to do any thing further than to lay out the Latitude, and then to run a West Line, and accordingly went upon that Duty without taking the Oaths usually required in such cases to do Justice to each of the Parties.

The Season of the Year being then far Advanced and the Commiss.ers being required to make a return within Eighteen Months from the date of His Majesties Order in Council, they did not run the West Line further than to a place called Pamticoe River.

The Return made to His Majesty by the Commissioners is dated the Sixth of December 1743 Setting forth that in pursuance of His Majesties Royal Order in Council dated Fifteenth September 1742 and Instructions dated 25th April 1743 they did set out and Alott to Lord Granville One full Eighth part of the Provinces of North Carolina next Adjoining to Virginia on the East by the great Western Ocean. And as for southwardly as a Cedar Stake set on the Sea side in the Latitude Twenty five Degrees and Thirty four Minutes North Latitude being Six Miles and an half to the southward of Chickinacomack Inlet from that Stake by a West Line which passed Tenty five Foot to the Southward of the House where Thomas Willis lived to the West as far as the Bounds limited by the Charter granted to the Late Lords Proprietors. Which West Line was run One Thousand Six hundred and sixty Poles to the North of the South end of Bath Town.

All which was most humbly Submitted &c &c &c.

At the time of making that Return a Plan was also Transmitted which had been Separated and set out for Lord Granville with a Scale of Miles Annexed thereto.

It is proper to Observe here that the Commissioners did not say that the Plan so Transmitted was a full and Exact description of the Return made by them nor in Truth was it, there being a Supposed Line given in the following words which were not contained in the Plan, namely So West as far as the bounds of the Charter granted to the late Lords Proprietors.

The Return was drawn up by Lord Granville’s own Agent, and so gave roo for the deception whicafterwards Appeared in the Prosecution of the said Affair.

By His Majesties Orders the Plan and Return were to Agree, as by the Plan would Apear what Extent of Country was Alotted to His Lordship. But the Commissioners having acted only by a Suppsed Plan sent to them they had not time to run the Boundary Line, not to perfect their Plan and Consequently sent in Open.

However this being about the time when Lord Granville resigned his Commission as Secretary of State, he was willing to have the matter determined. And the Affair was Represented to the Lords of the Committee of Council as to Cause in them an Opinion that the Return and Plan were one and the same as will more fully appear by the following Report.

The Right Honourable the Lords of the Committee of Council on taking the said Returna nd Plan into Consideration the Nonth day of May 1744 were pleased to Report to His Majesty that the Commissioners having transmitted to His Majesty a Plan containing a full and Exact description of the said One Eighth part of the said Provinces or Territories so set out and alotted to the said Lord Granville Their Lordships were humbly of Opinion that His Majexty might be pleased to Approve of the said Return and Plan and the Alottment thereby made to the said Lord Granville. And that thererupon it might be advisable for His Majesty to Order his Attorney and Solicitor General to prepare the necessary Instruments or Deeds Conformable to what was ---- Contained in the aforesaid Reports.

It is to be Remarked that when the Return and the Plan were copied out in Order to be laid before His Majesties Attorney General, the following words were added to the Copy of the Return, Viz: “And the said Commissioners did pursuant to His Majesties Order in Council Transmit to His Majesty a Plan containing a Full and Exact Description of the said One Eighth part of the said Provinces or Territories so set out and Alotted to the said Lord Granville.”
It is very probable that if the above words had not been so added to or inserted in the Copy of the Return made by the Commissioners that His Majesties Attorney General would have perceived the great difference which really was between the Return and the Plan, so that the necessary Instruments and Deeds could not have been made out agreeable to what is contained in the aforementioned Reports.

The deeds as drawn by the Attorney General are worded with Extreme Caution and Convey to Lord Granville only such Eighth part of the said Provinces or Territories as are Separated set out and Alotted to Lord Granville.

Which words (as concieved) are really Conjunctive and so Lord Granville Cannot avail himself of any more Lands under the said Grant than what are Comprized within the Plan returned by the Commissioners Especially for that the said Plan and Report Annexed thereto as laid before the Attorney General are said to Conaitna a full and Exact description of the said One fulll Eighth part of the said Provinces or Territories so set out and Alotted to the said Lord Granville.
But Lord Granville being of Opinion that the supposed Line above mentioned might still be Carried into Execution and a New Line run out.

Mr. Moseley his Lordships Agent prevailed on the Governour to Appoint the same Commissioners who were formerly authorized by His Majesty (although their Commission was then Expired near Two Years) to meet such Commissioners as Lord Granville then Appointed. And they accordingly met the latter End of March 1746 and run a further Line for Lord Granville from Pamticoe River to the Westward of Nues River. And they having met again in September 1746 run a further Line from Nues River to the Westward of Peedee River including the whole of the said ___ survey about One hundred and forty Miles in length, and if the supposed Line should ___ be carried on, it will Extend at least Two hundred and fifty Miles further.
In running the said Lines the Commissioners did not make any Allowance for the difference which induced me at my own Expence to Employ one of His Majesties Deputy Surveyors to Measure the Distance between Lord Granville’s Line on Pedee River to the Virginia Line, and on Surveying of the same it was found that Lord Granville had Thirteen Miles and hald in Breadth more than he was Intitled to, even Admitting that the Commissioners had a Power to proceed further on the said supposed Line.

If Lord Granville should be Allowed to keep possession of all he Claims under the Supposed Line, One Fifth part and more of the Provinces of South and Norht Carolina will come within His Lordship’s Division, Whereby One Fourth part and more of the White Inhabitants of the said Colonies will be Included therein.

But if Lord Granville should be restrained or Limitted to what is Comprized in the first Survey and Plan returned thereon His Lordship will not possess above one Twelfth part of the Lands, Althoguh in Value and point of Settlement it is more than equal to an Eighth part of the whole Provinces.

My Motive in troubling your Royal Highness with the above Representation is to Evince the Truth of my former Remarks and shew that when the Rules of Office are dispensed with, not only the Crown but the Lords of the Privy Council are Subject to Surprize.

The Fort of Deep River at Coxe's Mill

2010-10-09T07:21:00.000-07:00

I have to return one last time to the subject of David Fanning's headquarters at one of the two Cox's Mills near the Deep River in Randolph County, NC. You may recall that Harmon Cox has a mill on the east side of the Deep on a tributary called Millstone Creek, while William Cox had another nearby on Mill Creek on the west side of the Deep River.

In his memoirs, Fanning repeatedly refers to his headquarters as being at “Coxe’s Mill” and “on Deep River.” At one point he says that he had 140 men at the site and refers to it as “the Fort of Deep River, at Coxe’s Mill.” But Fanning never makes it clear which side of the river he was on and therefore it is unclear which Cox's Mill.

I wrote about this before and concluded that it seemed more likely that Fanning's HQ was at William Cox's Mill on the west side of the Deep. Earlier this year, this whole issue was much further examined by Warren Dixon of Randolph County, leading to the State changing the historical marker!

http://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?ct=ddl&sp=search&k=Markers&sv=K-10%20-%20COX'S%20MILL

Warren concluded that Fanning's HQ was more likely on the east side at the Harmon Cox Mill.

Thinking about all this the other day, I remembered that Fanning wrote in his memoirs: “the two rebel parties had joined, being about 400 in number and encamped at Brown’s Plantation, about 2 miles up the river and on the opposite side.” I have looked before for old Orange County deeds that might correspond to "Brown's Plantation" but come up empty handed. Warren Dixon tells me that he and Mac Whately likewise attempted to find evidence of Brown's Plantation, but also found no firm information.

Well, yesterday it occurred to me that Fanning was speaking of the time of the Revolution and that Brown's Plantation might have been a grant from Earl Granville, so I looked through the Granville grants. Lo and behold:

Granville Grant 383 1 August 1760 Daniel Brown, planter, ten shillings the south side of Deep River, begin at William Coxe's corner spanish oak . . .up the river to the beginning . . . surveyed 13 Oct 1759.

This could easily be Brown's Plantation. The fact that William Cox is his southern neighbor shows that this grant is in the right vicinity. If that is indeed Brown's Plantation, then that would place Fanning's HQ on the north/east side of the Deep River at Harmon Cox's Mill - consistent with Warren Dixon's conclusions.

Early Land Claims on the Saxapahaw Quadrangle

2010-10-02T11:36:00.000-07:00

NOW AVAILABLE!

I have wrapped up my work on mapping the early land claims that lie within the USGS 7.5' Saxapahaw Quadrangle. The resulting map includes parts of Henry McCulloh's Great Tract #11, parts of Edward Moseley's land grants in the Saxapahaw Old Fields, the Porter Tract (later the property of Roger Moore), as well as numerous grants from Earl Granville, from Samuel Strudwick and William F. Strudwick as well as early grants from the State of North Carolina.

The map includes land claims on Big Cane Creek, Little Cane Creek, Mary's Creek, Whitehead Creek, Poplar Branch, Rocky Run, Hardin's or Harden's Branch, the Straight Branch, Meadow Creek, Haw Creek, Hogpen Branch, and Motes Creek. Here is a low-resolution image of the map:

For a much higher resolution 11" x 17" color copy of the map, send a check for $10 to

Mark Chilton
203 Ashe Street
Carrboro, NC 27510

Land owners and claimants depicted:
James Thompson
Robert Hunter
Seymour Puryear
John McDaniel
Thomas Blair
Henry McCulloh
Providence Carter
Thomas Mulholland
Samuel McMullen McMullin
John Woody
John Newland Newlin
John Carter
William Carter
George Sheridan
James Elliott
Charles Kelley
John Lambert
William Howlett
Benjamin Martin
George Williams
James Newlin
James Downing
Valentine Hollingsworth
Thomas Lindley
Hugh Laughlin
William McFerson McPherson
George Smith
John Jinnings
Hugh Cruthers or Caruthers
James Milican Melican Milliken
James Ball
Thomas Moore
Richard Cate
James Tinnin Tenian
William Morrow
Samuel Hawkins
Samuel Jackson
John James Alston
John B. Moore
Samuel Ashe
Mary Taylore
Elizabeth Stalsworth
Robert Milican
John Elliott
Jonathan West
Ruth Simmons,
Joseph Stalsworth
David McSwine McSwain
John Moore
John Simmons
William Woody
John Thompson
Samuel Woody
William Paris
James Newlin
Thomas Thompson
Fisher Clendenin
John Justus
Nehemiah Payne
Mary Rodgers
Hugh Rodgers
John Williams
Daniel Pugh
Eli McDaniel
Thomas Payne
James Payne
Samuel Hunter
Benjamin Dixon
Richard Christmas
Joseph Thompson
William Crutchfield
Henry O'Daniel
John Ashcroft
John Grisham
John Rainey
William Morrow
John Pickard
Barnabas Lassley
John Steel Jr
Matthew Scoby
Robert Whitehead
John Thompson

For an 11" x 17" color copy of the map, send a check for $10 to

Mark Chilton
203 Ashe Street
Carrboro, NC 27510

This map is the first in a series of six topos that will cover the entire Haw Old Fields.

A Brief History of Smith Level Road

2010-09-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

Long before the Town of Carrboro and even before UNC, there was a road that connected Hillsborough to the town at the limits of navigation on the Cape Fear River – the nearest inland port – then called Cross Creek but now called Fayetteville. That road ran high up in the watershed of New Hope, Bolin and Morgan Creeks, just a mile west of the New Hope Chapel for which Chapel Hill is named. That road is Old NC 86/Old Fayetteville Road/Ray Road/Smith Level Road.

Though the old Fayetteville road is not named on John Daniel’s 1792 survey of the proeprties donated to start UNC, the road is nevertheless plainly shown:

The part of the road where it crossed Morgan Creek is now gone, but there used to be a bridge there. The last remains of that bridge are still there, a single steel rail still spanning the creek. The bridge was nearly directly at the McCauley Mill on Morgan Creek. The University Lake Dam stands on the same site that the McCauley Mill dam did.

When George W. Tate produced the first detailed map of Orange County in 1891 he showed largely the same road configuration:

However the McCauley bridge site was abandoned in the 1920’s (probably about the same time the mill was abandoned) in favor of another old bridge location a little further down stream (where the present bridge is). South Greensboro Street was not extended down the hill to that location until the 1950’s sometime, but Old Pittsboro Road in Carrboro wended its way down to meet Merritt Mill Road and cross Morgan Creek. The present bridge location had been long in use and is also shown on the 1792 Daniel plat. Before the University was built an alignment more or less equivalent to Cameron Avenue/Merritt Mill Road/Smith Level Road lead from the old Fayetteville road up to the New Hope Chapel (which formerly stood where the Carolina Inn is today).

Probably since the 19th century, this road has been called Smith Level Road after the Smith family farm which was along it. The Smith house is that stately home on the west side of Smith Level Road, about 2/3 of the way to Chatham County from Carrboro. It was once the home of Sidney Smith a white slave owner whose African American descendants include Pauli Murray. The road is called Smith Level because of the flat topography particularly on the southern half of the road.

In fact the unusually flat topography is the very reason the old Fayetteville road ran that way. Considering the inherent advantages of the route and the fact that Hillsborough was the site of a Native American village from pre-Columbian times, it is conceivable that the route from Hillsborough down Old NC 86/Old Fayetteville Road/Ray Road/Smith Level Road may well have been a Native American trade route from long ago.

The Trading Path through the Hawfields

2010-07-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

NOTE: I am indebted to David Southern for alerting me to many of the sources cited herein.

The well established Native American path across the southeast Piedmont was commonly called the Indian Trading Path, the Catawba Path, the Old Trading Path, or the Western Trading Road. In its full extent, the Trading Path ran from the vicinity of Petersburg, VA to Mobile, AL. More locally, the Trading Path had a well defined route from the Eno River to the Haw River. From the Eno it more or less followed the current path of Old NC 10, Bowden Road, and Old Hillsborough Road to the present site of the Hawfields Presbyterian Church on NC Hwy 119.

From there, the Trading Path divided briefly. One route following Hwy 119 south into what is now Swepsonville and fording the Haw River just below the present day ruins of the mill dam. The other route followed an alignment formed by Kimrey Road, North Jim Minor Road, and the private driveway now named Old Reatkin Lane, crossing the Haw at the place known as Galbreath Ford/Ferry/Bridge about ½ mile below NC Hwy 54.

Some have said that there was not one Trading Path, but that there were many Trading Paths, being a series of braided footpaths that led between and among several different fording sites on each major river that the Trading Path crossed. The Many-Trading-Paths theory is propounded in opposition to the view that there was only one true Old Trading Path. It appears that there is truth in both points of view. In the 18th century, there was really just one route that was widely known as the Old Trading Path between the Eno and Haw Rivers, except for the final leg where the path divided on its way to two (or perhaps three) different fords. When old land and court records of Orange County refer to the Trading Path or Trading Road, they mean this particular route.

From the Eno River

From the west bank of the Eno River, the Trading Path crossed the Granville land grant to Henry Lemmon (Gv 25) though neither the text of the grant nor the accompanying survey shows the Trading Path. Next the route crossed the land grant to James Rayley (Gv 142), the survey showing the route as an un-named dotted line:

Then the Trading Path crossed right between the Granville grants to James Dickie (Gv204) and James McGowan (Gv 643) probably forming the border between them, though neither the grants nor surveys mention it. The Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes for June 1755 note: "James Dickey and Robert Witty from hence forward, do work on the Trading path Road, & under the Inspection of Major Mebane."

Next the path crossed German Baxter’s state land grant (NC 272), where it is depicted in detail without being named:

Part of Baxter’s land was conveyed to Mehitabel Coit in 1789 (ODB4, pg 201) “on the side of the Great Road formerly called the Old Trading Path.”

From there, the Trading Path entered land granted by Granville to William Churton (in Misc Gv Papers; Survey 15 Aug 1760). The Trading Path is shown plainly and labeled “Trading Path” on the survey:

Next the Trading Path entered a 5,000 acre tract which had been granted to George Pollock in 1728. William Churton’s 1754 plat of the Pollock Tract distinctly shows a road crossing the southern end of the tract following almost precisely the present alignment of Old NC 10 and Bowden Road. The Trading Path is so faint on the Pollock Plat, that I added a black line that runs parallel to the route just north of it:

Descendants of George Pollock granted several parcels near or on the Trading Path in the 1840’s: To Wesley Miles along “the Old Great Road,” to Charles C. Smith “on the north side of the Old great Road,” and to Wilson Brown on “the Old Great Road” (ODB 29, pg 447). Although none of those deeds happen to refer to it as the Trading Path, other land records of that location do. During the Revolution, as Hawfields settlers filed State land entries left and right, local surveyor James Smith obtained state land grants for two parcels that were within the Pollock Tract. His state grant NC 30 amounts to the west half of Pollock’s lot #2. And NC 179 is part of Pollock’s lots #1 and #2 – both immediately along the current route of Old NC Hwy 10 and Bowden Road. These grants to James Smith were no doubt invalidated, but notably both of these grants refer to being “on the old Trading Road.”

Crossing Moseley Tract 1

Leaving the Pollock Tract, the Trading Path entered a 10,000 acre tract which had been granted to William Moseley in 1728. Moseley’s grant explicitly mentions “where the Indian Trading Path crosses” Haw Creek (PB 2, pg 222). This land later passed into the hands of Samuel Strudwick. Strudwick parted out Moseley’s tracts, selling to various settlers who had occupied this area starting in the latter 1740’s. Along the Trading Path, Strudwick sold 718 acres to Alexander Mebane in 1769 (ODB 2/550) – land that Mebane had occupied 20+ years. While the deed to Mebane makes no mention of the Trading Path, the minutes of the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions for December 1752 authorized Mebane to build a grist mill “near the trading path.” That mill was more recently known as Gill’s Mill on Haw Creek, just below Bowden/Hillsborough Road. Court of Pleas Minutes for June 1759 mention that Alexander Mebane's house is on the "trading path road." Minutes for September 1759 refer to "the Western Path where Alex Mebane Esq lives." Thus showing that the Western Path and the Trading Path were interchangeable terms for the same road.

Other parts of Moseley Tract 1 were claimed by John McAdams (NC 534) and Samuel McAdams (NC 196) under state land grants (in direct conflict with Strudwick’s ownership). Neither of the McAdams grants mentions or shows the Trading Path.

Crossing the Lovick Tract

The Trading Path then crossed into the 1728 land grant of John Lovick. The original grant to Lovick also twice explicitly mentions “where the Indian Trading Path” crosses various creeks (NC Patent Book 2, pg 223). The Lovick Tract was more or less forfeited during the Revolution because of the owner’s British allegiances, but various state land grant claims across the Lovick Tract show a series of properties with the Trading Path crossing them:

Rowland Hughes’s land grant survey (NC 48) definitely shows the Trading Path, although it is unnamed. John Sloss’s land grant (NC 40) had roads on two sides, one the “old Trading Road” and the other “the Great Road.”

Interestingly, the legal description calls the more northerly of the two road alignments “the old Trading Road” referring to essentially modern Kimrey Road, leading to the Galbreath Ford site about ½ mile downstream of the modern NC Hwy 54 bridge. See The Galbreath Ford below.

The adjacent land grant north of John Sloss’s was William Rainey’s (NC 182), which also refers to this road as “the old Trading Road.”

On the strength of this alone, the evidence would seem to indicate that the Galbreath Ford was the sole route of the Trading Path, but as we will see, the Granville Grant to Campbell and the 1728 grant to Lovick show that the Trading Path ford was also at Swepsonville.

Thomas Lockart’s land grant (NC 67) does not show or mention the Trading Path, but the next survey to the southwest, George Allen’s (NC 162) clearly shows an unnamed road. Likewise James Fruit’s land grant (NC 220) shows the Trading Path crossing the south end of his grant, as well as part of the road to Galbreath Ford which crossed his grant further north; neither road is mentioned by name:

[George Allen Pic]

Following Hwy 119, the Trading Path formed the boundary between James Kennedy (NC 417) and Joseph Sloss (NC 62), both surveys plainly showing “the Great Road.” Next the Trading Path crossed the land grant of Moses Crawford (NC 91) but it was neither shown nor mentioned.

Jane Russell’s survey (NC 154) clearly shows the road forking (both forks called “the Great Road”):

The western fork led to the ford in Swepsonville. The southerly fork led across James Trousdale's land grant (NC 1, showing the road) to the third in the trilogy of fords in the Swepsonville area, the Island Ford. See The Island Ford below. Leaving Jane Russell’s along the western fork, the Trading Path entered the land grant of John Armstrong (NC 364). Though not shown on Armstrong’s plat, the Trading Path crossed through the middle of Armstrong’s land reaching the banks of the Haw River in what is now Swepsonville.

Butler’s Ford

The Trading Path proper crossed the Haw River just below the Swepsonville mill site. This ford is shown on Granville’s 1761 land grant to John Campbell (Gv 531) on the west side of the Haw. This land had originally been surveyed for Adam Davies and the Davies survey explicitly shows the “Western Trading Path.” The legal description refers to Campbell’s grant as being “on the Trading Path.” Here’s that survey:

John Campbell applied to the Orange County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions for permission to build a mill on the Haw River in Aug 1761, but was denied. Just two years after denying Campbell’s mill petition, the Orange Court of Pleas in 1763 granted Henry Eustace McCulloh permission to condemn property opposite Campbell’s grant, on the east bank of the Haw “above the Trading Path” to build the first mill at Swepsonville. There is no surviving record of a transfer from Campbell to McCulloh, but Campbell was a wealthy businessman of Bertie County and an in-law of McCulloh’s. Campbell was among those who were appointed by Power of Attorney to represent Henry McCulloh regarding the sales of land in North Carolina (5 CSR 779). Campbell was apparently acting as a proxy, who obtained the 1761 land grant in trust for the McCulloh’s, which was a common practice of theirs.

The mill site at Swepsonville changed hands many times, but the adjacent farm was variously owned by John Armstrong, Gen. William Butler and Richard Christmas. During the Revolutionary War, the site was commonly called Butler’s Ford, although it was no doubt known by other names as well.

The Galbreath Ford

William Galbreath’s land grant at the confluence of Back Creek and the Haw River included a ford (no doubt ancient) that came to be called Galbreath Ford. Galbreath operated a ferry there for a time and eventually a bridge was built there, known as Galbreath Bridge into the 20th century.

The Galbreath Ford and the Butler Ford both led to the north side of Big Alamance Creek. From there, the route of the Trading Path swung north and uphill, crossing Little Alamance and Gun Creeks higher up where they are shallower, then swinging south and crossing Big Alamance Creek near what is now the Village of Alamance. From there, the Trading Path was virtually identical to NC Hwy 62, cutting diagonally across Henry McCulloh’s Great Tract #11, as shown on Matthew Rowan’s 1745 survey:

Notice that Rowan shows the ford distinctly north of mouth of Big Alamance Creek.

Approaching from the east, the Galbreath Ford route of the Trading Path passed through the land grants of James Murdaugh (NC 78, not shown or mentioned), James Fruit (NC 220, shown but not named), Samuel Patton (NC 175, not shown or mentioned), Richard Gott (NC 502, shown but not named) and William Galbreath (NC 248, shown as "Road to Hillsborough").

The Island Ford

Just after NC Hwy 119 crosses NC Hwy 54, the road into Swepsonville forks. The left fork is now Alfred Road and that was the road to the Island Ford. The Island Ford was located just south of the islands at the Puryear Mill; Tom Burke Lane is a remnant of the road leading down to the river. It would be interesting to get the landowners' permission and check out the route of that road in more detail.

Unlike the Galbreath and Butler Fords, the Island Ford crossed the Haw south of the mouth of Big Alamance Creek, obviating the problem of fording Big Alamance – no doubt one of the reasons why this ford was developed. The Island Ford was apparently established by the time Collett made his 1770 map of North Carolina, as two fords are clearly shown near Armstrong’s Mill, one of them south of the mouth of Big Alamance Creek:

Collett seems to be the only source that associates the "Western or Trading Path" - as Collett calls it - with the Island Ford and the route on the south side of Big Alamance Creek. Henry Mouzon's 1775 map shows the same thing, but Mouzon drew very heavily from Collett's map.

Still further to the south, just above the mouth of Haw Creek, the Hunter family set up a ferry in the early 19th century or perhaps late 18th. The Island Ford and Hunter’s Ferry are both shown distinctly on the 1808 Price-Strother map of North Carolina. The site of Swepsonville is labeled R. Christmas:

The 1833 McRae-Brazier Map of North Carolina shows the same crossings (though Hunter’s Ferry is unlabeled) as well as still another crossing, Thomspon’s Ferry a little further downstream. The site of Swepsonville is labeled Murphy Mills on this map:

The Old Trading Path

Old court and land records in Orange County mention the Old Trading Path or Old Trading Road many times. Looking through all of the 18th century court and land records that still exist for Orange County (including the Granville Grants, the State Land Grants, the minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, the minutes of Hillsborough Superior Court and the entirety of Orange County Deed Books 1 through 16), it appears that all references to “the old Trading Path,” “old Trading Road,” “Trading Road” or “Trading Path” refer to the route I have described above (i.e. a mostly unitary route from Hillsborough to Hawfields and a dual route from Hawfields to the Haw River).

The various roads leading to Woody’s Ferry, Hunter’s Ferry, the Saxapahaw Ford, the Island Ford, and Trollinger’s Ford were all parts of major routes from Hillsborough to Salisbury at various times. Probably all of these crossings were known to the Native Americans from much earlier times, but no old Orange County records ever refer to any of these crossings or the roads that led to them as being the Trading Path (though Collett shows the Western or Trading Path as crossing at the Island Ford). And the very oldest land records for the area that is now Orange County – the 1728 Proprietary land grants to John Lovick and William Moseley – all agree that the Old Trading Path followed NC Hwy 119 crossing the Haw at what is now Swepsonville. Some records show that the Galbreath Ford was the Trading Path as well. Probably both fords, which are near each other, were used, one being better than the other depending on the water level.

Sick of Confederate Apologism

2010-05-13T12:18:00.000-07:00

I get so sick of Confederate apologists. They like to advance the argument that the Civil War was about States’ rights – and they are right as far as they go. The Civil War was about States’ rights – to have slavery.

This is where the neo-Confederates go ballistic (hopefully not literally), but let’s look at the actual facts. When the Confederate representatives assembled to draft up a constitution in 1861, they went to some pains to make themselves well understood on the issue of slavery. For example, in Article I, Section 9, subsection 4 they wrote: “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.” Pretty much makes their decidedly pro-slavery stance clear.

Article IV, Section 2, sub-section 1 was written to preclude another Dred Scott case from arising: "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.”

Article IV, Section 2, sub-section 3 was written to ensure that no runaway slave would ever be free: “No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs, or to whom such service or labor may be due.”

Article IV, Section 3, sub-section 3, was written to ensure that future states and territories in the CSA would mandatorily have slavery: “The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.”

Why all the focus on slavery in the Confederate Constitution? Because the Civil War was about slavery.

Crosspost: Origins of the Chatham County Court House

2010-03-27T14:25:00.000-07:00

Check out this great collection of newspaper accounts of the construction of the old Chatham County Court House (which tragically burned two days ago):

http://fusionrule.com/2010/03/26/origins-of-the-chatham-county-court-house-1881-1882/

The Old Gravelly Hill School

2010-03-17T16:20:00.000-07:00

Probably most of you know of Orange County Public Schools' Gravelly Hill Middle School on Old NC 10 near Efland. And you may have read that the name was chosen after a historic school that was nearby a century or more ago.

A while back I stumbled across a copy of a deed and survey at the State Archives from Thomas P. Devereux to Thomas Squires, William Shaw, Thomas Thompson, John Nelson, and Samuel N Tate "Commissioners of the Public School Ridge District No [blank] in the County of Orange on the headwaters of Seven Mile Creek adjoining the land of Thomas Squires . . ." Here's the survey:

But I wasn't too sure where it was. This other deed and survey to Thomas Squires helped a lot. It was also from Thomas P Devereux and wrapped around the north and east sides of the school lot:

Both Squires and the school committee were acquiring their property from Thomas Devereux, whose brother-in-law Cullen Pollock owned a 5,000 acre tract near Efland and Mebane. The Pollock Tract was subdivided around 1754 into 10 nearly square lots of 500 acres each. During his life Cullen sold off numerous parcels, usually about 1/2 of a 500 acre lot at a time. The rest of the land was leased out. When Cullen died his lands passed to Cullen's sister and her husband Thomas Devereux.

Thomas P Devereux and Frances Pollock Devereux obtained extensive land holdings from Cullen Pollock - in many other counties to the east of here as well as the last of the Pollock Tract between Efland and Mebane. Devereux immediately set out to sell off the last of the Pollock Tract and there were about a half dozen sales around 1840 including the above conveyances to the school and Thomas Squires.

Putting together the whole picture, all these transactions were in Lot 2 of the Pollock Tract which is basically the place we know as Cheeks Crossroads:

Site I was purchased by Wesley Miles. Site II was purchased by Thomas Squires. Site III was the school tract. Site IV was purchased by Wilson Brown. All these sales were around 1840.

As you can see, that old school lot was on the west side of Buckhorn Road about 2/3 of a mile south of its intersection with Old NC 10. I don't know what's there now, but it would be interesting to go look. I assume that this is the school that was once known as Gravelly Hill School.

The Island Ford

2010-02-08T19:57:00.001-08:00

Swepsonville was where the main route of the Trading Path crossed the Haw River, although there were numerous alternative fords such as Galbreath's just above Swepsonville and the Island Ford just below. Sometime soon I'll post more detail about the Galbreath Ford, but tonight I thought I'd write about the Island Ford.

Here are a couple of views of the Island Ford vicinity from old maps:

Collett 1770

Price-Strother 1808

MacRae-Brazier 1833

As the Trading Path approached Swepsonville (formerly Armstrong's Mill, Murphey's Mill, Ruffin's Mill etc.) it followed almost exactly the route of NC-119 coming south from Hawfields Church. Old land records paint a detailed picture of the route and it matches the route of NC-119 very closely. As 119 crosses NC-54, there is a fork in the road. The left fork is Alfred Road and it was the road to the Island Ford.

I think the Island Ford was located just south of the islands at the Puryear Mill and that Tom Burke Lane is a remnant of the road leading down to the river. It would be interesting to get the landowners' permission and check out the route of that road in more detail.

Settlers in Tract 11

2010-01-25T16:50:00.000-08:00

Pretty much this entire blogpost is extracted from John Scott Davenport's excellent article Early Settlers in the North Carolina Piedmont on Land Sold by Henry McCulloh within Granville's District, 1749-1763 (NCGenSoc Journal, #4, 1978). I also cross-referenced against William D. Bennett's transcripts of Orange Deed Books 1-5. He's transcripted several more deed books, but I haven't made it through them all.

According to Davenport: In 1737 Henry McCulloh through proxies obtained from the King an order to grant 1.2 Million acres of land in the North Carolina Piedmont. However, the deed for this 1.2 Million acres was not issued until 1745. These tracts were 12 squares of 100,000 acres each and subdivided into smaller tracts so as to pass on proportionate shares to smaller investors in McCulloh's scheme.

Defining the Granville District

The timing of this is important, for the King had granted a deed in fee simple absolute to Earl Granville in 1744 for a 60 mile wide swath of North Carolina, from the Virginia line southward to Ocracoke Inlet. This line, the Granville Line was run from Ocracoke Inlet westward in 1743 by a delegation appointed by Granville and Gov. Gabriel Johnston. The surveyors of the Granville Line stopped at the confluence of the Haw and Deep Rivers in what is now Chatham County, but the line was extended further westward in 1746 and still further west in 1753. Thus, McCulloh's deed was issued in 1745 after Granville's 1744 deed, but before Granville's line had been extended west of Mermaid Point.

McCulloh Tracts in Conflict with Granville

This presented a big problem because McCulloh's Great Tracts 8, 9, 10, 11 & 12 were partly or wholly within the Granville District. Because McCulloh's tracts were all established before 1746 when the Granville Line was extended, and because the order from George II came earlier even than Granville's deed, McCulloh felt that his title was superior to Granville's regarding the Great Tracts that were north of the Granville Line (see McCulloh memos in The Colonial Records of North Carolina). McCulloh and Granville went through considerable wrangling and they did not reach an agreement until 1755.

Granville McCulloh Agreement 1

Under that agreement McCulloh was to register all sales in Granville's land office and the purchasers were to pay their quit rents (taxes) to Granville. In 1760 George III was crowned and he elevated Granville to President of the Privy Council, making him extremely powerful on both sides of the Atlantic.

Granville McCulloh Agreement 2

At the end of 1761, McCulloh and Granville reached a new agreement under which McCulloh would have two years to sell his lands within the Granville District and then thereafter he would deed the remainder to Granville in fee simple. It was at this time that Henry Eustace McCulloh and other agents for Henry McCulloh began furiously selling off land. However Davenport says sales were low owing to Native American conflicts in western North Carolina. Those problems did not affect Great Tracts 11 & 12 as much, because these two were more eastern.

Location of McCulloh's Great Tract 11

Tract 11 was a square rotated 45 degrees forming a diamond. It was 12.5 miles on a side, stretching from the old Rowan/Orange County line on the western tip to Swepsonville on the eastern end. Thus Tract 11 included big parts of what are now Alamance and Guilford Counties as well as small parts of Chatham and perhaps Randolph Counties. Tract 12 was in what are now Durham and Granville Counties and we shall discuss that tract another time (also a 12.5x12.5 mile square, but rotate 35 degrees instead of 45).

The Death of Granville

Under the terms of the 1761 agreement, McCulloh was to have to the sooner of the end of 1763 or until Granville's death to sell lands that conflicted with the Granville District. Granville died in January of 1763, cutting McCulloh's time by almost 50%. Davenport points out that there were numerous deeds after Granville's death but supposes that these deeds were purusant to contracts made before Granville's death. I cannot help but wonder whether the contracts were merely back-dated.

H. E. McCulloh's Deed of Surrender to the Granville Estate

When Henry E. McCulloh surrendered to Granville's estate the unsold lands in McCulloh's Great Tract #11, he listed out all of the parties to whom his father Henry McCulloh had sold land in Tract 11. Davenport lists all of these as an interesting record of who all the purchasers in Tract 11 were:

1. George Clapp, 320 acres, 20 sep, 1757
2. David Low, 350 acres, 8 Mar, 1758
3. Peter Helton, 320 acres, 11 Mar, 1758
4. Frederick Brown, 233 acres, 11 Mar, 1758
5. William Piggott, 297 acres, 11 Mar, 1758; ODB3/95 part to John Wheeler; PatentBk19/449.
6. Joseph Boggs, 546 acres, 11 Mar, 1758
7. Charles Davis, 187 acres, 2 Aug, 1758; see ODB2/562 to Jeremiah Piggot; on Cain Ck.
8. Joseph Buckingham, 171 acres, 7 Aug, 1758
9. Benjamin Piggott, 160 acres, 7 Aug, 1758
10. James Woods, 200 acres, 8 Aug, 1758
11. John McGee, 305 acres, 8 Aug, 1758
12. Thomas Low, 320 acres, 8 Jun, 1759; ODB3/333&334 HM to Lowe to John Powell; lots in town laid out by Lowe waters Stinking Quarter. Also ODB3/335 lot to Jacob Reason.
13. John Graves, 387 acres, 9 Jun, 1759; ODB6/5 to John Effland, p/o HM to John Graves, 129 ac Stink/4
14. Jacob Boon, 200 acres, 27 Feb, 1760
15. Frederick Siving, 159 acres, 15 Nov, 1760
16. Richard Brownrigg, 992 acres, 1 Dec, 1760
17. John Graves, 270 acres, 2 Dec, 1760
18. Elias Powell, 143 acres, 24 May, 1761
19. George Fogelman, 208 acres, 24 May, 1761; ODB 2, pg 503; stinking Quarter Ck
20. Michael Holt jr, 510 acres, 14 Nov, 1761
21. Anthony Moser, 220 acres, 8 Sep, 1762
22. Peter Noe, 507 acres, 8 Sep, 1762; ODB3/503 HEM to Noe to John Bounce 100 ac Thos 23. Rich's corner. Also ODB3/299 John Noe to Jacob Graves 1/2 of mill & 10ac on Stinking Quarter part of HEM to Peter Noe.
23. Adam Smith, 320 acres, 9 Sep, 1762;ODB3/361 part of HM to Smith, Joseph Revoner to Eadon Smith part of 320 ac. Not part of same proeprty, but see ODB3/138 Jas Williams to Michael Holt begin at Adam Smith Corner NxxW 23.5 ch. N45E 72 ch S45E 35 to Gt road Hboro to Salisbury to first station, waters Stinking 1/4 adjoin Samuel Suther, Philip Foust, Tobias Smith, J Perkins and prop formerly HEM now State. Also ODB4/423.
24. John Barton, 1000 acres, 9 Feb, 1762; 'On July 26, 1764 Conrad Staley bought 125 acres on Stinking Quarter Creek from Wiliam Barton, whose father John had bought a 1,000 acre tract from Henry McCulloch et al in 1760.'-google
25. James Powell, 200 acres, 9 Sep, 1762; ODB6/73 part to Elias Powell;
26. John Powell, 907 acres, 13 Oct, 1762; see ODB2/368 Powell to Wm Oneal to Phillip Albright; Ludwick Albright's line. ODB5/13 William Oneal to Phillip Albright 150.5 Ac both sides Haw R begin on Philip Albright's old line, N45E 21 p, N45W 100p, N45E 16 p, N45W 52 P, S45W 158 P, S 45 E 59 P to Phillip Albright's old line, N4E 155 (poles?) to first station; p/o tract HEM to John Powell no date; ODB 6/112 part to John Holt jr; also ODB6/115 part to William Dixon; OD6/69 to Ludwick Albright
27. John Grayson, 200 acres, 10 Sep, 1762;
28. Benjamin Phillips, 250 acres, 10 Sep, 1762
29. Peter Low, 200 acres, 10 Sep, 1762
30. John McGee, 401 acres, 10 Sep, 1762
31. Peter Eiffland, 210 acres, 11 Sep, 1762
32. William McMath, 200 acres, 11 Sep, 1762
33. Adam Lawrance, 320 acres, 11 Sep, 1762
34. Paul Harmon, 228 acres, 11 Sep, 1762; HM to Paul Herman 9/11/1762 to Peter Herman to 35. George Foust ODB 4/186; on Gt Alamance.
36. John Holt, 200 acres, 11 Sep, 1762
37. Isaac Grayson, 907 acres, 11 Sep, 1762
38. John Phillip Clapp, 202 acres, 11 Sep, 1762
39. Jeremiah Piggott, 209 acres, 13 Sep, 1762
40. David Low, 302 acres, 12 Sep, 1762
41. George Coble, 202 acres, 13 Sep, 1762
42. Jacob Coble, 202 acres, 13 Sep, 1762
43. Samuel Low, 250 acres, 13 Sep, 1762
44. John Oliver, 562 acres, 13 Sep, 1762; see ODB2/492 to Peter Courtney; Gt Alamanace; 45. George Fogelman's line.
45. Peter Poor, 202 acres, 14 Sep, 1762
46. Nicholas Counts, 250 acres, 14 Sep, 1762
47. Nicholas Holt, 275 acres, 16 Sep, 1762
48. Hugh Smith, 467 acres, 16 Sep, 1762
49. John Fuller, 200 acres, 13 Sep, 1762
50. Peter Holt, 200 acres, 17 Sep, 1762
51. David May, 327 acres, 13 Sep, 1762
52. Henry Whitsell, 202 acres, 17 Sep, 1762
53. Peter Gevell, 202 acres, 18 Sep, 1762
54. Archibald Morrison, 432 acres, 13 Sep, 1762
55. Barnard Clapp, 1122 acres, 18 Sep, 1762
56. Ludowick Clapp, 360 acres, 18 Sep, 1762
57. Malachy Isley, 200 acres, 14 Sep, 1762; ODB4/194 Isley to Phillip Foust to John Albright; Daniel may's Corner; Joseph Bogg's line; Greeson's Corner.
58. Ludowick Isley, 257 acres, 14 Sep, 1762
59. Henry Sharp, 216 acres, 8 Oct, 1762
60. John Shady, 200 acres, 7 Oct, 1762
61. Richard Henderson, 200 acres, ------, ---; ODB3/204 HM to Henderson 1/12/1760 to William Piggott; 240 ac; waters Rocky R; s/s Haw R.
62. Hames Vestal, 183 acres, ------, ---
63. Thomas Bramston, 577 acres, ------, ---
64. Jesse Pugh, 147 acres, ------, ---
65. Robert Stewart, 207 acres, ------, --- see part sold ODB2/593 Stewart to Thomas Canby to Edmund Fanning; Thos. Davis line; 1769. Also other part ODB2/560 Stewart to Thos Davis to Jeremiah Piggot; Cain Ck.
66. Joseph Welts, 513 acres, ------, ---
67. John Marshall, 216 acres, ------, ---
68. Michael Wolf, 250 acres, 4 Oct, 1762
69. Jacob Housman, 200 acres, 2 May, 1763
70. George Sharp, 214 acres, 13 May, 1763
71. Peter Ream, 202 acres, 4 May, 1763
72. Gasper Bare, 202 acres, 16 May, 1763
73. Nicholas Puntrick, 1386 acres, 16 May, 1763
74. Jacob Withrow, 1692 acres, 16 May, 1763
75. Barnard Troxell, 732 acres, 16 May, 1763
76. George Ingle, 258 acres, 17 May, 1763
77. Martin Loy, 251 acres, 17 May, 1763; apparently he built a mill on Rock Creek.
78. Phillip Sellers, 223 acres, 1 May, 1763
79. John Noe, 308 acres, 23 May, 1763; see ODB 2, pg 193; Noe to John Graves; Gt Alamance; 80. Phillip Seller's corner; Potmaker's line; cross Stinking Quarter; HEM to John Noe 1764 ODB 2, pg 576; Stinking Quarter Ck.
81. James Woods, 565 acres, 20 May, 1763
82. Andrew Campbell, 487 acres, 23 May, 1763
83. Dial Povey, 330 acres, 23 May, 1763
84. John Armstrong, 573 acres, 22 May, 1763
85. Frederick Moser, 225 acres, 24 May, 1763
86. William McMath, 513 acres, 25---, 1763
87. Christian Funkhouser, 1240 acres, 18 May, 1763
88. Peter Julian, 247 acres, 30 Sep, 1763
89. John Beverly, 200 acres, 3 May, 1763
90. Samuel Underwood, 305 acres, 30 May, 1763
91. H & A Underwood, 333 acres, 30 May, 1763; ODB4/712 HEM to Allexander Underwood and State to underwood to Nathan Hornaday 300 ac headbranches Rock Ck. Alex U to Christopher Hornaday ODB5/381 borders Hiatt, Stewart, Purgh, Marshall and Pyke.
92. Conrad Stoner, 225 acres, 1 Jun, 1763
93. Ludowick Albright, 258 acres, 1 Jun, 1763
94. John Holt, 215 acres, 24 May, 1763
95. Jacob Boon, 200 acres, 24 May, 1763 see ODB 2, pg 494 sold to Adam Whitesil; John Shadey's corner.
96. Henry Camira, 300 acres, 26 Jun, 1763
97. John Butler, 414 acres, 6 May, 1763
98. Christian Hoffman, 290 acres, 30 Jun, 1763; nearby deed ODB4/652 JohnHuffman to Adam Whitsell, Gun Ck; just outside Tract 11?
99. George Clapp, 362 acres, 8 May, 1763
100. Samuel Underwood, 200 acres, 20 Jun, 1763
101. Aaron Sharp, 266 acres, 1 May, 1763; ODB7/258 185 ac to George Foust.
102. Thomas Reck, 430 acres, 31 May, 1763
103. Samuel Oliver, 203 acres, 6 Jun, 1763
104. Abraham Helton, 210 acres, 25 May, 1763
105. Thomas Fuller, 260 acres, 10 Jun, 1763
106. John Marshel, 500 acres, 6 Jun, 1763
107. Andrew Randolph, 388 acres, 8 Jun, 1763
108. Joseph Wells, 208 acres, 6 Jun, 1763; see ODB2/422 to Nathan Wells; William Marshall's line; N/S Cane Ck; crossing creek; part of 2 tracts HEM 6/7/1765 & 4/16/1760. Also ODB4/662 part to John Thompson of Chatham. ODB5/240 Wells to Levi Gifford; s/s Cain Ck?; William Marshall's line; John piggott's line. see also ODB5/247&433.
109. Thomas Wiman, 202 acres, 2 Jun, 1763
110. Charles Adams, 297 acres, 20 Oct, 1763; ODB5/78 Robert sr to jr Gt Alamance; Trousdale line; partly from HEM, Charles Adams and State. ODB5/79 very similar.
Robert Hunter, 316 acres, 12 Oct, 1763; ODB4/678 HEM to Robert Hunter (9/22/1762 ???) to Matthew Hunter begin at bank of Haw S75W 220p, N81W 225 P to corner Robt Ray near the Potters Old Field alond sd line N75E 240p to whiteoak on River dwon meanders; 316 ac.
111. Bartholomew Dunn, 1590 acres, 7 Jun, 1763
112. Joseph Trotter, 516 acres, 7 Jun, 1763
113. Alexander Tansey, 304 acres, 8 Jun, 1763
114. Michael King, 256 acres, 7 Jun, 1763; ODB3/146 John Smith to John Long & John Clark 184 ac; waters of Stinking Quarter; "to Michael King from Henry McCulloch 2 June 3rd yr reign Geo III"; Bennett notes this is not in the deed to Granville's estate probably because Davenport transcribed the name as Michael Iling. part of same tract Peter Richardon to John Morice 72 ac; waters Stinking Quarter. HM to King 6/1/1762 256 ac.
115. George Coble, 360 acres, 8 Jun, 1763
116. Fr. Leinberher, 554 acres, 10 Jun, 1763
117. George Counts, 222 acres, 8 Jun, 1763
118. Jacob Leinburgher, 242 acres, 9 Jun, 1763
119. John Linn, 410 acres, 9 Jun, 1763
120. Joseph Clapp, 620 acres, 30 Jun, 1763
121. Charles Adams, 200 acres, 24 Jun, 1763
122. Frederick Low, 932 acres, 27 Jun, 1763
123. Anthony Coble, 450 acres, 18 Jun, 1763; see ODB2/49 HEM to Coble 307 ac; boths ides Pitmans Ck; SW line of Great Tract; a corner of HEM [sub-]tract 5.
124. Ludowick Surig, 370 acres, 25 Jun, 1763
125. John Nutts, 268 acres, 24 Jun, 1763
126. Adam Whitsell, 706 acres, 22 Jun, 1763
127. Robert Lindsay, 407 acres, 24 Jun, 1763
128. Henry Whitsell, 200 acres, 24 Jun, 1763
129. John McComb, 280 acres, 24 Jun, 1763
130. Michael Holt, 300 acres, 21 Jun, 1763; ODb5/526 to barnett Troxler 37 ac. s/s Gt Alamance; John claps corner.
131. John Barber, 479 acres, 9 Jun, 1763
132. John Coble, 355 acres, 22 Jun, 1763
133. William Davis, 200 acres, 25 Jun, 1763
134. Henry Strade, 200 acres, 20 Jun, 1763
135. George Courtney, 494 acres, 25 Jun, 1763
136. John Grayson, 531 acres, 28 Jun, 1763
137. George Leingurger, 242 acres, 28 Jun, 1763
138. Nicholas Grayson, 243 acres, 25 Jun, 1763
139. Joseph Peary, 744 acres, 23 Jun, 1763
140. Peter Helton, 217 acres, 28 Jun, 1763
141. George jr Coble, 200 acres, 28 Jun, 1763
142. J P Clapp, 200 acres, 25 Jun, 1763
143. Jacob Albright, 215 acres, 10 Jun, 1763; ODB4/181&182 to Henry and Daniel Albright; Rock Ck near John Loy's Mill. see patent Bk57/86. Also ODB 4/470 Loy's Millpond.
144. Tobias Clapp, 200 acres, 26 Jun, 1763
145. James Davison, 616 acres, 18 Jun, 1763
146. John Bracken, 200 acres, 28 May, 1763
147. Manfield Crow, 992 acres, 25 Jun, 1763
148. Henry E. McCulloh, 1320 acres, 20 Nov, 1763
149. Henry E. McCulloh, 1120 acres, 20 Nov, 1763
150. Henry E. McCulloh, 1000 acres, 20 Nov, 1763
151. Henry E. McCulloh, 1856 acres, 1 Jun, 1763
152. Henry E. McCulloh, 1125 acres, 20 Apr, 1763
153. Henry E. McCulloh, 1542 acres, 20 Apr, 1763
154. Henry E. McCulloh, 1300 acres, 3 Jun, 1763

H E McCulloh's deed of surrender lacks any information about where within the tract these persons were, but it is likely a fairly comprehensive list. In some cases I have added above references to Orange Deed Books which tend to confirm the transactions or clarify where the property was. I reviewed up through and including Deed Book 5, but there are clearly many other subsequent deeds.

McCulloh Deeds Not Listed in the Surrender to Granville

William D. Bennett only located one deed in his transcriptions that seemed not to comport with HEM's list of exceptions in the 1763 deed of surrender. However this was merely a mis-reading of the name Michael King in Davenport's list.

However, the grant from Henry Mcculloh to William O'Neal (12/20/1760) which is documented in the further conveyance to Jacob Grave (ODB 4/164) on Stinking Quarter Creek does not seem to match any of the HEM exceptions in the Granville surrender.

Others

There are a number of other Henrey Eustace McCulloh transactions, which apparently relate to the thousands of acres deeded from Henry McCulloh to his son at the last minute:

ODB4/560 John Peek to John Marshall 5 ac part of 230 ac to John Pike, Henry [E?] McC, John Campbell & Alexander McCulloh on Cain Cl John Marshal's line on north John Pike's line on east.

Armstrong, HEM, Trousdale ODB 2, pg 584; Swepsonville mill site.

ODB4/693 John Ray to George Foust 150 ac p/o larger tract HEM to Wm Ray sr./ Gt Alamance begin mouth of branch S18E 20ch, S41E 11 ch, S11W 25 ch, W 30.5 ch to Foust's line near his corner, N4W? 25 ch to a creek James Latta's corner near mouth of Little Alamance Ck to first station. ODB6/167 Martha Ray widow to John Holmes, J Lindleys line, p/o larger tract HEM to William Ray.

ODB4/340 HEM to John Huffman 12/28/1773 both sides Cedar Ck.

State Grants of Confiscated Henry E. McCulloh Lands

I skipped (for now) state confiscation deeds for HEM lands.

Great Tract #11 and the Haw River

2010-01-24T09:04:00.001-08:00

So far as I can tell, no formal legal description of Henry McCulloh’s Great Tract #11 has survived to the modern day. We have a copy of a map that shows all twelve of McCulloh’s Great Tracts, originally drawn by Matthew Rowan and retraced a few years ago by the late Charles Holleman of Raleigh (the original being very inaccessible in a private collection in England. Here’s how the Holleman Tracing looks as reprinted in the North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal:

[If you are missing part of the picture on the east, you can click through to see the complete image.]

As shown, the diamond shaped Tract 11 does not appear to include land on the east side of the Haw River. However, the drawing cannot be taken literally, as the land and rivers are very schematic, not to scale.

According to Fred Hughes, the western extremity of this massive tract just about touched the old Rowan/Orange County line on the west. A 100,000 acre square is exactly 12.5 miles on a side and relying on Fred Hughes’s Historical Documentation: Guilford County, I measure (using Google Earth) that Tract #11 cut across the Haw River into a slice of the Lovick Tract, just missing any part of the Little Tract – which if correct would put the Swepsonville millsite distinctly outside Tract 11, though just barely.

However this would be a troubling conclusion. All of the documents involved in selling the mill from John Armstrong to John Trousdale show that the underlying title was Henry Eustace McCulloh’s. An agreement in the Armstrong Papers at the Southern Historical Collection shows that in July 1764 Armstrong agreed to build a saw mill and operate it. He was to pay 50 pounds a year to Henry Eustace McCulloh and at the end of 4 years McCulloh was to deed him a 1/2 undivided interest in the mill. This seems to have transpired as planned and McCulloh and Armstrong jointly sold the mill to John Trousdale only a few years after Armstrong's 50% interest vested. Yet the Armstrong/Trousdale mill site seems to be just north of the McCulloh line, putting it outside of McCulloh's Great Tract #11.

Land Grants on the West Bank

In order to more precisely fix McCulloh's S45E line as it intersected the Haw River, let's take a look at the Granville grants for that area (Granville's records being far more complete than McCulloh's).

John Campbell

This 1761 Granville grant to John Campbell is an obvious place to start:

The textual description of this tract refers to the S45E line here as “a line called McCullock’s” and the survey clearly shows one of the Trading Path fords on the Haw River. An important question, then, is which ford on the Haw this was. As I will show in a moment, this was definitely the ford at Swepsonville.

Conrod Long

Another interesting grant in that area is Orange Co. State Land Grant #167 to Conrod Long (below). Long's State Grant was dated 1779, but he was probably on this property much earlier. As the survey clearly shows Nelson Branch ran through and just off the south edge of this property.

My Historical Atlas of the Haw River says “John Hopkins, Samuel Shaw and William Galbreath all ran ferries near the mouth of Back Creek (Orange Court of Pleas and Quarter Session Minutes for May 1780, Feb 1783, May 1783 and Feb 1784).” I didn’t cite it in the Atlas, but there are deeds from Hopkins to Shaw conveying two parcels on opposite sides of the Haw River, recorded at Deed Book 2, pg 363 and 364 (1783). The deed for the west side of the Haw (page 364) reads “begin at a sweet gum on Nelsons Creek . . .” demonstrating that Nelson's Creek or Branch is the creek directly opposite the mouth of Back Creek. Using that reference point and the Conrod Long grant, we can sketch Mr. Long's farm onto a modern topo map.

William Phillips

Conrod Long’s grant indicates that the property owner to the south of him was named Phillips. This appears to have been William Phillips, who received a Granville grant in 1761 for 700 acres on the west side of the Haw (#538). The accompanying survey (shown below) plainly shows a creek flowing into the Haw, but neither the survey nor the legal description mentions the name.

I assume that this is Nelson Creek as shown on the Conrod Long grant and that William Phillips is the Phillips mentioned in the legal description of Long's grant. It is also notable that the 1761 grant to John Campbell refers to the property owner to the north as being Phillips. Note also that Campbell’s northern line was 81 chains from the Haw River due west to McCulloh’s line and Phillips southern boundary was also 81 chains due west from the Haw (and the next call of Phillips’s deed is N45W – a perfect match to McCulloh’s line, although McCulloh is not mentioned in the Phillips grant).

Putting It All Together

Thus, Conrod Long was just north of Nelson Branch. To the south of Long was William Phillips straddling the mouth of Nelson Branch, directly opposite Galbreath and Hopkins at the mouth of Back Creek. And to the south of Phillips was John Campbell. Mapping all three of these land grants together, it is clear that John Campbell’s grant was immediately opposite what would later be the textile mill in Swepsonville, with his southernmost corner being about 15 chains above the confluence of Big Alamance Creek and the Haw. Thus it would seem that the McCulloh line intersected the Haw River immediately south of the mill site at Swepsonville, rather nicely corroborating the result I got from projecting the location based on Historical Documentation: Guilford County.

The Mill Petitions

The Orange Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions minutes for August 1761 record that John Campbell petitioned for permission to build a gristmill on the Haw River – just a few weeks before Campbell received his grant from Granville on 8/23/1761. However, notably Campbell’s mill petition was rejected and he gave notice of appeal to Halifax Court. It would be interesting to see if Halifax Court records of this case still exist.

In August 1763, the Orange Court of Pleas minutes show that Henry Eustace McCulloh condemned land of Robert Nugent in order to build a mill on the Haw River opposite land owned by McCulloh. My interpretation is that this petition relates to the same site as John Campbell's petition and that Henry Eustace McCulloh was a successor in interest to Campbell. This seems especially plausible because John Campbell was one of Henry McCulloh's agents in North Carolina. Henry spent most of his time in England and transacted business in North Carolina through some close associates to whom he granted Powers of Attorney. The surviving POA's name Henry's son Henry Eustace McCulloh, Alexander McCulloh and John Campbell (5 Colonial Records of North Carolina 779-782; 6 CR 532-536).

In other words, I think John Campbell obtained his Granville grant on behalf of Henry McCulloh (or Henry Eustace McCulloh) and merely held the property in trust for him; that might sound like an odd arrangement today, but it was a common method of operation for the McCullohs. All of this would explain how Henry Eustace McCulloh came to sell John Trousdale a mill site just outside of Tract 11.

Robert Nugent

This theory has left me with another curious question: Who was the Robert Nugent from whom McCulloh was condemning land? He must have owned the land that later became the Armstorng/Butler Tract - the east bank of the Haw at the Swepsonville mill site. But the Orange County Deed Books show no deeds to or from Robert Nugent - or any Nugent for that matter. Neither does the name Nugent appear in William D. Bennett's index of Orange land records (which includes the Granville papers). In fact, I cannot find any sign of Robert Nugent in any source related to 18th century Orange County.

The only clue I have come across is that there was a Robert Nugent in England who was oneo fthe Lords of Treasury in 1754. Perhaps Robert Nugent was the person who obtained supposed title to the Forster, Little and Lovick Tracts from former Gov. George Burrington. Burrington had nominally owned 40,000 acres in the Hawfields just east of Tract 11, but only 30,000 acres of that passed to Samuel Strudwick. The title to the other 10,000 acres has never been accounted for, although the area where that 10,000 acres lies is along the Haw River between the mouths of Back Creek and Big Alamance Creek - in other words all around Swepsonville.

James Stockard

The land on the west bank of the Haw above Alamance Creek eventually escheated to the University of North Carolina and was sold to James Stockard:

Stockard's 580 acres here includes almost all of the 1761 John Campbell grant (exceptin part carved out for 'the mill tract') as well as a a part of Tract 11. Notably Stockard's deed mentions that the property owner to the north is Phillips, quite consistent with our interpretation of the location of the Campbell grant. Much of this property eventually became a part of Archibald Debow Murphey's estate, The Hermitage.

Carrboro: From Forest to Mill Village and Beyond - Historical Geography, City Planning and Sense of Place

2010-01-23T05:34:00.000-08:00

The following is more or less the presentation I made as part of the UNC Geography Department's Spring Colloquium series (Jan 24, 2010):

I want to begin by discussing the historical landscape of Carrboro, but while doing so, I will have to address the historical landscape of Chapel Hill. So let’s get started.

Before Carrboro, before Chapel Hill, before UNC, there was a chapel - an Anglican chapel of ease, which was a respite for travellers. It was called New Hope Chapel, after the creek into whose waters it drained. There is a land grant to Mark Morgan for the "Chapel Tract" in 1747, so it was built before that. The chapel was where the south end of the Carolina Inn is now.

Forty-five years later, UNC's original campus was donated to the University by Chapel Hill area land owners who thought that having a University around here would bring property values up (a point upon which they have been suitably vindicated). Mark Morgan's Chapel Tract was among the donations. Another donor was Kit Barbee and I am standing on his land right now as I give this talk. Some other donors gave parcels that were nearby but not contiguous, for example the seldom noted Alexander Piper, who gave a 20 acre tract of land about a mile west of what became UNC (ODB 5, pg 614).

Piper’s grant is shown plainly on the 1792 Daniel map of UNC's lands, the first detailed map of this area. The second map of this area is the 1795 Plan of the Situation of Ye University, which is the oldest existing map showing the location of the streets in Chapel Hill. Here is the intersection of Franklin and Columbia.

I got to wondering just where the Piper Donation was, so I made a bit of a mash up of the 1795 Plan of the Situation, the 1792 Daniel Map, and the 2009 Orange County GIS tax maps, tying together the dog leg western boundary of the campus, the lots at the corner of Franklin and Columbia Street and the position of the Patterson Donation shown on the Daniel map. The result is very interesting:

The Piper Donation was what would later become Downtown Carrboro. The tract appears to have run from the rail line on the east to Oak Avenue on the west and from Weaver Street south to the south edge of the lots along Main Street. The Orange Co Tax Assessor currently values the Piper Donation at about $20 Million.

Of course, back in 1792, there was not that much there in terms of development. Two roads ran through the property. The north fork was essentially what is now Weaver Street, turning northward and following Main Street, and then Hillsborough Road to Hillsborough. The south fork led to McCauley's Mill, a grist mill that stood about where University Lake dam is now; no modern road really tracks that course.

UNC sold off this future $20 Million in real estate in 1837 to John M Craig for $40 (ODB 28, pg 272). Thirty years later, Craig's estate sold a larger parcel William L Saunders – apparently the same vicinity: "lying on the western outskirts of Chapel Hill upon both sides of the road leading from Chapel Hill to Greensboro adjoining the lands of John Weaver, Thomas Weaver, and others and bounded as follows: Beginning at the mud hole in Craigs Lane upon said Road running thence . . . to a locust on the road leading to Greensboro [now North Greensboro Street] then . . . to a rock in the road from Chapel Hill to Jones Ford on Haw River [Jones Ferry Road] thence E with the said Road” (ODB 39, pg 312). Saunders sold exactly the same property to Chapel Hill merchant Henry H Patterson and Fendal S Hogan in 1879 (ODB 46, pg 257). That 101 ½ acres became most of downtown Carrboro.

The Railroad

Notably, 1879 was quite a propitious year in which to have bought that land, as the State University Rail Road was just getting reorganized and preparing to actually build a rail line this time around – which they actually completed in 1882. In the middle of Patterson’s 101 ½ acres was where the rail line terminated – right where it reached the road leading to Hillsborough, Greensboro, and points westward. That extension of Rosemary Street in Chapel Hill, the street at which the railhead stopped, came to be called Main Street.

You will commonly hear it said that Carrboro grew up where it did because the railroad was prohibited from coming within one mile of the University campus. That is not correct. There was no statute from the Legislature nor any corporate charter provision nor any decision of the UNC Board of Trustees requiring that the railhead keep away from the campus. Quite the reverse of the claims of some, the Trustees were not at all shy about the railroad; they lobbied the legislature to get the use of convict labor for construction. And it appears that the project needed cheap labor as it was seriously underfunded and only barely got built.

Various alternative routes were considered in 1879 and the most promising two were the route that was actually built from Carrboro to University Station on the North Carolina Railroad and a route that would have run more or less along what is now 15-501 to the rail line in Durham. It is interesting to contemplate for a moment how different our community would be if that rail line had been built to Durham. However, the line to Durham was more expensive; without adequate investment from Durham businessmen, the shorter and cheaper route to University Station had to be used. Gen. Hoke's iron mine offered to provide the steel, which sealed the deal for the route that came by the iron mine to the west end of Chapel Hill.

That iron mine is now the Ironwoods neighborhood in Chapel Hill.

Durham industrialist and UNC benefactor Julian Shakespeare Carr was bitterly opposed to the route to University Station.

Carr wanted the line to come to Durham, but could not convince enough of his business associates in Durham to invest in the project. Carr wrote a letter to The Chapel Hill Ledger (1/24/1880) casting doubt on the success of a route that did not connect at Durham: “I trust that your railroad to University Station may prove of as much benefit to the good people of Chapel Hill as some of your very clever citizens seem to think it will, but, to be honest with you, I have very little hope of it myself.” As it turned out, the railroad to University Station was not only a benefit to “the good people of Chapel Hill,” but it was so successful that it spawned a new town that would, thirty-three years later, be named after Julian Shakespeare Carr.

Twice during construction, the State University Railroad Company nearly went bankrupt and the whole mess was only barely saved by the intervention of the Richmond and Danville Railroad. In performing this bailout, the R&DRR entered into an agreement with the State University Railroad. The SURR was to complete the grading and the R&DRR would install the rails and provide the rolling stock. However, a misunderstanding arose between the two companies because each had expected the other to build the trestles over New Hope and Bolin Creeks. Ultimately the R&DRR went ahead and built the trestles, but consequently cut the budget somewhere else.

The written agreement is recorded in Hillsborough (ODB) and it explicitly states that the R&DRR was to complete the rail line "to the Town Line." But instead they stopped about 1/2 mile short of Merritt Mill Road where the town line was then and is now. So, realistically the most likely thing appears that the railhead is where it is because that was as close as they could get with the desperately strapped budget they had and everyone concluded that that was close enough. Also, the area that is now downtown Carrboro afforded a large flat area in which to build the wye.

The wye was the triangular rail configuration that allowed the engine to turn around. Two thirds of the wye still exists, the main line and the spur leading into the Fitch parking lot.

The Cotton and Hosiery Mills

12 [Slide of Lloyd Grist Mill]

Almost immediately after the railroad was complete, Thomas F. Lloyd built a steam powered gristmill and cotton gin next to the railhead in 1883. This building, which in recent years has been called the Broad Street Building, still stands near the northeast corner of the intersection of Main Street and the railroad tracks.

14 [Slide of Carr Mill]

In the northwest corner of the intersection Lloyd built a cotton and hosiery mill in 1898, creating an industry that Carrboro was built on.

That site is still the focal point of the community today.

Dr. John Florin co-authored an excellent narrative of the history of this phase of mill development as a preface to Carrboro, NC: An architectural and historical inventory, which I will not attempt to compete with.

After 10 years, Lloyd sold his Alberta Cotton Mill to Julian Shakespeare Carr. Carr also purchase another smaller mill that stood where Fitch lumber Co is today. Lloyd immediately set about building yet another mill (now gone) just south of the Alberta Mill. The textile industry was good to Carrboro for many years, but by the mid-1950’s Pacific Woolen Mills, the successors to Carr, closed shop for good.

During the golden age of mill development in Carrboro, many houses were built by the mill owners in order to supply their own workers with housing, much as was the case in mill villages across the South. And in this way, the old mill village of Carrboro grew largely the same way that many other company towns did. However by the time of the Depression business trends wandered away from the mill owner as residential landlord; the free market seemed to be a simpler way to address the mill worker housing problem. In 1939, the mills sold off most of Carrboro’s mill houses.

The relative flatness of downtown Carrboro was particularly helpful for laying out a rectilinear street grid initially:

But as with the old parts of Chapel Hill, as the street grid ran into topographic challenges, the grid was abandoned.

Also, later trends in city planning led away from street grids.

By 1969, the municipal boundaries of Carrboro encompassed about twice the area of the original municipal boundaries.

And then the Aldermen got a big idea.

They started approving large apartment complexes along the NC-54 Bypass in order to gain taxbase, mostly on the backs of UNC students who were no kind of political factor in Carrboro. However ultimately this theory backfired. As more and more students and recent graduates moved to Carrboro, they became a significant political force, especially with relation to the creation of Chapel Hill Transit, as well as the initiation of a policy requiring sidewalks in new developments, among numerous other environmental initiatives. Also, the 26th amendment lowered the voting age to 18 in 1972 and within a decade the students, hippies and recent graduates had taken over Carrboro town government.

This new school of Carrboro politics came along at the same time that a proposal surfaced to tear down the abandoned Pacific Woolen Mills, formerly Durham Hosiery Mill #5, the mill that Thomas Lloyd sold to Julian Shakespeare Carr, that place from which our community takes its name. A coalition of people came together including many new and old residents of Carrboro to oppose the demolition and eventually convinced a group of investors to step in and save the building, in part using a federal grant that came through the Town of Carrboro.

The combination of the political movement that initiated bus service in Carrboro and the local coalition that saved the historic mill building formed the foundation of modern politics in Carrboro – a paradigm that has its roots in the early 1970’s planning decisions made by the Board of Aldermen.

This was, of course, the furthest thing from the minds of the Carrboro born and bred men who made up the Board in the early 1970’s. I cannot help but wonder whether we are presently undergoing the same process, but in reverse. As more and more extremely expensive housing is built in suburban Carrboro, I wonder whether this will eventually change the character of our town.

Landscape and Memory

Having brought you more or less up to the present, it seems appropriate to move on to a discussion of the future of Carrboro, but before we go there, we need to discuss a curious aspect of life in Carrboro and Chapel Hill.

It has sometimes been said that everyone seems to think that Chapel Hill was perfect right about the time they got there. Along those lines, R. L. Gray in his 1904 essay on Chapel Hill wrote (from the News & Observer reprinted in NC Journal of Law, Vol 1, pp 516-518, 1904):

"Let the man have been tarred with the University stick and he will tell you along with his after-dinner cigar that he has a notion of some day building a house at Chapel Hill – and there remain to the end of the chapter in the one place where he believes he can obtain a large and perfect peace. There men cling to the town and its surroundings with a memory that is both tenacious and jealous of details.

"A friend was describing to one of these - a graduate before the [Civil] war – the site of the present Alumni Building. Suddenly the old graduate’s eyes flashed fire: “What!” he exclaimed. “You don’t tell me they’ve cut down the old college linden! I’d rather they’d have gone without that building forever than that they should have touched that tree!

"And so it goes. Living in the hearts of its scattered children, each tree shrub and rose bush, almost each stone of its serried ranks of rough built walls, bears its own faint story; and it is the indefinable suggestion that seems in time to float out from the inanimate things that have brushed on human hopes that strangely strikes the newcomer at the moment he places foot upon the campus and brings to the returned a tingling of the blood and a half forgotten smell of the air that at once exhilarate and recall to half sad dreams of bygone days."

Gray’s argument is essentially that the landscape of Chapel Hill is a part of the experience of being young and full of life in Chapel Hill. Revisiting the landscape of your young adulthood brings back fond memories of days gone by. Or in other words, there’s nothing like walking down Franklin Street to make you feel young again. And any change at UNC (or in Chapel Hill) detracts from that feeling.

Gray’s theory explains the experience of returning alumni, who for example are sometimes crestfallen to find that the Rathskeller is no more, or similarly are shocked to see Greenbridge rising on Chapel Hill’s western border. I am not sure that the experience is exactly the same for those who live in and near Chapel Hill and return to UNC and downtown on a regular basis, but it is at least part of that story.

Gray makes no remark on Carrboro in part because the village scarcely existed in 1904, but Carrboro is not immune to this same issue. Probably the greatest challenge facing our town is how our downtown can grow without compromising the sense of place that is Carrboro. And I suppose such things are challenges for any community, but I think Gray is suggesting that this phenomenon is especially strong in Chapel Hill because so many people discover the town as 18-year-olds, entering the prime of life and for the first time living with new found freedom. This is true for Carrboro as well, although somewhat less so because Carrboro is less a part of the undergraduate experience for most students.

As an aside, I love the detail that the fierce critic of change in Gray’s essay “has a notion of some day building a house at Chapel Hill.” Just one more house won’t hurt, as long as it is mine. From today’s vantage point, it also seems ironic that the critic would lament the construction of Alumni Hall:

Alumni Hall is one of the buildings that gives secondary definition to McCorkle Place and has many beautiful architectural details. That anti-Alumni Hall sentiment seems particularly ironic in light of Davie Hall, which UNC went on to build only 200 yards away:

The desire to return to a Chapel Hill that was known from earlier days goes still further back in UNC's history. William D. Moseley, a member of the UNC class of 1818, wrote a letter to his former professor Elisha Mitchell in 1853: “I know of no earthly pleasure which would afford me more heartfelt satisfaction than a short stay at that village [Chapel Hill]; where I could again refresh my memory with a review of the places and things that still remain as mementos of days that are past; when the future was looked to with hopes, never to be realized.”

And I must give credit where it is due, UNC has been creative in preserving some aspects of the historical landscape. Among Moseley’s other comments in his 1853 letter: “I would like too to visit the Old Poplar, in the right of the path leading from the Chapel to Dr Caldwell's. Is it still living?”

Not only was it still living in 1853, but it is still living today:

Moseley’s letter indicates that the Davie Poplar was a noted landmark even when the University was young. And clearly it was called “the Old Poplar” even by members of the class of 1818. It was already at least 100 years old when Moseley graduated. The Davie Poplar is now at least 300 years old and some think it may be approaching 400.

But nothing in this world lasts forever, and UNC began preparing for the inevitable about 90 years ago by grafting a cutting of the Davie Poplar to create Davie Poplar, Jr., which grows in the shadows of the original. And more recently a seedling of the Davie Poplar was cultivated and planted nearby with the appellation Davie Poplar, III. It's right in front of Alumni Hall as it happens. Maybe they could replant a college linden there? While obviously no one is hoping for the day when the Davie Poplar falls, it is reassuring to know that UNC has long since begun to prepare for that day.

Likewise, no one hopes for the day when our community will face dramatic changes brought about by greenhouse gasses as well as the ever-increasing cost (and ever-decreasing supply) of petroleum. But we cannot bury our heads in the sand and hope that such challenges will never come. At the local level, Carrboro, UNC and Chapel Hill can make only the most incremental changes to the composition of the atmosphere or the supply of available petroleum. But we can and we must prepare for the future that we know is coming.

Preparing for a world with fewer cars and less petroleum will partly involve technological breakthroughs in sustainable energy, but it must also involve dramatic improvements in energy efficiency. And one way for us to reduce our society’s demand for energy - a way that is entirely within the control of local government in North Carolina - is to change our built landscape – to create a more pedestrian, bicycle and transit friendly landscape. And that will involve a more compact form of development, focused on key transportation corridors.

One area that is appropriate for the new landscape that our community will need is the NC 54 corridor between Meadowmont and UNC, along the planned route of the Triangle’s light-rail system. Downtown Carrboro and downtown Chapel Hill are also areas where outstanding public transportation is already readily available and are appropriate places for more intense development. Yet, the importance of the landscape, the sense of place in these locations cannot be ignored.

How would Carrboro be Carrboro without these buildings:

On the other hand, some downtown Carrboro buildings seem considerably less essential:

To be clear these businesses are essential, but the buildings are not.

Likewise, the Best Western University Inn was a pretty unremarkable building. The grassy areas out front were pleasant, but it was mostly a low utilitarian building with a sea of asphalt in front. The picture above was taken as a publicity photo and it still makes the building and lot look unremarkable (at best). East54's critics only ever acknowledge this reality when prompted to do so. Likewise there seems to be no public acknowledgement that the site of Greenbridge was not long ago a flophouse for crack dealers. Does any of this mean that East54, Greenbridge or 300 E. Main Street will be perfect? Of course not. But let’s be clear, what they are replacing was not so terrific as some would like to pretend.

Change is inevitable for Carrboro and Chapel Hill. The challenge is to keep the elements that are central to our landscape from the past, while creating a more energy-efficient and pedestrian friendly landscape for the future. Personally, I think that is something that Carrboro, UNC and Chapel Hill can do.

Mount Pleasant

2010-01-18T17:01:00.000-08:00

A year or so ago, Stewart Dunaway mentioned Gen. John Butler’s plantation 'Mount Pleasant" on the Haw River just south of William Galbreath. I was surprised to hear him speak of Butler’s Ford and Butler’s Mill – I had never heard of either. So I got drawn into an investigation that was really Stewart’s – because I am furiously collecting updated information for a new edition of An Historical Atlas of the Haw River. Eventually, researching Mount Pleasant began to intersect with the question of who built the first mill at the site of Virginia Mills Powerhouse #2 - my mill about 1 mile downstream of Swepsonville.

At first blush, it seems simple to locate Mount Pleasant, the home of Gen. John Butler. William Galbreath operated a ferry at the site of a traditional ford on the Haw River, about a mile above Swepsonville at the mouth of Back Creek. The 1778 State land grant to William Galbreath looks like this:

And in the accompanying legal description of the Galbreath grant, it clearly states that John Butler’s plantation was just south of there. However, the next state land grant to the south of Galbreath’s was a claim entered by John Armstrong, the man who built the first mill at what later became Swepsonville. Armstrong’s state land grant extended from Galbreath’s to a point well south of the Swepsonville mill site. At the same time, land grants still further south and east of Armstrong sometimes refer to “Butler’s Corner” or “Butler’s Line.” Drawing these land grants and piecing them together like a jigsaw puzzle, I can clearly see that both ends of the 1778 Armstrong grant are referred to by neighboring grants as Butler's. I am not sure why this was done this way, but John Armstrong apparently claimed that land in a sort of trust for his sister Ann Armstrong Butler, the wife of Gen. John Butler. Perhaps it related in some way to the fact that Gen. Butler was the State land grant agent for Orange County.

Unfortunately, Armstrong's land grants stop short of the Virginia Mills Powerhouse #2, and no other state land grants seem to show that site.

John Armstrong's Other Mill

As I said, John Armstrong owned and built the first mill in Swepsonville, prominently shown on the 1770 Collett map:

John sold the mill in Swepsonville to John Trousdale shortly before Armstrong's death at the end of 1790, but Trousdale only bought the mill itself on two acres. Apparently the remaining 638 acres more or less comprised Mount Pleasant and does not appear to have passed through John Armstrong's estate.

Armstrong also owned another mill on Haw Creek somewhat downstream of NC-54; he sold that mill to Joseph Hodge and Richard Christmas in April of 1790 (Orange DB 4, pg 692). Around 1840, that mill was purchased by Alexander Wilson who operated the school in Melville. By 1893 the site was known as Newlin's Mill as shown on William L. Spoon's marvelous map of Alamance County:

Here's a picture of the broken down Armstrong-Wilson-Newlin dam on a day when Haw Creek was high enough to paddle:

The Heirs of John Armstrong

The will of John Armstrong, dated Nov. 25, 1790, proved Feb. 1791, (Orange WB B, pg 121) mentions his daughters: 1) Elizabeth, 2) Mary, 3) Margaret, & 4) Rachel. Armstrong named his brother-in-law, Richard Christmas as one of the executors of this will. Briefly, regarding the daughters of John and Margaret Armstrong:

1) Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Armstrong married a man named Stephen Glass in 1809. Glass owned, among other things, a mill on Back Creek. Elizabeth died in 1847. Sallie Walker Stockard’s History of Alamance says that Seymour Puryear owned “the Widow Glass’ property and that of Hunter and Wagstaff.” And we know that this same Seymour Puryear owned a gristmill, which he sold to Virginia Mills in 1881. But it is unclear how he came to own this mill or whether that property is the one that came from ‘the Widow Glass.’ This mill site, the Puryear Mill site, is where Virginia Mills Powerhouse #2 was built in 1905. I own that site now as the proprietor of Swepsonville Hydro, LLC:

2) Mary Armstrong (c. 1770- 11/4/1833) married Elisha Smartt in Orange Co., Mar. 7, 1792. Mary’s will, dated Nov. 1, 1833, (Mecklenberg Co. WB G, pg 147) gives her children’s names: Robert T. Cheek, John S. Cheek, Sarah B. Cheek and Rebecca Armstrong Marks. The last name Cheek is confusing, but apparently these were illegitimate children fathered by Silas or Cylas Cheek (see Meck. WB A, pg 196). In her will Mary Armstong Smartt refers to "sale of my land in Orange County."

3) Margaret Armstrong married John Sankston on Mar. 21, 1800, in Orange Co.

4) Rachel Armstrong apparently never married. Her will (OCWB E, pg 143; dated 13 Feb 1823; proved August Court 1827 left her estate to her niece Anne Glass, daughter of Stephen and Betsy [Armstrtong] Glass.

The Heirs of John Butler and Ann Armstrong

As I said, John Armstrong’s sister Ann married Gen. John Butler. Gen. Butler and Ann Armstrong had no children. Gen. Butler’s will was written May 20, 1785 (OCWB B, pg 1), and probably probated in January 1787. In the will he left everything to his “beloved wife.” That is, Ann Armstrong Butler.

After Gen. Butler’s death, Ann Armstrong married Maj. Richard Christmas, December 22, 1788, in Orange County, NC. There were no children by this marriage either. Ann died and left Maj. Christmas a widower. The will of Richard Christmas, dated June 25, 1830, proved May 1833, (OCWB E, pg 300) bequeathes slaves to Mary Armstrong Smart and Peggy Armstrong Sankston, "niece[s] of my deceased wife," but does not devise the Butler real estate. Gen. Butler’s nephew – a descendant of Regulator William Butler – sought to reclaim the Butler real estate that had been in the hands of Richard Christmas (as would have been Richard’s lifetime right in the lands inherited by his wife). Richard Christmas had apparently assumed that the lands would go to the Butler family and consequently did not devise them in his will. However, it appears that the Butlers ultimately failed and the land passed to the heirs of Richard Christmas.

The Heirs of Richard Christmas

So who were they? And what became of Mount Pleasant? I will post updates here when they trickle in. In the meantime, here are some other Swepsonville photos to enjoy.

The old Powerhouse #1 at Virginia Mills in Swepsonville, formerly the site of Armstrong's Mill, then Trousdale's Mill, then Murphey's Mill, then Ruffin's Mill, then Falls Neuse Manufacturing:

An aerial photo of the Swepsonville mill site:

Chatham Coalfields, 1887

2010-01-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

From the Carolina Watchman (1/20/1887):

"The Deep River coal field, Chatham county, North Carolina, has long been known to be of great value and of such importance as to make one wonder why it has never been worked and the coal placed on the market in competition with coal brought into the State. The Department of Agriculture had this field explored a short time ago by a competent man, and most probably as a result of that work, the district is now receiving the attention of some moneyed men from the State of Penn. The field has advantages which cannot be despised, especially in its location with reference to districts with which it must compete. It is convenient to all eastern Carolina, and within easy reach of the Atlantic Ocean at Morehead and Wilmington and at Charleston, S.C.; supplying the markets of the Carolinas, it has advantages voer both Virginia and Tennessee, and these advantages are so apparent that further reference is unnecessary, though figures could be given if required, to prove this position.

"The cost of mining is placed by the expert at $1.50 per ton, which is rather more expensive than such mining generally costs but is accounted for by the fact the work must be done 'below water level and on a moderately steep dip the coal must be hoisted, the water raised,' &c. But even this disadvantage does not eat up the caclulated profit, which is estimated to be ample when advantage of location is considered; for instance at Weldon the margin would be 70 cents to $1; Raleigh $1,50 to $1.80; Greensboro $1.47 to $1.77; Salisbury 75cts to $1.; Charlotte and Columbia, S. C. 80 cents to $1.07; fayetteville, (N.C.) $2.24 to $2.54.

"'These figures are large enough to show that a very considerable reduction could be made in the price of coal and yet leave ample profit for the operators.' As to the area, it is estimated at 2,160 acres. This may be reduced to say nearly one hald, as no allowance were made for trapdykes or thin spots in the area. This area is calculated to yield 6,000 tones to the acre, but a safer estimate would be 5,00 tons to the acre. This would make the available tonage more than six millions.

"TO BE WORKED

"At Egypt in Chatham county, a Pennsylvania Co. has purchased a large area of this field and propose to begin operations there in the near future. They propose to begin by supplying local demands along the lines of road most convenient to them, and to gradually broaden the business.

"There are also parties contracting for the Ore Hill iron property near, for the purpose of erecting furnace. [sic] The indications for that particular district are brightening. When work is once begun there in earnest a large and permanent business will result."

A View of the Chatham Coalfields, 1861

2010-01-03T11:44:00.000-08:00

From the Carolina Watchman (Salisbury) 8/5/1861:

"DEEP RIVER COAL - As the coal of the Deep River region is now about to be brought into, it may not be inappropriate to make some explanations concerning it, and the operations being carried on there. All bituminous coal contains more or less sulphur, and this sulphur increases in quantity the nearer you approach the out-crop; hence the best and purest coal is obtained from deep shaft workings. There is but one shaft as yet in the Deep River region 0 it is at Egypt, and persons purchasing coal should be particular in inquiring if it came from Egypt, if they wish to obtain the best quality mined so far.

"So many exaggerated statements have gone forth as to making of oil and iron in that region, that I took the trouble to examine into what had been done, and to observe what is likely to be done. At the Farmville place, a great mass of machinery, &c., has been put up, but so far as the making of oil, it was a failure - only one barrel having been made in a week. This result was the fault of the works and their management, not of the black band iron ore. A good quality of oil can be made and profit accure [sic] to the operator, if a different style of works were put up, and it is now worth the attention of our people.

"At the Tysor place, where I had seen announced in the paper that vast quantities of iron had been made, I found several changes from the original plan of the works - changes which have resulted in nothing but loss; but as now they have returned to the original old plan of a Catalan forge, something may be done when the works are completed.

"At Ore Hill, ten miles North of Deep River, a furnace is being put up, and will be at work in about two weeks. The ore at this place is very superior, and was used during the revolution.

"At Egypt, a very superior quality of coal is being taking [sic] out, and one hundred tons a day can easily be taken out. The only drawback is the unfinished state of road.

"I make these statements because I learn a quantity of out-crop coal has gone to market, and given some dissatisfaction, and that the plain, simple truth as to what is doing on Deep River may be known.

"Fayetteville Observer."

The Everard Tract

2009-12-20T20:02:00.000-08:00

Sometime between 1728 and 1730, Governor Richard Everard received a grant of land just north of the Forster and Moseley Tracts in the Hawfields. Neither Forster's nor Moseley's grant mention Everard, so perhaps he acquired his interest somewhat after them. We cannot be sure when exactly as no copy or description of the original grant was ever recorded. An execution deed in 1770 in the Orange Deed Books shows that the Everard Tract had been 10,000 acres, but it gives no indication of the shape.

So until recently it seemed that no detailed record remained of the grant of 10,000 choice acres in the Hawfields to Gov. Richard Everard. Then I found this in the Devereux Papers at the Archives:

Evidently this is a survey of the land of Sir Richard Everard, with Forster and Moseley shown as neighbors to the south, and with Lovick and Little rather hypothetically shown. This seems to be a survey of the Everard Tract only, as all of property lines for Moseley and Forster are shown schematically – that is the surveyor was making no real assertion about the Forster or Moseley Tracts. Also in one place is says “Mo now St” – Moseley now Strudwick – indicating that the survey was done after Strudwick received the property in 1754.

Considering the terms of the Moseley grant and the Pollock grant, it is clear that the southeastern corner of the Everard Tract was also the northwestern corner of the Pollock Tract. Therefore, using the metes and bounds of the Everard Plat, we can place this tract onto a modern map:

The ford marked on the plat is therefore clearly Trollinger's Ford, earlier known as the Piney Ford and no doubt known by native names before that.

Everard died in 1733 and the Everard Tract passed to his daughters Anne Everard Lathbury (et ux. George) and Susannah Everard Meade (spouse deceased?) In 1770, Lathbury's 10,000 acres were sold by court order to satisfy a judgment from Halifax Court on an unrelated matter. At the auction, three well-known Hillsborough men, Edmund Fanning, Abner Nash and Thomas Hart, bought the Everard Tract for 670 Pounds (24 S.R. 285; p. 45, 2nd Report of the Ontario Archives, Alexander Fraser, 1904). Only a few years later the Revolution broke out and both Fanning and Hart fled North Carolina.

I take it this refers to Fanning’s 1/3 interest in this parcel: “5000 acres, Hawfields, Orange County, purchased in July, No.19. 1770, of John Butler, valued by Mr. Johnston at 40 sh. Virg. per acre, £10,000 V. Curry.” (p. 45, 2nd Report of the Ontario Archives, Alexander Fraser, 1904). It would have been more accurate to say 3,333 acres, I believe.

Nash worked to disentangle his interest in the Lathbury-Everard Tract from his Loyalist co-adventurers. At least two letters from Nash are still to be found at the State Archives regarding his efforts to get a separate deed for his 1/3 of the property. Ultimately in 1779 Nash got the state legislature to order a division of the land (24 S.R. 285). Few immediately subsequent deeds from Nash can be found today, but it appears that at least part of it went to John Butler (ODB 3, pg 462).

Curiously the Virginia Gazette (6/4/1772) advertised “SEVERAL valuable Tracts of TOBACCO LAND, the Whole consisting of about ten Thousand Acres, well watered, situated on the Waters of Rock Creek and Saxapahaw River, to which is contiguous a very good Summer Range, and many other Advantages. Twelve Tracts, containing from about two Hundred and fifty to six Hundred Acres, are already surveyed, and several more will be when Purchasers offer . . . the Lands are situated in the Haw Fields, twelve Miles beyond Hillsborough, and bounded by Haw River . . . GEORGE LATHBURY, G. WALKER, Attorney for Susanna Meade.”

Additionally, I found a Power of Attorney recorded in the Orange Deed Books from Susanna Meade to G. Walker granting him authority to sell or otherwise manage her interest in 10,000 acres which she co-owned with George Lathbury - plainly the Everard Tract. Susanna Everard Meade was Anne Everard Lathbury’s sister, both daughters of Gov. Everard. Notably this was in 1772, after the property had already sold in 1770 to Fanning et al. Perhaps they did not know about the execution sale or were otherwise attempting to have the execution sale set aside.

The Pollock Tract 1

2009-12-19T19:22:00.001-08:00

Recently David Southern drew my attention to a barely legible, yet very interesting surveyor’s plat of land in Orange County owned by the Pollock family:

The State Archives, which has the original, dates the survey to 1754, although it bears many later notes about persons to whom parts of the land were sold. The notes show a lot of interesting detail including four different roads and at least thirteen houses. Thinking it would be interesting to locate this on the ground today, I set about to decipher the location shown on the Pollock Plat.

George Pollock appears to have patented two tracts in the Hawfields. The first Pollock Tract in the Hawfields was 5,000 acres (see Orange DB 3, pg 562; Orange DB 4, pg 219). I will blog about the second Pollock Tract another time. Unlike most of the Hawfields Grantees of 1728, the Pollocks did not immediately re-sell Pollock Tract 1. George Pollock still owned the tract when he died in July of 1738; George's will left many large tracts across eastern NC to relatives, including this 5,000 acres in the Hawfields to his nephews Cullen and Thomas Pollock (Land Grant Records Book 4, pg 82).

Apparently the patents for the Pollock Tracts in the Hawfields were never recorded, making the project of locating them on the ground more difficult. Although, I did know approximately where the Pollock Tract was because it was adjacent to the long eastern edge of Edward Moseley’s Tract in the Hawfields (N10W). But exactly where that line was (and therefore where the Pollock Tract was) remained difficult to determine. In fact there appears to have been some dispute about the location of that line, as Cullen Pollock and Moseley's successor Samuel Strudwick entered into an agreement about that boundary. The agreement was recorded twice – in 1780 and again in 1786 (ODB 2, pg 444; ODB 5, pg 772), but alas it only references a survey, which is not recorded.

The detailed creeks shown on the plat were also an important clue, but then one night I looked at the Orange County GIS system in the area of Efland and I saw this:

The left side of the image shows the vicinity of Efland. The right side shows the same area, but with Pollock Tract 1 outlined in red. Even today, the outlines of Pollock Tract 1 can plainly be seen on Orange County’s GIS system. And it measures out to 5,000 acres and it is 560 poles by 1428 poles – just as the Pollock Plat calls for.

Although the original grant is missing, the circumstances of the grant are still quite discernible. The Colonial Records of North Carolina (3 C. R. 248) show that on May 22, 1731, John Lovick testified at Governor George Burrington’s inquiry into the legitimacy of the various Hawfields grants: “when the line was for to run betwixt this Government and Virginia there being no money belonging to the lords Proprietors in their Receivers hand to defray the charge the Gov. & Council passed an order for the sale of Lands to Reimburse it & thereupon the line was run to general satisfaction & at a charge that has been thought no way immoderate, your Remonstrant being one of the commissioners. The credit of that Order of the Board advanced great sums of money towards the defraying of the charges and had lands afterwards assigned to him to reimburse the same and upon it sold out to Mr. George Pollock 17,000 acres . . .”

However as part of the same inquiry, others, such as Thomas Jones, testified that it happened a bit differently: “[Jones had] an Imaginary survey in the month of June Last [1730]. He produced the same to Mr. Lovick who filled up a Patent for the said Land in August or September Last [1730, but] Dated in the year 1728.” And there were others who seriously called into question the circumstances of these sales. Most land grants at that time were not more than 640 acres, so all of the Hawfields grants were dubious that way. And it is certainly a reasonable inference that many of these powerful men may have taken advantage of the 2-year period between the end of the Governor Richard Everard’s authority under the Lords Proprietor and the arrival of the King’s new Governor, George Burrington.

All of the surviving recorded Hawfields grants are found in a group in Land Grant Book 2, and each of those is followed immediately by a deed from the original grantee to Burrington. All but one of the original grants are dated 1728, but were not recorded until the end of 1730 at the exact same time that they were further conveyed to Gov. Burrington, who conveniently soon became the judge of the validity of these grants. The one Hawfield grant that is not dated 1728 was the Conner Tract; Conner's grant, as recorded in Land Grant Book 2, appears to have been patented just one week before it was resold to Burrington (possibly a transcription error or alternatively an all too frank admission of how crooked this all was). It seems reasonable to wonder whether any of these grants were truly properly issued. Perhaps the Hawfields grants were all a bunch of mischief cooked up in Burrington’s absence, but back-dated to appear as though they had been executed during the Proprietorship when Everard’s government had the authority to issue patents.

Unfortunately, few of the subsequent deeds from the Pollocks were recorded in Orange County Deed Books. However, the State Archives holds a remarkable collection of Pollock deeds and surveys in the Devereux Papers. Among these is a survey of the Pollock Tract from 1754 (Appendix 3). This plat was used by Cullen Pollock to keep track of the various parcels that he and his brother sold to settlers in the area.

The 1754 Pollock Plat records Cullen Pollock’s sales: Tract 1- Hans Hingle, Warson?, and Robert Hollowell, Tract 2 - Mulhollan, Tract 3 - James Kirkpatrick, [George?] Tate and Wilson, Tract 5 – [David?] Duglas, and David Steel, Tract 6 - William Craige and Ed Thomas, Tract 7 - John Long, Holden?, Paisley, [Archibald?] Hamilton, Tract 8 - Cate, Tract 9 - Joseph Sharp, Patent [Patton], Mihaffey, [Peter?] Mallett, and William Ellis, Tract 10 - Jonathan ???ein and Bradford. The plat also shows that Campbell and John McCracken lived just north and east of the Pollock Tract; William Raspberry is shown just south of the Pollock Tract, along Buckhorn Road; and Mulholland is shown just east of Tract 4.

According to the Orange County Register of Deeds, Cullen Pollock sold parcels to: David Gibson (ODB 5, pg 99), David Douglas, adjacent to George Tate (ODB 3, pg 561), Henry Patillo in 1789 (ODB 4, pg 219), Andrew Pattent in 1772 (ODB 34, pg 11), and Thomas Bradford in 1786, adjacent to Andrew Patent and David Bradford (ODB 3, pg 170). George Pollock (a son of Cullen?) sold land to Thomas Ruffin in 1811 (ODB 16, pg 104). [Gracious thanks to Carole Troxler for assistance with this information.]

The following are very brief abstracts of further deeds in the Devereux papers: To Robert Holloway near the Great Road, corner of George Tate. To George Tate on the Great Road. To Edward Willson on Tate’s line, Holloways corner. To David Douglas at Tate’s corner, on Willson’s line. To David Bradford.

The Great Road evidently refers to where Old Hillsborough Road and Bowman Road are now, the old Trading Path.

The Butler Petition

2009-12-13T04:51:00.000-08:00

I found a petition in the Archives in a box of Court Records related to old real estate disputes in Orange County. I think the petition refers to the plight of those who came in the 1740's and occupied the lands that John Forster, William Little and John Lovick patented in 1728:

While the squatters on the Moseley and Conner tracts ended up fighting Samuel Strudwick (successor to Moseley and Conner) over the title to the farms they built, the squatters who occupied the Forster, Little and Lovick Tracts never heard from the British citizens who held nominal title to this land. So when the local Commissioner of Confiscation came along and attempted to sell the nominal title to these lands, the squatters, who by that time had become propsperous and important residents of Orange County, got their most prominent figure, Gen. John Butler, to lead the charge in defending their farms from confiscation:

"To the worshipful Justices of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions for the County of Orange:

"The Petition of the subscribers, citizens of the State of North Carolina and Inhabitants of the County of Orange humbly sheweth

"That many and by far the greater part of your petitioner more than forty years ago seated themselves upon the lands which they now occupy in the County of Orange. From the first settlement of them unto this time, your petitioners or those under whom they hold by fair honest and bona fide purchase have had and held quiet and undisturbed possession. That out of the wilderness by the sweat of their brows they have cleared and cultivated many valuable plantations made extensive improvements, erected convenient buildings and flattered themselves that they should without molestation been permitted to enjoy the fruits of their labours. That in this confidence they have bound their views to the soil upon which they have planted themselves and devoid of every other resource of subsistence to be now forced from it would necessarily involve their utter ruin.

"They have been guilty of no conduct in the late war which could mark them for the resentment of Government and subject them to forfeiture. On the contrary they stept forth in an early stage of the war and during the most critical and trying periods have vigorously contended for the liberty and independence of America; they flattered themselves that in common with their fellow citizens they should enjoy the blessings of the late glorious revolution; that they should not be distinguished as sufferers by an event which they had so liberally contributes to bring about. Judge of their astonishment when they were informed that under an ideal and imaginary claim of certain persons now or heretofore resident in the Kingdom of Great Britain, some persons had been induced to conceive that the lands upon which your Petitioners are seated by some one of the confiscation laws of this State were subjected to forfeiture and that the commissioners of confiscation in pursuance of this opinion had advertised them for sale.

"It is by no means necessary at present nor would it come properly before your Worships that your Petitioners should condescend to a detail of their several titles, their well founded pretensions against the claims of all persons. It is sufficient at present to say that their original entry was rightful & peaceable; that it has been sanctioned by grants from government and that they have held a long and undisturbed possesion; That in the course of forty years neither those who are now suggested to be the original patenter by those who are opposed to your Petitioners, nor any others claiming by from or under them have by such, at law or otherwise, attempted to evict your Petitioners.

"Your Petitioners claim the common right of Citizens and if their property is to be drawn into question, they expect that they are not to be denied the constitutional privilege of a trial by Jury. Their possessions individually to the publick are but a small stake, but to themselves it is their all, and surely they are not to be stripped of them upon ideal suspicion or vague conjecture.

"Your Petitioners are well aware that if the Commissioner of Confiscation should proceed to sell that yet it must be left to a court of law to award possession and that this could not take place but upon a full investigation of the titles of your Petitioners. But your Worships will foresee the unavoidable consequences, tis? many suits will be brought as there are purchasers and however well established the title of your petitioners may be in the event the value of many of their plantations will be sunk in other ?am? upon the courts the laws delay and the unavoidable expense attending it.

"Their circumstances they took up to your worships and request you to interfere with the authority derived to you from the eighth section of the Act of Assembly passed at Newbern in the year 1779 and on the eighteenth day of October entitlted an “Act to carry into affect and act passed at Newbern in November in the year 1777 entitled an act for confiscating the property of all such persons as are inimical to the United States and of such persons as shall not within a certain time therein mentioned appear and submit to the State whether they shall be received as citizens thereof and of such persons who shall so appear and shall not be admitted as citizens and for other purposes therein mentioned.

"The clauses to which they refer and which they humbly conceive is apt to their case and was intended to give them relief in circumstances similar to there are as follows: Provided that if it shall appear to the county court that any person hath or pretends to have any right or title in law to any lands tenements or hereditaments monies debts or personal property of any of any of the said persons declared forfeited by this act, such court shall stay all further proceedings thereupon and shall send up a true and exact state[ment] of such claim to the superior court of the district which superior court shall proceed to inquire into the legal right and title of the person so claiming by a Jury in the same manner as suits at common law and such determination when had shall be final and the Clerk of Superior Court chall transmit a copy thereof to the county court wherein the dispute originated which shall proceed according to such determination.

"Your Petitioners humbly hope that you will extend the operation of this law to their relief and make such order as will prevent any further proceedings being had by the Commissioner respecting the premises before the calims of your petitioners shall be heard and decided upon as the law directs.

"And your Petitions as in duty bound will ever pray,

"Eli McDaniel, Richard? Hunter, David Sealy, Robert Sealey, Walter Burnside, James Trousdale, Jane Patin, Archibald Maben, Nathaniel Patterson, Moka? Crawford, Jos. Hodge, George Allen, James Turner, James Truit, William Hodge, William Und????, John Allen, Samuel Shaw, Ephraim Tur???, John McDaniel, John Butler, John Armstrong, John Hamish, William Galbreath, James Cokeley, Richard Scott, John Hodge, Stephen White, John Pattin, Alexander Kirkpatrick, Samuel Pattin, Griffith Thomas, Robert Pattin, John McCrackin, John Baldridge, Nicholas Cane?, Henry Basin, Andrew Mundary? James Dixon, John Galbreath, Anthony Standford, John Basin, Timothy Hughes, Joseph Baker, James McAdams, William Raney, and Daniel Hanley."

A Sketch of Thomas Cate, founder of Cane Creek Baptist Church

2009-12-11T17:37:00.000-08:00

Here's an excerpt from the Cane Creek Baptist Church website:

http://www.canecreek.org/Documents/History/History.html

"Thomas Cate was born about 1747 and was the son of Thomas and Rebecca Sykes Cate who had migrated to Orange County from Prince George County, Virginia where the family had been Quakers. He had brothers named Barnard, John, and Richard. He married Sarah Estridge about 1767. His wife's last name is in dispute with some thinking that she was a Shepard. I can find no trace of Shepards in our local records On the other hand, there is a faint record of an Estridge family locally (sometimes recorded as Estes). This is mentioned in grants located to the northeast of Cane Creek. I suspect that the Estridges were Tories who may have left the community during the Revolutionary War.

"Thomas Cate's will mentions eleven children: Moses born about 1768 who married Hannah Bradford; John B. born about 1770 who married Priscilla Lloyd and who died in Tennessee in 1840; Fanny, born about 1772 who married John Sykes; Martha, birth date unknown, who married William Moore; Winny [Minny?] birth date unknown, who married William Roach, Huldah, birth date unknown, who married Elisha Cates, possibly a cousin; Tabitha, date of birth unknown, who married William Smith; Elizabeth, possibly born in 1784, whose marital status is confused; Thomas, born in 1784, who married Elizabeth Roach, and later Martha Carroll and who died in 1863; Ephraim, born about 1778, who married Rebecca Lindsey and who died in Missouri in the 1850's. The name of the eleventh child is unknown.

"From other sources, we know that Thomas Cate was an assistant preacher with Haw River Baptist Church (near Bynum) before establishing our church. He had probably been baptized by the Haw River preacher, Elnathen Davis, who himself had been baptized by Shubal Stearns who established the first Baptist church in this part of the state in 1756. It is a mystery why Cane Creek, established by a Baptist preacher, did not declare itself a Baptist church until the 18th year of its existence, in 1806.

"In his will, Thomas left his sons 500 acres. The inventory also mentions three slaves, smith tools, wagons, horses, two stills, boars, hogs, sheep, etc, all to be equally divided among the eleven children. The inventory lists property sold, to whom sold, and the amount paid. The total is $899.66. Another sale that brought in $1263 was conducted in 1825, following the death of Sarah.

"The inventory suggests that Thomas Cate was a fairly prosperous farmer." - Edward Johnson

Few's Tavern, Eno River State Park, Trading Path Association First Sunday Hike

2009-12-06T13:51:00.000-08:00

The Puryear Millsite (Virginia Mills Powerhouse #2), Swepsonville, NC

2009-12-03T11:52:00.000-08:00

REPORT ON A NATIONAL FOUNDRY IN NORTH CAROLINA [1858]

2009-11-07T06:07:00.001-08:00

By Ebenezer Emmons

To His Excellency, Thos. Bragg, Governor of North Carolina:

Sir : In obedience to your instructions which I had the honor to receive in a note bearing date December 26, I herewith respectfully present the following special report, " on the advantages of the Valley of Deep River, as a site for the establishment of a National Foundry:"

In the first place, permit me to observe that this subject came up for investigation in 1854, and that I then addressed a note to your predecessor, Gov. Reid, in which I attempted to set forth the advantages of Deep River for the object above specified.

Since the date of the note alluded to, I have been still more confirmed in the views then expressed, inasmuch as Deep River, as a manufacturing region, has become still more important in consequence of additional discoveries. But I should remark in this place, that the opinions I have -heretofore expressed, and now entertain, are based upon certain premises, viz : that an eligible site for a National Foundry should combine in its location peculiar advantages, such, for example, as are connected with an ample supply of fuel of different kinds, abundance of the ores of metals, a full supply of timber, water power, materials for construction, a good climate, a spot accessible at all seasons of the year to government officials, and inaccessibility to an enemy without. To the foregoing I may add, that a good agricultural region which can furnish corn, wheat, and cattle, is certainly very desirable, and would confer great advantages over one which is comparatively unproductive.

It is not, however, supposed that Government will engage in the business of reducing the ores of the metals; but, I have no doubt, that the value of the site for the purposes contemplated will be greatly increased, if it is on a spot where private individuals or companies are engaged in this business, and where all the different qualities of the metals, - especially iron, are produced. They are then obtained At the least possible expense, and where, too, Government might well exercise a certain supervision, in order to secure those qualities which are the best for the use to which they are intended.

Similar remarks may be made respecting fuel; it is plain enough, that the fuel should be obtainable upon the spot. The necessity of transporting an article so much demanded, would be a great drawback upon any site where such a necessity as transportation existed; so also, in regard to timber and materials for construction; if these were to be obtained from a distance, the expenses entailed upon the institution contemplated, would form, as in the preceding case, a great drawback upon the eligibility of a site thus located.

It is in consequence of a combination and concentration of advantages, that gives to Deep River an importance over all other places known to the author of this report; such advantages, for example, as are derived from an abundance of fuel, of ores, of timber, and suitableness of climate and location, which have been intimated as the necessary requisites of a location for the purposes designed by Congress.

I shall now proceed to state the facts respecting the natural productions peculiar to the valley of Deep river, and which, I hope, will be found to sustain, in every particular, the premises which 1 have laid down in the foregoing preamble.

1. Fuel in the Condition of Coal.

Under this head the bearing of my statements will go to prove, both a great supply of this kind of fuel, and of a quality superior, in many respects, to any now in market, and which is especially adapted to manufacturing purposes.

The Deep river coalfield possesses all the essential characteristics of the better developed ones in this country, though its extent or area is comparatively small. Its outcrop of coal, or line upon which it has been proved to exist, is about thirty miles. This outcrop runs along the course of Deep river, and is rarely, if ever, more than a mile from it. On this line, there are eleven different places where either shafts, slopes, or pits have been sunk, and which have severally cut the main or six-foot seam.

These coal shafts or slopes begin at Farmersville, the lowest point upon the river where coal has been fully disclosed. From Farmersville, proceeding up the river, we find in succession McIver's Egypt, Taylor's, Gulf, Tyser's, and Tyson's, Carbonton, Mrs. Bingham's, Murchison's and Fooshee's. There is no doubt of the existence of coal beyond the extremities named; but these being as it were on the river bank, and all of them disclosing the existence of a continuous seam of coal, it is evident this segment of Deep river is the most important, and the one upon which capitalists must rely for their supply of this kind of fuel. Viewing this coal, then, only in the extent along which it has actually been developed, there seems to be no sufficient reason why doubts should be entertained of a supply for a long time to come. All doubts respecting a supply of coal will however vanish, when it is considered that from even one of the shafts enumerated, an ample supply may now be obtained; I allude to the Egypt shaft, as these works have been more fully carried out than at any other point upon the river. Here, there is a shaft 460 feet deep, and sunk 1,000 feet within the outcrop. It gives access to the main or six-foot seam as it is called, though it exceeds that amount.

Here, the arrangements are so complete that a ton of coal can be raised to the surface every two minutes during twenty-four hours. I need not go into a further statement of the quantity which Egypt alone can now furnish; and when the other pits are brought into an equal degree of forwardness, it is plain that Deep river will not only furnish all the coal required for manufacturers there, but an immense supply for distant consumption.

The quality of this coal is a matter of considerable consequence. Tested in the smith's shop, the uniform opinion is, that it is cheaper for all work at forty cents per bushel than charcoal at five cents. Smiths at Fayetteville have been in the habit of buying it at that price for several years. It contains a large proportion of volatile matter, at the same time it forms, during combustion, a firm, hollow coke, which makes it so much sought for by smiths, and within which it furnishes an intense heat, which especially fits it for the performance of very heavy work. In the next place it is a gas coal. This property having been fully tested in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, it might be inquired whether the residuum left is valuable as a fuel. On this point, too, it is fortunate that there is so much testimony of the value of its coke, for it is a singular fact that the coke of many gas coals is of little value. The late Prof. Johnson, whose investigations in the department of coals are so well known, gave a very favorable account of it, entertaining no doubt of its high heating as well reducing properties when employed for smelting the ores. In the region of Deep river the coke of the refuse coal will undoubtedly take the place of anthracite in the furnace and forge.
The composition of this coal, as determined by Johnson and Jackson, is as follows.

Fixed carbon . 63.6
Volatile matter 84.8
Ashes. 1,6
Specific gravity 1.8
Ash reddish brown.

This coal is also remarkably free from smutiness or dirt, as well as sulphur and other impurities which injure miner?' coals when employed for heating and reducing the metallic ores. Having, then, had this coal under examination for four years past, and having need it in a grate, and having observed its action in a forge, and having also the testimony of competent observers and experimenters as to its value for gas, as well as the value of its coke, there remains, as I conceive, not the shadow of a doubt as to its value when employed for melting iron, reducing its ores, or of its value for all manufacturing purposes where charcoal is not absolutely required.

2. Metallic Ores, Particularly Iron,

Five kinds of iron ore belong, geologically to the Valley of Deep river, and are known to be centralized upon that portion of it where the coal formation is perfectly developed. Two of the kinds form inexhaustible beds in the coal measures, and one is so immediately connected with the seams as to require removal when the coal is mined.

The hydrated argillaceous oxide exists in a bed from five to six feet thick, seventy feet above the first coal seam. Its position and connection is so favorable for mining that many tons may be thrown down every hour by a single miner. This ore is the kind which usually accompanies the coal measures of all countries. It possesses properties in common with the ores of this class, especially that of Pennsylvania and the carboniferous system of Wales. Its properties and value are too well known to require comment at this time.

The black band is the most important and valuable of all the ores of this formation. It first appears between the two proximate seams of coal, having a width of 15 inches. Below it is the twenty-two inch seam which is succeeded by about fifteen inches of black band, which rests on another seam of coal seven or eight inches thick. About thirty feet lower are two beds of black band, whose thickness is sit feet, separated by a seam of coal one foot thick, which is too ranch charged with the same ore as to admit of its use as a fuel. Both of these zones of black band are removed along with the coal, and being underlaid either by fire-clay or bituminous shale, is thrown down with little labor and expense. I speak of this for the purpose of showing that the cost of obtaining this ore is trifling, when the arrangements are once made. The black band owes its value to the carbon which is combined with it. When properly roasted the ore is left in an open porous state, and in the condition of a protoxide, a fact which is evident from its strong magnetic powers It is, therefore, a homogeneous ore, retaining still more carbon to aid in its reduction.

The composition of the black band ore is as follows:

Carbon and volatile matter 40.62
Per oxide of iron 47.50
Silex 9.00
Sulphur trace.

From the foregoing it is evident that iron can be cheaply made from the black band, and as the best Scotch pig is made from it, a kind so much sought for in this country, it maybe regarded as equally worthy of belief that the use of this ore will supply an article which has for a long time been imported, and thereby save as from the necessity of large expenditures for this kind of metal.

The black band is known to be co-extensive with the coal formation. It is therefore, inexhaustible, and its quantity is so great and so widely distributed, that its use can never become a monopoly by any company. An estimate of the cost of making pig iron from this ore, by an experienced and highly accomplished iron founder, was made at my request, and it appeared that pig, equal probably to the best Scotch pig, could be manufactured at a cost not exceeding nine dollars per ton.

I deem it will be sufficient to answer the purposes of this report to allude only to the specular, magnetic, and hematitic ores of Deep river. The nearest locality of the specular is about six miles northwest from the Gulf upon the plank-road leading to Graham. The magnetic is about six miles farther in the same direction, and the hematitic occupies an elevated point known as the Ore Knob, situated nine miles from the Gulf, and about the same distance from Carbonton. The latter was used in the time of the Revolution, and the castings then made are remarkable for their toughness and strength. These three kinds of ore possess the usual properties and characteristics, and being unmixed with foreign matter possessing injurious properties, it is conceived that they also are fitted for all the purposes to which these ores are usually put.

From the foregoing statements it will appear that in the neighborhood of Egypt, the Gulf, or Carbonton, there never can be any lack or want of raw materials for the manufacture of iron; and these several localities being concentrated in a limited region, it must strike every one at all conversant with this matter, that here is a rare combination of advantages for the manufacture of iron in all the forms and conditions which the present state of society requires.

3. Timber for Construction.

Deep river in its lower reaches skirts and passes through a belt of the long-leaved pine. This belt of pine is mostly on its southern bank. On the east, north, and northwest the oaks and hickories form the principal kinds of timber, intermixed, however, more or less, with the short-leaf pine. A great forest of white oak skirts the tributaries of the Haw river. This belt extends from the mouth of the New Hope to the vicinity of Chapel Hill. Its mouth is about three miles above the junction of the Haw, and Deep rivers. The Haw becoming navigable to the mouth, or near the mouth of New Hope, opens a way to this forest of many thousand acres occupied by this valuable tree. But as this, together with hickory, ash, and elm, grow extensively throughout the valley and upon the adjacent slopes skirting it, and, moreover, as the mild climate favors the rapid growth of all forest trees, it is a fair conclusion that there will be for years to come timber for all the purposes demanded for the construction of implements of war and of defence. It is to be recollected, in this connection, that the forests have never been thinned by manufacturing companies, as is the case in New England and New York, neither has the long-leaved pine been used for the extraction of turpentine.

4. Quarries of Free Stone, Granite, and other Stone for Construction.

The common rock of this coal formation is a red, brown, or cream colored free stone, which, however, is interstratified with tender, brown or reddish shades. Free stone, of various textures and colors, are the common products of the formation. One hundred years' exposure of this stone to the atmosphere proves it a durable material for building. The layers vary in thickness; they are soft and easily dressed when first removed from the quarry, but soon harden, when they become stable, and remain unchangeable. Grindstones, coarse and fine, are also of sufficient value to require a passing notice. Roofing slate may be obtained upon Rocky river, and granite of a superior quality at Buckhorn, on the Cape Fear.

5. Water Power.

It is a question which remains to be settled by others, whether, upon a coal mine, which must always furnish a large amount of fine coal, water should be employed for moving machinery, or steam. Whether this question is settled in favor of water or steam, it is certain that the water power of Deep, Haw, Rocky, and Cape Fear rivers are very important sources of power for moving machinery of some kind in this section of the State. On Deep river there are three falls; the lowest at Lockville, where the available fall is about sixteen feet, which may be taken into a race from which the water may be used twice. Another fall of about ten feet, and which is partly employed, exists at the Gulf, and another still at Carbonton. Three miles above the junction of the Haw and Deep rivers there is a valuable water power upon the former, which, as it is connected with the latter by navigable waters, may be considered as belonging to it. It is bordered by banks which may be safely occupied by mills of any description. The falls of Buckhorn, upon Cape Fear, six miles below Lockville, furnish by far the greatest power for moving machinery. If, therefore, water is required for any purpose connected with the business of a National Foundry, it may be obtained to an extent which a community of manufacturers may require.

6. Accessibility.

The navigation of Cape Fear and Deep rivers is already secured. An outlet to the Atlantic is thereby obtained. The distance to Wilmington from the coalfield is one hundred and fifty miles. Steamboats ascend now to Lockville, and will soon be able to reach Farmersville, Egypt, and the Gulf. In addition to the foregoing, I may state that a railway is now being constructed from Fayetteville to the coalfields, which will pass through them and intersect the Central Railroad at High Point. This road, when completed, will form an important chain of communication, which will put Deep river in immediate connection with the timbered sections of the State, and with the mineral region of the upper part of Deep river; and if continued to Salem, as contemplated by a railroad charter already granted, will also be connected with limestone, coal, and iron, upon the Dan river.

So, also, a link of thirty miles of road is yet to be constructed by which Deep river will be in connection with Raleigh, Weldon, Portsmouth, and Norfolk, or Petersburg and Richmond. Or, if another route to the Atlantic is preferred, it may be obtained by the Atlantic and Goldsboro' Railroad. . By these routes the seaboard is accessible in about twenty-four or thirty hours: 1st, by way of Wilmington; 2d, by Goldsboro' and Beaufort; and 3d, by Weldon and Portsmouth. Deep river may be reached in from twenty-four to thirty hours' travel from Washington.

It is scarcely necessary to say, that Deep river is inaccessible to an enemy from without.

7. Climate and soil.

Chatham County, through which Deep river flows, has a good climate, and its soil is adapted to the growth of wheat, corn and cattle.

In Conclusion I may very properly say that Deep river possesses those advantages which a National Foundry requires in an eminent degree:

1. In its abundant supply of bituminous and semi-bituminous coals of the best qualities.
2. In its vast resources for the manufacture of iron.
3. In its materials for construction in wood and stone.
4. Ample water power.
5. In its soil and natural productions.
6. In its climate and good water for domestic purposes; there is neither the extreme heat of summer, which debilitates, nor excess of eold in winter, which closes the navigation of its rivers, or interferes with the movements of machinery.

With the foregoing summary of leading facts, I submit this report to your Excellency's favorable consideration.

I am, sir, your Excellency's obedient servant,

EBENEZER EMMONS,

Geologist to North, Carolina.

Landscape, Memory, and East54

2009-11-01T07:23:00.001-08:00

I recently saw Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy give an interesting speech on the problem that everyone seems to think that Chapel Hill was just perfect right about the time they got there. Kevin is not the first person to have observed this, and he won’t be the last, but I thought it might be interesting to share this item I stumbled across while researching an unrelated topic. R. L. Gray wrote an essay on Chapel Hill in the News & Observer (reprinted in NC Journal of Law, Vol 1, pp 516-518, 1904):

"Let the man have been tarred with the University stick and he will tell you along with his after-dinner cigar that he has a notion of some day building a house at Chapel Hill – and there remaining to the end of the chapter in the one place where he believes he can obtain a large and perfect peace. There men cling to the town and its surroundings with a memory that is both tenacious and jealous of details.

"A friend was describing to one of these - a graduate before the [Civil] war – the site of the present Alumni Building. Suddenly the old graduate’s eyes flashed fire: “What!” he exclaimed. “You don’t tell me they’ve cut down the old college linden! I’d rather they’d have gone without that building forever than that they should have touched that tree!”

"And so it goes. Living in the hearts of its scattered children, each tree shrub and rose bush, almost each stone of its serried ranks of rough built walls, bears its own faint story; and it is the indefinable suggestion that seems in time to float out from the inanimate things that have brushed on human hopes that strangely strikes the newcomer at the moment he places foot upon the campus and brings to the returned a tingling of the blood and a half forgotten smell of the air that at once exhilarate and recall to half sad dreams of bygone days."

Gray’s argument is essentially that the landscape of Chapel Hill is a part of the experience of being young and full of life in Chapel Hill. Revisiting the landscape of your young adulthood brings back fond memories of days gone by. Or in other words, there’s nothing like walking down Franklin Street to make you feel young again, or at least bring back wonderful and powerful memories. And any change at UNC (or in Chapel Hill) detracts from that feeling. Gray is saying that the things that are new interfere with the evocation of that brief feeling of youthfulness, and you consequently dislike them.

Gray’s theory is meant to explain the experience of returning alumni, who for example are sometimes crestfallen to find that the Rathskeller is no more, or similarly are shocked to see Greenbridge rising on Chapel Hill’s western border. I am not sure that the experience is exactly the same for those who live in and near Chapel Hill and return to UNC and downtown on a regular basis, but it is at least part of that story.

Gray makes no remark on Carrboro in part because the village scarcely existed in 1904, but Carrboro is not immune to this same issue. Probably the greatest challenge facing our town is how to expand our commercial tax base without compromising the sense of place that is Carrboro. And I suppose such things are challenges for any community, but I think Gray is suggesting that this phenomenon is especially strong in Chapel Hill because so many people discover the town as 18-year-olds, entering the prime of life and for the first time living with new found freedom. This is true for Carrboro as well, although somewhat less so because Carrboro is less a part of the undergraduate experience for most students.

It is also interesting to note that Gray mentions that a part of this phenomenon is that the critic of change “has a notion of some day building a house at Chapel Hill.” Gray does not remark upon the irony of the critic at once lamenting any change to the Chapel Hill landscape and expressing his desire to change that same landscape by building his own house there. No doubt the critic feels that although change in Chapel Hill is bad, just one more house won’t hurt, as long as it is his.

From today’s vantage point, it also seems ironic that the critic would lament the construction of Alumni Hall:

Alumni Hall is in fact one of the buildings that gives secondary definition to McCorkle Place and has many beautiful architectural details. That anti-Alumni Hall sentiment seems particularly ironic in light of Davie Hall, which UNC went on to build only 200 yards away:

The desire to return to a Chapel Hill that was known from earlier days goes still further back in UNC's history. William D. Moseley, a member of the UNC class of 1818, wrote a letter to his former professor Elisha Mitchell in 1853: “I know of no earthly pleasure which would afford me more heartfelt satisfaction than a short stay at that village [Chapel Hill]; where I could again refresh my memory with a review of the places and things that still remain as mementos of days that are past; when the future was looked to with hopes, never to be realized.”

At some level, none of this is lost on either the administration of the University or the government of the Town, for both have sometimes made wise choices about the preservation of the historical landscape. Among Moseley’s other comments in his 1853 letter: “I would like too to visit the Old Poplar, in the right of the path leading from the Chapel to Dr Caldwell's. Is it still living?” Not only was it still living in 1853, but it is still living today:

Moseley’s letter implies that the Davie Poplar was a noted landmark even when the University was young. And clearly it was called “the Old Poplar” even by members of the class of 1818. It was already at least 100 years old when Moseley graduated. The Davie Poplar is now at least 300 years old and some think it may be approaching 400.

But nothing in this world lasts forever, and UNC began preparing for the inevitable about 90 years ago by grafting a cutting of the Davie Poplar to create Davie Poplar, Jr., which grows in the shadows of the original. And more recently a seedling of the Davie Poplar was cultivated and planted nearby with the appellation Davie Poplar, III. It's right in front of Alumni Hall as it happens. While obviously no one is hoping for the day when the Davie Poplar falls, it is reassuring to know that UNC has long since begun to prepare for that day.

Likewise, no one hopes for the day when our community will face dramatic changes brought about by greenhouse gasses as well as the ever-increasing cost (and ever-decreasing supply) of petroleum. But we cannot bury our heads in the sand and hope that such challenges will never come. They will come and we all know it. At the local level, Carrboro, UNC and Chapel Hill can make only the most incremental changes to the composition of the atmosphere or the supply of available petroleum. But we can and we must prepare for the future that we know is coming.

Preparing for a world with fewer cars and less petroleum will partly involve technological breakthroughs in sustainable energy, but it must also involve dramatic improvements in energy efficiency. And one way for us to reduce our society’s demand for energy - a way that is entirely within the control of local government in North Carolina - is to change our built landscape – to create a more pedestrian, bicycle and transit friendly landscape. And that will involve a more compact form of development, focused on key transportation corridors.

One area that is appropriate for the new landscape that our community will need is the NC 54 corridor between Meadowmont and UNC, along the planned route of the Triangle’s light-rail system. Downtown Carrboro and downtown Chapel Hill are also areas where outstanding public transportation is already readily available and are appropriate places for more intense development. Yet, the importance of the landscape, the sense of place in these locations cannot be ignored.

How would Carrboro be Carrboro without these buildings:

On the other hand, some downtown Carrboro buildings seem considerably less essential:

To be clear these businesses are essential, but the buildings are not.

Likewise, the Best Western University Inn

was a pretty unremarkable building. The grassy areas out front were pleasant, but it was mostly a low utilitarian building with a sea of asphalt in front. The picture above was taken as a publicity photo and it still makes the building and lot look unremarkable (at best). East54's critics only ever acknowledge this reality when prompted to do so. Likewise there seems to be no public acknowledgement that the site of Greenbridge was not long ago a flophouse for crack dealers. Does any of this mean that East54, Greenbridge or 300 E. Main Street will be perfect? Of course not. But let’s be clear, what they are replacing was not so terrific as some would like to pretend.

Change is inevitable for Carrboro and Chapel Hill. The challenge is to keep the elements that are central to our landscape from the past, while creating a more energy-efficient and pedestrian friendly landscape for the future. Personally, I think that is something that Carrboro, UNC and Chapel Hill can do.

The Great Fires of Swepsonville

2009-10-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting description of Swepsonville, NC in the 19th century. It came from The light of four candles by Cardenio Flournoy King (1908). Mr. King's mother was defrauded of her late husbands estate . . .

Sixty miles to the eastward was the little town of Swepsonville, in Alamance County—a Southern cotton-mill town. Mother was forced to go there, that the older children might work. She helped keep the family purse filled by taking boarders. We all worked as soon as we were able. I was a bobbin boy at ten.

There were four hundred hands in the mill, which was a three-story frame structure, and it ran night and day with two shifts. Its machinery was idle only from midnight Saturday night to midnight Sunday night. I was in the night shift. As I remember it, it did not seem to be especially unpleasant. I recall but one painful incident—being knocked across the room by a cruel overseer who found me asleep one night when I should have been at work.

We had religious services every Sunday in the saw-mill, Sunday school and occasional sermons from a Baptist preacher who came from the next town and preached for what he could raise in the collection box. We had singing lessons weekly. This was about the limit of our diversions.

They were good people in that town. Everybody was kind and generous. Everybody was hard-working. I think everybody was religious. The favorite tune sung or whistled was "In the Sweet Bye-and-Bye." I have sometimes wondered, since I grew up, if that was because they had very little to look forward to in this life.

Then came Swepsonville's calamity. The entire population, aroused by the loud clang of the bell on the hill, went up one night and stood in horror, watching the mill burn to the ground.

George W. Swepson, of Raleigh, the owner of the mill, was in town. I knew him quite well, for he boarded at our house when he was in Swepsonville, and I want to depart from the thread of my story just long enough to pay his memory a warm personal tribute. He was a good man, a strong man, a Southern gentleman. He appreciated the humanity of his employees and was interested in them personally. There was none of the soulless magnate about him. The people in his town admired him, respected him and loved him.

I worked my way through the crowd, at eleven or twelve o'clock that night, and stood beside George W. Swepson. Then and there I received my first lesson in bearing up under adversity, in turning defeat into victory. Standing there in the glare of the burning mill, which meant a terrible loss to him, Mr. Swepson made a drawing for the new mill which should be erected upon its ashes, and while the sparks were still shooting heavenward he gave orders to his general superintendent, Monroe Cooke, to order the materials from which the next structure, to be of brick, should be constructed.

This was on Thursday or Friday, and on Monday morning the brick yard was started. Left without a position by the destruction of the mill, I applied for work at the kilns and was given a place as brick bearer, at twenty-five cents a day.

For some weeks I bore brick from the molders to the sun-drying places. I earned a dollar and a half a week and turned it over to my mother. Then there came a day when she realized that the family was not earning enough to support itself. Some of us must go away from home, out into the world where wages were higher and opportunities greater. I was one of those to go and with four dollars in my pocket and my shoes in my carpet-bag I crossed the high bridge and struck out for the railroad and that fortune I never doubted I should some day have.

Proceedings of the Good Roads Institute 1911

2009-10-24T10:50:00.000-07:00

Continuing our NC Piedmont travel description series, here is the relevant portion of the Proceedings of the Good Roads Institute 1911, by Joseph Hyde Pratt and Hattie M. Berry:

From Durham to Graham, Alamance County, two routes are available —one, via Hillsboro (see Fig. 2), the county seat of Orange County, and the other, via Chapel Hill (see Fig. 3), Orange County.

[Fig.2 is essentially Old NC 10/US 70; Fig. 3 is Old Chapel Hill-Durham Road, just south of US 15-501]

At the present time the best route is via Chapel Hill. From Durham to the Orange County line the road is macadam and from the line to Chapel Hill it is sand-clay. There are a great many beautiful vistas along this road, and, when within one mile of Chapel Hill and immediately after crossing an iron bridge [Bolin Creek], the road begins to climb a long hill [Strowd Hill on Franklin Street in CH] (on an easy grade, however), which is the first hill climbing of any extent that the traveler has encountered since leaving Morehead City. When the top of the hill is reached a splendid view greets the traveler, and he can see across the broad valley nearly as far as Raleigh.

Chapel Hill, the seat of the State University, is located on the summit of a long, high hill, and the highway passes through the main street of the town. Entering from the east, the broad street, with its beautiful homes and well-kept yards on each side, gives some idea of the beauty and dignity of this delightful old town. Sufficient time should be taken to ride through the campus of the oldest State University in the country. Just before reaching the center of the town, the Episcopal Church will be passed. This beautiful, ivy-covered building [Chapel of the Cross] attracts the attention of all who pass and reminds one of old English churches. It was designed by Upjohn, the architect who designed Old Trinity Church of New York.

As one leaves Chapel Hill and rides toward Saxapahaw, Alamance County, he realizes that he has entered the rolling and hilly country of the Piedmont Plateau region. [No mention of Carrboro!]The highway, however, will take the hills by easy grades and the scenery claims the attention of the traveler for the whole distance. [Just as true 98 years later!] At Saxapahaw the road twines down to Haw River, which is crossed on an iron bridge. This little mill town, situated about 9 miles from a railroad, is a city unto itself.

The road from Saxapahaw to Graham has just been completed and is partly sand-clay and partly macadam.

The other route from Durham to Graham, via Hillsboro, passes through West Durham, where the large Methodist College (Trinity) [Duke University, obviously] is located. The road to the Durham line will be macadam and across Orange County it will be gravel or sand-clay. [This is Old NC 10/US 70.] Within a few miles of Hillsboro the road passes through two of the noted farms of the State, the Duke farm and the Occoneechee farm. Hillsboro was formerly the capital of the State, and contains many very attractive old homes.

Cornwallis began the construction of paved roads at Hillsboro during the year 1780 of the Revolutionary War, when he had his army quartered for the winter at that place. At the time the roads were practically impassable and he had his soldiers fill the mudholes with rocks. While it did not make a smooth or good road, it did make them passable, so that he was able to haul his cannon and wagons. Some of Cornwallis's road improvement is still to be seen. Most of it, however, has been replaced recently by a good macadam. This old historic town is well worth a visit by the tourist, and most delightful accommodations can be had at the Corbinton Inn.

On leaving Hillsboro the road to Mebane is very hilly and rough, but a new location has been made and the new road should be finished within the next year.

At nearly every town that the highway passes through since leaving Raleigh are one or more cotton mills, and these mills continue to be conspicuous landmarks until the highway passes Mooresville and Statesville. At West Durham the Erwin Cotlon Mills represent the largest in the South and one of them covers a greater area than any other cotton mill in the country.

At Mebane is the plant of the White Furniture Company. This is the beginning of a series of furniture factories that will be observed in many of the towns from this point westward. From Mebane the highway passes through Haw River to Graham, where it intersects with the Chapel Hill road. On leaving Graham the traveler will find a splendid macadam road for a distance of 50 miles, passing through Burlington and Elon College, Alamance County, and Gibsonville, Greensboro, Jamestown, and High Point, Guilford County.

At Greensboro, the county seat of Guilford County, the Central Highway intersects the National Highway and the two highways coincide as far as Landis, Rowan County, 62 miles to the south. Good hotel accom- ' modations can be obtained in Greensboro, at the Guilford and McAdoo hotels. The State Normal College, the Greensboro Female College, and the A. and M. College for the colored race are located in this city. Guilford County received the $1,000 offered by the Atlanta Journal for the county south of Roanoke, Virginia, through which the National Highway passed that had the best roads. The county is keeping up its reputation and still has the best system of roads of any county in the State. The macadam road between Greensboro and High Point, 15 miles, has been treated with tarvia.

It was only a few years ago that High Point was a small village whose only distinction was the fact that it was the highest point on the Southern Railway between Danville and Charlotte. Now it is the second city in the country in the manufacture of furniture, the only city exceeding it being Grand Rapids, Michigan. Soon after leaving High Point the Highway enters Davidson County, and the roads during rainy weather have caused travelers a great many anxious moments. The route through this country has recently been resurveyed and the long hills have been eliminated. Revenue will also be available to convert the heavy clay road into a beautiful, smooth, sand-clay road.

People who have driven across Davidson County have not had an opportunity to appreciate the beauties of the county, as their thoughts have been too much centered on the road. Another six months will see the road in good condition, and then the traveler will realize that he is passing through a most delightful section of the State, where productive and prosperous farms are very numerous, and, with the beautiful views from the ridge and up the long rich valleys, will impress one that this county is one in which it would be good to live. Thomasville and the county seat, Lexington, are two rapidly growing towns of this section. Lexington Township has recently issued $100,000 in bonds for the construction of good roads.

Just before reaching the Yadkin River, which is the boundary line between Davidson and Rowan counties, the highway passes near the Daniel Boone Memorial Cabin, which marks the birthplace of that great American pioneer and noted character in American history. Yadkin River is crossed by a tollbridge, but plans are now under way to have a free bridge across this river. At the time of the Automobile Run from !N"ew York to Atlanta under the auspices of the New York Herald and the Atlanta Journal, this tollgate at the end of the bridge was the only tollgate that was raised without charging the tourists toll.

First-class sand-clay and macadam roads are again encountered as the highway reaches Rowan County. The steep hill immediately beyond the bridge will soon be a thing of the past. A new location has been surveyed for the highway, and the new road will be ready by spring. For the next 50 to 60 miles the highway is a joy to all who ride over it, smooth surface and easy grades. Spencer, where are located the large shops of the Southern Railway, is soon passed and Salisbury is in sight. This town, the county seat of Rowan County, is of historic interest in connection with scenes enacted during the Civil War. One of the Confederate prisons was located here. One of the Federal cemeteries is at Salisbury, and, during the past few years, several very handsome monuments have been erected by Northern States to the memory of their soldiers buried at this place.

Fur Craig’s

2009-10-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

In 1792, as the University Trustees were deciding where to establish UNC, local farmers offered up over 1,000 acres to entice UNC to Chapel Hill. Among the ten land donors, the smallest was John Craig, who donated just 5 acres. The Craig donation was that funny crook in the western boundary of the original University lands:

Although John Craig donated only 5 acres, his family clearly owned some other land nearby. James Craig's farmhouse was known to the early students of the University as Fur Craig’s, as both Battle’s History and Hooper’s Tis Fifty Years Since tell us. It was called Fur Craig’s, as Battle says, “in distinction from the habitation of a man of the same name on the Durham road.” That is, it was not Near Craig’s; it was Fur Craig's. This picture from Steve Rankin is said to be Fur Craig's:

Battle hints at the location of Fur Craig’s: “James Craig lived in the house still [ie in 1910] occupied by one of his descendants in the extreme western part of the village . . . a favorite boarding house for those not adverse to long walks . . . a farm house a mile from the town.” Battle’s description would seem to place Fur Craig’s somewhere near Merritt Mill Road, nearly in what is now Carrboro.

The legal description of Alexander Piper's 1793 land donation to UNC (20 acres in what would later become downtown Carrboro) reads: “beginning at a post oak, James Craig's corner, thence West 80 poles . . .” clearly indicating that Craig’s land was just east of the Piper donation, which would place it just east of Carr Mill Mall.

UNC sold the Piper donation to James Craig's son, John M. Craig, in 1837 (Orange DB 28, pg 272). And John M. Craig sold a larger parcel in 1867 “lying on the western outskirts of Chapel Hill upon both sides of the road leading from Chapel Hill to Greensboro adjoining the lands of John Weaver, Thomas Weaver . . . beginning at the mud hole in Craigs Lane . . . to a locust on the road leading to Greensboro . . . to a rock in the road from Chapel Hill to Jones Ford on Haw River . . . containing 101 ½ acres more or less." So the property straddled Weaver Street (the road leading to Gboro) and was bounded on the south by Jones Ferry Road (the road from CH to Jones Ford). This must have constituted most of downtown Carrboro, including the Piper donation and then some.

But it is also clear that the John M. Craig tract was not “Fur Craig’s” as Battle mentions that the Craig’s still lived there in 1910, whereas John M Craig sold that tract in 1867. Also an 1879 further conveyance of the John M Craig tract to Henry H Patterson and Fendal S Hogan (ODB 46, pg 257) mentions specifically that James F. Craig owned land just to the east. Battle tells us: “James Francis Craig, his [James Craig’s] grandson, a student of the University in 1852, recently [1910] died on the old homestead.” Also, I believe James F. Craig was a member of the Chapel Hill Board of Commissioners (now Town Council) in the 1880’s, suggesting the Fur Craig’s may have been within town limits in the 1880's (ie east of Merritt Mill Road.)

So the upshot of that would seem to be that Fur Craig’s must have been somewhere east of Merritt Mill Road, more or less in the vicinity of what is now Greenbridge. However, the Map of Chapel Hill as it was 1875-1885 shows no dwelling in that area:

The Life of Edmund Fanning

2009-10-21T05:09:00.000-07:00

Benson Lossing’s Pictorial Fieldbook of the Revolution includes a convenient sketch of the life of Edmund Fanning, which I thought would make a nice post on the blog. Foremost, note that Edmund Fanning is more or less no relation to the infamous Tory raider Col. David Fanning of Randolph County fame. Edmund was a notorious lawyer and loyalist who was hated by the Regulators. He was just the sort of person that John F D Stuart-Smyth was referring to when he wrote that before the Revolution some in Orange County became wealthy “by the practice of law, which in this province is peculiarly lucrative and extremely oppressive.”

Here’s Lossing’s sketch [with my comments in square brackets]:

Edmund Fanning was a native of Long Island, New York, son of Colonel Phineas Fanning. [He was Southold, Long Island per wikipedia; also the Canadian Dictionary of Biography says he was the son of James Fanning and Hannah Smith.] He was educated at Yale College, and graduated with honor in 1757. He soon afterward [1761] went to North Carolina, and began the profession of a lawyer at Hillsborough, then called Childsborough. In 1760, the degree of L.L.D. was conferred upon him by his alma mater. In 1763, he was appointed colonel of Orange county, and in 1765 was made clerk of the Superior Court at Hillsborough. He also represented Orange county in the Colonial Legislature. In common with other lawyers, he appears to have exacted exorbitant fees for legal services, and consequently incurred the dislike of the people, which was finally manifested by acts of violence. He accompanied Governor Tryon to New York, in 1771, as his secretary. Governor Martin asked the Legislature to indemnify Colonel Fanning for his losses; the representatives of the people rebuked the governor for presenting such a petition. In 1776, General Howe gave Fanning the commission of colonel, and he raised and commanded a corps called the King's American Regiment of Foot. He was afterward appointed to the lucrative office of surveyor general, which he retained until his flight, with other Loyalists, to Nova Scotia, in 1783. In 1786 he was made lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, and in 1794 he was appointed governor of Prince Edward's Island. He held the latter office about nineteen years, a part of which time he was also a brigadier in the British army, having received his commission in 1808. He married in Nova Scotia, where some of his family yet reside. General Fanning died in London, in 1818, at the age of about eighty-one years. His widow and two daughters yet (1852) survive. One daughter, Lady Wood, a widow, resides near London with her mother; the other, wife of Captain Bentwick Cumberland, a nephew of Lord Bentwick, resides at Charlotte's Town, New Brunswick. I am indebted to John Fanning Watson, Esq., the Annalist of Philadelphia and New York, for the portrait here given.

General Fanning's early career, while in North Carolina, seems not to have given promise of that life of usefulness which he exhibited after leaving Republican America. It has been recorded, it is true, by partisan pens, yet it is said that he often expressed regrets for his indiscreet course at Hillsborough. His after life bore no reproaches, and the Gentlemen's Magazine (1818), when noting his death, remarked, "The world contained no better man in all the relations of life." [Although it should be noted that almost all 19th century obituaries have a hagiographic aspect to them.]

Sketch of the Life of the Rev. Dr. Alexander Wilson

2009-10-14T07:54:00.001-07:00

Rev. Dr. Alexander Wilson's father was reportedly a wealthy man in Ireland who is said to have lost his fotune as a result of acting as a guarantor of the debts of others. It is said that the father was also named Alexander Wilson. But Rev. Alexander Wilson was called Alexander Wilson, Sr. and his son was Alexander, Jr., so it seems unlikely that the Reverend's father was also named Alexander.

In any case, the subject of this sketch was born in 1799 in County Down, Ireland, at Ballylesson. The younger Alexander Wilson grew up in Ireland, studying to become a physician. Around 1817 he graduated from Apothecaries Hall, Dublin. Wilson probably married shortly after graduation. In July 1818 he immigrated to America. Some sources say he lived for a time in New York and taught school there, but others say that North Carolina was his only state of residence in America.

Soon his wife, Mary, came to America as well and about 1820 they were in Raleigh, North Carolina. Wilson taught under Rev. William McPheeters at Raleigh Academy for a year, but then took up teaching in 1821 in Granville County at Williamsboro Academy. In 1826, Wilson was granted his United States citizenship by the Granville County Court. Wilson worked for many years in Granville County, living in Oak Hill. He was the Presbyterian minister to several congregations, including Grassy Creek Presbyterian (which moved and is now Oak Hill Presb.) and Nut Bush Presbyterian which was in the community of Williamsboro. Williamsboro is now called ___ and is in that part of old Granville County which is Vance County today. Rev. Wilson also attended the 1833 founding of Geneva Presbyterian Church in Granville County, as well as probably others.

Rev. Wilson’s work in Granville County was done under the auspices of the New Hope Presbytery. Later, Rev. Wilson became involved in the Orange Presbytery. I don’t know whether this reflects any ideological difference between these Presbyteries. The Grassy Creek Presbyterian Church history notes: “[T]he first African Americans admitted into membership of the Church was between 1833-34. In 1835 service began to be held also in a meeting house between Oak Hill and the Virginia Line, near the residence of the late Graham E. Royster.” This change occurred shortly before Wilson left the New Hope Presbytery, but it is unclear whether these events are related.

In 1833 the Orange Presbytery appointed Rev. Wilson to a committee on Presbyterian education, along with UNC Pres. David Caldwell and a number of others. The committee concluded that a Presbyterian school was needed. The Presbytery concurred and the Caldwell Institute was founded in Greensboro in 1836 with Rev. Wilson as Principal. Mary Wilson initially remained in Granville County, but probably moved to Greensboro around 1837 or 1838.

Around 1845 there was apparently an epidemic in Greensboro and so it was decided to move the school. In the summer of 1845 the Presbytery decided to move the school to Hillsborough and Rev. Wilson moved with the school. About 1850, the Caldwell Institute moved again to the vicinity of Little River Presbyterian Church northeast of Hillsborough, but Wilson did not move with it.

Rev. Wilson’s sons were James, Robert and Alexander, Jr. Robert and Alexander helped teach at their father’s school. Maj. James W. Wilson became a railroad commissioner and Robert Wilson became a businessman in Richmond, Virginia. The Wilson’s also had two daughters, one of whom died young and the other of whom, Alice E. Wilson, married Edwin A. Heartt in late 1847 (Q-H/709), the son of Hillsboro Recorder editor Dennis Heartt.

Right about the same time that Alice Wilson and Edwin Heartt were married, Rev. Wilson, his son Alexander, Jr. and Edwin Heartt bought 50 acres just north of Swepsonville in the community then known as Burnt Shop (ODB 33, pp 101-104). This site was formerly part of 300 acres conveyed from Samuel Child to John W. Norwood (deed not recorded) and was east of the land of the widow of Stephen Glass. At the same time, John A. Bingham bought an additional 50 acres, also formerly part of the Child-Norwood tract.

In 1851, Rev. Wilson founded his own three-room school in Burnt Shop. It is has been claimed that Henderson Scott of the Hawfields was influential in getting Wilson to choose Burnt Shop as the location for the school. If so, then those conversations must have been on-going almost from the moment that Rev. Wilson moved to Hillsborough. In any case, Wilson renamed the community after the Scotch theologian Andrew Melville. The Alexander Wilson School or Melville School became the primary fixture of Melville and earned a reputation as an excellent school. Rev. Wilson also built a gristmill on Haw Creek under the supervision of millwright Berry Davidson. However the dam was ruptured in a great flood in 1875. The remains of the dam can still be seen about 1 mile downstream of the NC 54 bridge over Haw Creek:

Rev. Wilson’s students included several members of the Morehead family, Turner Tate, Tom Roulhac, John and James Wilson, William Mebane, T. B. Bailey, John W. and Geo. Bason, L. Banks Holt, Lawrence Holt, Samuel K. Scott, J. R. Newlin, and Mayor Van Wyck, of New York. After his death in 1867, the school soon closed, but the community is still known as Melville today; and the modern public school in Melville is still called the Alexander Wilson Elementary School.

Lossing’s Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution

2009-10-12T15:00:00.001-07:00

Continuing with my series of blog posts on travelers’ descriptions of their journeys between Hillsborough and Salisbury, North Carolina, I present Benson J. Lossing’s Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution. Lossing traveled all over the east coast visiting and researching important (and not so important) Revolutionary War sites and most of the book is about the history of the Revolutionary War. His account of Greene and Cornwallis’s Race to the Dan is a classic on the topic and is wonderfully detailed, but weaved into that narrative is Lossing’s own narrative about Lossing’s trip from Hillsborough to Salisbury in 1849. Lossing’s penchant for story-telling is delightful. In reproducing his story I have mostly edited out the Revolutionary tales. Those parts of his book are also well worth reading, but they distract from the 1849 narrative.

My comments are in [square brackets]. The more interesting footnotes from Lossing’s book are included here in (parentheses). Enjoy:

I employed the first morning of the new year (1849), in visiting places of interest at Hillsborough, in company with the Reverend Dr. Wilson. [This must have been Alexander Wilson, the schoolmaster of the Caldwell Institute in Hillsborough and later the founder of the Wilson School in Melville, near Swepsonville, NC.] The first object to which my attention was called was a small wooden building, represented in the engraving on the next page, situated opposite the hotel where I was lodged. Cornwallis used it for an office, during his tarryings in Hillsborough, after driving General Greene out of the state. After sketching this, we visited the office of the Clerk of Superior Court, and made the fac similes and extracts from its records, printed on pages 573-4. We next visited the headquarters of Cornwallis, a large frame building situated in the rear of Morris’s Hillsborough House, on King Street. Generals Gates and Greene also occupied it when they were in Hillsborough, and there a large number of the members of the Provincial Congress were generally lodged. The old court-house, where the Regulators performed their lawless acts, is no longer in existence. I was informed by Major Taylor, an octogenarian on whom we called, that it was a brick edifice, and stood almost upon the exact site of the present court-house, which is a spacious brick building, with steeple and clock. The successor of the first was a wooden structure, and being removed to make room for the present building, was converted into a place of meeting for a society of Baptists, who yet worship there. Upon the hill near the Episcopal church, and fronting King Street, is the spot where the Regulators were hung. The residence of Governor Tryon, while in Hillsborough, was on Church Street, a little west of Masonic Hall. These compose the chief objects of historic interest at Hillsborough. The town has other associations connected with the Southern campaigns, but we will not anticipate the revealments of history by considering them now.

At one o’clock I exchanged adieus with the kind Dr. Wilson, crossed the Eno, and , pursuing the route traversed by Tryon on his march to the Allamance, crossed the rapid and now turbid Haw, just below the falls, at sunset [apparently at Swepsonville]. I think I never traveled a worse road than the one stretching between the Eno and the Haw. It passes over a continued series of red clay hills, which are heavily wooded with oaks, gums, black locusts, and chestnuts. Small streams course among these elevations; and in summer this region must be exceedingly picturesque. Now every tree and shrub was leafless, except the holly and the laurel, and nothing green appeared among the wide reaching branches but the beautiful tufts of mistletoe which every where decked the great oaks with their delicate leaves and transparent berries. Two and a half miles beyond the Haw, and eighteen from Hillsborough, I passed the night at Foust’s house of entertainment, and after an early breakfast, rode to the place where Colonel Pyle, a Tory officer, with a considerable body of Loyalists, was deceived and defeated by Lieutenant-colonel Henry Lee and his dragoons, with Colonel Pickens, in the spring of 1781. Dr. Holt, who lives a short distance from that locality, kindly accompanied me to the spot and pointed out the place where the battle occurred; where Colonel Pyle lay concealed in a pond, and where many of the slain were buried. (About a quarter of a mile northwest from this pond, is the spot where the battle occurred. It was then heavily wooded; now it is a cleared field, on the plantation of Colonel Michael Holt. Mr. Holt planted an apple tree upon the spot where fourteen of the slain were buried in one grave. Near by, a persimmon-tree indicates the place of burial of several others. [This footnote is to a part of the text that I omitted, but the note is interesting and relates also to this part of the text, so I included it here.])The place of conflict is about half a mile north of the old Salisbury highway, upon a “plantation road,” two miles east of the Allamance, in Orange county. Let us listen to the voices of history and tradition.

[Here Lossing gives a long and detailed account of Pyle’s Massacre, which I am omitting.]

I left the place of Pyle’s defeat toward noon, and, following a sinuous and seldom traveled road through a forest of wild crab-apple trees and black jacks, crossed the Allamance at the cotton factory of Holt and Carrigan, two miles distant [the village of Alamance]. (This factory, in the midst of a cotton-growing country, and upon a never-failing stream, can not be otherwise than source of great profit to the owners. The machinery is chiefly employed in the manufacture of cotton yarn. Thirteen hundred and fifty spindles were in operation. Twelve loons were employed in the manufacture of coarse cotton goods suitable for the use of the Negroes. [Slaves wore clothes made from a cheap, coarse fabric called osnaburg. The Holt's made mostly osnaburg and a much finer plaid.]) Around this mill quite a village of neat log-houses occupied by the operatives, were collected, and every thing had the appearance of thrift. I went in, and was pleased to see the hands of intelligent white females employed in a useful occupation. Manual labor by white people is a rare sight at the South, where an abundance of slave labor appears to render such occupation unnecessary; and it can seldom be said of one of our fair sisters there, “She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.” This cotton mill, like the few others which I saw in the Carolinas, is a real blessing, present and prospective, for it gives employment and comfort to many poor girls who might otherwise be wretched; and it is a seed of industry planted in a generous soil, which may hereafter germinate and bear abundant fruit of its kind in the midst of cotton plantations, thereby augmenting immensely the true wealth of the nation. [Boy, was he right about that. In 1849, the only other cotton mills in the Haw watershed were at Big Falls (Hopedale) and Saxpahaw. By 1881, there were 12 and by 1900 there were dozens.]

At a distance of two miles and a half beyond the Allamance, on the Salisbury road [more or less NC 62], , I reached the Regulator battle-ground; and, in company with a young man residing in the vicinity, visited the points of particular interest, and a made the sketch printed on page 577. The rock and the ravine from whence James Pugh and his companions (see page 576) did such execution with their rifles, are now hardly visible. The place is a few rods north of the road. The ravine is almost filled by the washing down of earth from the slopes during eighty years; and the rock projects only a few ells above the surface. The whole of the natural scenery is changed, and nothing but tradition can identify the spot. [Almost makes me think that he did not find the right place.]

While viewing the battle-ground, the wind, which had been a gentle and pleasant breeze from the south all the morning, veered to the northeast, and brought omens of a cold storm. I left the borders of the Allamance, and it associations, at one o’clock, and traversing a very hilly country for eighteen miles, arrived, a little after dark, at Greensborough, a thriving, compact village, situated about five miles southeast from the site of old Guilford Court House. It is the capitol of Guilford county, and successor of old Martinsburg, where the court-house was formerly situated. Very few of the villages in the interior of the state appeared to me more like a Northern town than Greensborough. The houses are generally good, and the stores gave evidence of active trade. Within an hour after my arrival, the town was thrown into commotion by the bursting out of flames from a large frame dwelling, a short distance from the court-house. There being no fire-engine in the places, the flames spread rapidly, and at one time menaced the safety of the whole town. A small keg of powder was used, without effect, to demolish a tailor’s shop, standing in the path of the conflagration toward a large tavern. The flames passed on, until confronted by one of those broad chimneys, on the outside of the house, so universally prevalent at the South, when it was subdued, after four buildings were destroyed. I never saw a population more thoroughly frightened; and when I returned to my lodgings, far away from the fire, every bed in the house was packed ready for flight. It was past midnight when the town became quiet, and a consequently late breakfast delayed my departure for the battle-field at Guilford Court House, until nine o’clock the next morning. [It would be interesting to compare this with contemporary press accounts of this fire.]

A cloudy sky, a biting north wind, and the dropping of a few snow-flakes when I left Greensborough, betokened an unpleasant day for my researches. It was ten o’clock when I reached Martinsville, once a pleasant hamlet, now a desolation. There are only a few dilapidated and deserted dwellings left; and nothing remains of the old Guilford Court House but the ruins of a chimney depicted on the plan of the battle, printed on page 608. Only one house was inhabited, and that by the tiller of the soil around it. Descending into a narrow broken valley, from Martinsville, and ascending the opposite slope to still higher ground on the road to Salem, I passed among the fields consecrated by the events of the battle at Guilford, in March, 1781 to the house of Mr. Hotchkiss, a Quaker, who, I was informed could point out every locality of interest in his neighborhood.

Mr. Hotchkiss was absent, and I was obliged to wait more than an hour for his return. The time passed pleasantly in conversation with his daughter, an intelligent young lady, who kindly ordered my horse to be fed, and regaled me with some fine apples, the first fruit of the kind I had seen since leaving the James River. While tarrying there, the snow began to fall thickly, and when, about noon, I rambled over the most interesting portion of the battle-ground, and sketched the scene printed on page 611, the whole country was covered with a white mantle. Here, by this hospitable fireside, let us consider the battle, and those wonderful antecedents events which distinguished General Green’s celebrated Retreat.

[Lossing describes the Race to the Dan and the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in great detail, a wonderful account that I am omitting here.]

I left the Guilford battle-ground and the hospitable cottage of Mr. Hotchkiss, at noon, the snow falling fast. At four miles distant, on the Salisbury road, I reached the venerable New Garden meeting-house, yet standing within the stately oak forest where Lee and Tarleton met. It is a frame building with a brick foundation. It was meeting-day, and the congregation were yet in session. Tying Charley [his horse] to a drooping branch, I entered softly. A larger number than is usually present at “week-day meetings” had congregated, for a young man of the sect from Randolph county, thirty miles distant, and a young woman of Guilford, had signified their intentions to declare themselves publicly on that day, man and wife. [I think it would be straight forward to identify who this couple was.] They had just risen before the elders and people when I glided into a seat near the door, and with a trembling voice the bridegroom had begun the expression of the marriage vow. His weather-bronzed features betokened the man of toil in the fields, and strongly contrasted with the blonde and delicate face, and slender form of her who, with the downcast eyes of modesty, heard his pledge of love and protection, and was summoning all her energy to make her kindred response. I had often observed the simple marriage ceremony of the Quakers, but never before did the beauty of that ritual appear so marked with the sublimity of pure simplicity.

At the close of the meeting, I learned from one of the elders that a Friend’s boarding-school was near, and, led by curiosity, I visited it. [What school is this?] The building is of brick, spacious, and well arranged. It was under the superintendence of Thomas Hunt, a son of Nathan Hunt, an eminent Quaker preacher. An incidental remark concerning my relationship with Quakers, made while conversing with the wife of the superintendent, caused her to inquire whether I had ever heard of here father-in-law. I replied in the affirmative, having heard him preach when I was a boy, and expressed the supposition that he had long ago gone to his rest. “Oh no,” she replied, “he is in the adjoining room,: and leading the way, I was introduced to the patriarch of ninety-one years. He remembered well when the New Garden meetinghouse was built, and resided in the neighborhood when the wounded and dying, from the field of Guilford, were brought there. Although physical infirmities were weighing heavily upon him, his mind appeared clear and elastic. When I was about departing, and pressed his hand with an adieu, he placed the other upon my head and said, “Farewell! God’s peace go with thee!” I felt as if I had received the blessing of a patriarch indeed; and for days afterward, when fording dangerous streams and traversing rough mountain roads, that uttered blessing was in my mind, and seemed like a guardian angel about my path. Gloomy unbelief may deride, and thoughtless levity may laugh in ridicule at such an intimation, but all the philosophy of schools could not give me such exquisite feelings of security in the hands of a kind Providence as that old man’s blessing imparted.

The storm yet continued, and the kind matron of the school gave me a cordial invitation to remain there until it should cease; but, anxious to complete my journey, I rode on to Jamestown, an old village situated upon the high southwestern bank of the Deep River, nine miles from New Garden meeting-house, and thirteen miles above Bell’s Mills, where Cornwallis had his encampment before the Guilford battle. The country through which I had passed from Guilford was very broken, and I did not reach Jamestown until sunset. It is chiefly inhabited by Quakers, the most of them originally from Nantucket and vicinity; and as they do not own slaves, nor employ slave labor, except when a servant is working to purchase his freedom, the land and the dwellings presented an aspect of thrift not visible in most of the agricultural districts in the upper country of the Carolinas.

I passed the night at Jamestown, and early in the morning departed for the Yadkin. Snow was yet falling gently, and it laid three inches deep upon the ground; a greater quantity than had fallen at one time, in that section, for five years. Fortunately my route from thence to Lexington, in Davidson county, a distance of twenty miles, was upon a fine ridge road a greater portion of the way, and the snow produced but little inconvenience. (These ridge roads, or rather ridges upon which they are constructed, are curious features in the upper country of the Carolinas. Although the whole country is hilly upon every side, these roads may be traveled a score of miles, sometimes, with hardly ten feet of variation from a continuous level. The ridges are of sand, and continue, unbroken by ravines, which cleave the hills in all directions for miles, upon almost a uniform level. The roads following their summits are exceedingly sinuous, but being level and hard, the greater distance is more easily accomplished than if they were constructed in straight lines over the hills. The country has the appearance of vast waves of the sea suddenly turned into sand.)

Toward noon, the clouds broke, and before I reached Lexington (a small village on the west side of Abbott’s Creek, a tributary of the Yadkin), at half past two in the afternoon, not a flake of snow remained. Charley and I had already lunched by the margin of a little stream, so I drove through the village without halting, hoping to reach Salisbury, sixteen miles distant, by twilight. I was disappointed; for the red clay roads prevailed, and I only reached the house of a small planted within a mile of the east bank of the Yadkin, just as the twilight gave place to the splendors of a full moon and myriads of stars in a cloudless sky. From the proprietor I learned that the Trading Ford, where Greene and Morgan crossed when pursued by Cornwallis, was only a mile distant. As I could not pass it on my way to Salisbury in the morning, I arose at four o’clock, gave Charley his breakfast and at earliest dawn stood upon the eastern shore of the Yadkin, and made the sketch printed upon page 601. The air was frosty, the pools were bridged with ice, and before the sketch was finished, my benumbed fingers were disposed to drop the pencil. I remained at the ford until the east was all aglow with the radiance of the rising sun, when I walked back, partook of some corn-bread, muddy coffee, and spare-ribs, and at eight o’clock crossed the Yadkin at the great bridge, on the Salisbury road. The river is there about three hundred yards wide, and was considerably swollen from the melting of the recent snows. Its volume of turbid waters came rolling down in a swift current, and gave me a full appreciation of the barrier which Providence had there placed between the Republicans and the royal armies, when engaged in the great race described in this chapter.

From the Yadkin the roads passed through a red clay region, which was made so miry by the melting snows that it was almost eleven o’clock when I arrived at Salisbury. This village, of over a thousand inhabitants, is situated a few miles from the Yadkin, and is the capital of Rowan county, a portion of the “Hornet’s Nest” of the Revolution. It is a place of considerable historic note. On account of its geographical position, it was often the place of rendezvous of the militia preparing for the battle-fields; of various regular corps, American and British, during the last tree years of the war; and especially as the brief resting-place of both armies during Greene’s memorable retreat. Here, too, it will be remembered, General Waddell had his head-quartes for a few days during the “Regulator war.” I made a diligent inquiry during my tarry in Salisbury, for remains of Revolutionary movements and localities, but could hear of none. The Americans when fleeing before Cornwallis, encamped for a night about half a mile from the village, on the road to the Yadkin; the British occupied a position on the northern border of the town, about an eighth of a mile from the court-house. I was informed that two buildings occupied by officers, had remained until two or three years ago when they were demolished. Finding nothing to invite a protracted stay at Salisbury, I resumed the reins, and rode on toward Concord. The roads were very bad, and the sun went down, while a rough way, eight miles in extent, lay between me and Concord.

Lawson Crosses Proto-Orange County

2009-10-11T19:28:00.000-07:00

Following is the part of John Lawson’s famous New Voyage to Carolina (1710). Lawson’s account is a classic and I have little to add to it. This part of the book describes Lawson’s journey from Salisbury, NC to Hillsborough, NC along the Native Trading Path and the parts in [brackets] are my comments or interpretations about his description. Douglass Rights wrote the seminal interpretation of Lawson’s journey in the early 20th century and many of my comments are based on Rights’ interpretation.

Monday.

On Monday Morning, our whole Company, with the Horses, set out from the Sapona-Indian Town [Salisbury], after having seen some of the Locust, which is gotten thereabouts, the same Sort that bears Honey. Going over several Creeks, very convenient for Water-Mills, about 8 Miles from the Town, we pass'd over a very pretty River, call'd Rocky River, a fit Name, having a Ridge of high Mountains running from its Banks, to the Eastward; and disgorging itself into Sapona-River [the Yadkin]; so that there is a most pleasant and convenient Neck of Land, betwixt both Rivers, lying upon a Point, where many thousand Acres may be fenced in, without much Cost or Labour. You can scarce go a Mile, without meeting with one of these small swift Currents, here being no Swamps to be found, but pleasant, dry Roads all over the Country. The Way that we went this day, was as full of Stones, as any which Craven, in the West of Yorkshire, could afford, and having nothing but Moggisons [moccasins] on my Feet, I was so lam'd by this stony Way, that I thought I must have taken up some Stay in those Parts. We went, this day, not above 15 or 20 Miles. After we had supp'd, and all lay down to sleep, there came a Wolf close to the Fire-side, where we lay. My Spaniel soon discover'd him, at which, one of our Company fir'd a Gun at the Beast; but, I believe, there was a Mistake in the loading of it, for it did him no Harm. The Wolf stay'd till he had almost loaded again, but the Bitch making a great Noise, at last left us and went aside. We had no sooner laid down, but he approach'd us again, yet was more shy, so that we could not get a Shot at him.

Tuesday.

Next day, we had 15 Miles farther to the Keyauwees. The Land is more mountainous, but extremely pleasant, and an excellent Place for the breeding Sheep, Goats, and Horses; or Mules, if the English were once brought to the Experience of the Usefulness of those Creatures. The Valleys are here very rich. At Noon, we pass'd over such another stony River, as that eight Miles from Sapona. This is call'd Heighwaree [the Uwharrie], and affords as good blue Stone for Mill-Stones, as that from Cologn, good Rags, some Hones, and large Pebbles, in great abundance, besides Free-Stone of several Sorts, all very useful. I knew one of these Hones made use of by an Acquaintance of mine, and it prov'd rather better than any from Old Spain, or elsewhere. The Veins of Marble are very large and curious on this River, and the Banks thereof.

Five Miles from this River, to the N. W. stands the Keyauwees Town. [Rights suggests that Lawson meant NE not NW; the town was therefore in the Caraway Mountains north of Randleman.] They are fortify'd in, with wooden Puncheons, like Sapona, being a People much of the same Number. Nature hath so fortify'd this Town, with Mountains, that were it a Seat of War, it might easily be made impregnable; having large Corn-Fields joining to their Cabins, and a Savanna near the Town, at the Foot of these Mountains, that is capable of keeping some hundred Heads of Cattle. And all this environ'd round with very high Mountains, so that no hard Wind ever troubles these Inhabitants. Those high Clifts have no Grass growing on them, and very few Trees, which are very short, and stand at a great Distance one from another. The Earth is of a red Colour, and seems to me to be wholly design'd by Nature for the 'Production of Minerals, being of too hot a Quality, to suffer any Verdure upon its Surface. These Indians make use of Lead-Ore, to paint their Faces withal, which they get in the neighbouring Mountains. As for the refining of Metals, the Indians are wholly ignorant of it, being content with the Realgar. But if it be my Chance, once more to visit these Hilly Parts, I shall make a longer Stay amongst them: For were a good Vein of Lead found out, and work'd by an ingenious Hand, it might be of no small Advantage to the Undertaker, there being great Convenience for smelting, either by Bellows or Reverberation; and the Working of these Mines might discover some that are much richer.

At the Top of one of these Mountains, is a Cave that 100 Men may fit very conveniently to dine in; whether natural, or artificial, I could not learn. [No one has ever explained this claim.] There is a fine Bole between this Place, and the Saps. These Valleys thus hemm'd in with Mountains, would (doubtless) prove a good place for propagating some sort of Fruits, that our Easterly Winds commonly blast. The Vine could not miss of thriving well here; but we of the Northern Climate are neither Artists, nor curious, in propagating that pleasant and Vegetable. Near the Town, is such another Current, as Heighwaree. We being six in Company, divided ourselves into Two Parties; and it was my Lot to be at the House of Keyauwees Jack, who is King of that People. He is a Congeree-Indian, and ran away when he was a Boy. He got this Government by Marriage with the Queen; the Female Issue carrying the Heritage, for fear of Impostors; the Savages well knowing, how much Frailty possesses the Indian Women, betwixt the Garters and the Girdle. [Lawson is withal racist - although less so than some of the English - but this comment is so offensive that I have to call him out for it.]

Wednesday.

The next day, having some occasion to write, the Indian King, who saw me, believ'd that he could write as well as I. Whereupon, I wrote a Word, and gave it him to copy, which he did with more Exactness, than any European could have done, that was illiterate. It was so well, that he who could read mine, might have done the same by his. Afterwards, he took great Delight in making Fish-hooks of his own Invention, which would have been a good Piece for an Antiquary to have puzzled his Brains withal, in tracing out the Characters of all the Oriental Tongues. He sent for several Indians to his Cabin, to look at his Handy-work, and both he and they thought, I could read his Writing as well as I could my own. I had a Manual in my Pocket, that had King David's Picture in it, in one of his private Retirements. The Indian ask'd me, Who that Figure represented? I told him, It was the Picture of a good King, that liv'd according to the Rules of Morality, doing to all as he would be done by, ordering all his Life to the Service of the Creator of all things; and being now above us all, in Heaven, with God Almighty, who had rewarded him with all the delightful Pleasures imaginable in the other World, for his Obedience to him in this; I concluded, with telling them, that we received nothing here below, as Food, Raiment, &c. but what came from that Omnipotent Being. They listned to my Discourse with a profound Silence, assuring me, that they believ'd what I said to be true. No Man living will ever be able to make these Heathens sensible of the Happiness of a future State, except he now and then mentions some lively carnal Representation, which may quicken their Apprehensions, and make them thirst after such a gainful Exchange; for, were the best Lecture that ever was preach'd by Man, given to an ignorant sort of People, in a more learned Style, than their mean Capacities are able to understand, the Intent would prove ineffectual, and the Hearers would be left in a greater Labyrinth than their Teacher found them in. But dispense the Precepts of our Faith according to the Pupil's Capacity, and there is nothing in our Religion, but what an indifferent Reason is, in some measure, able to comprehend; tho' a New-England Minister blames the French Jesuits for this way of Proceeding, as being quite contrary to a true Christian Practice, and affirms it to be no ready, or true Method, to establish a lively Representation of our Christian Belief amongst these Infidels.

All the Indians hereabouts carefully preserve the Bones of the Flesh they eat, and burn them, as being of Opinion, that if they omitted that Custom, the Game would leave their Country, and they should not be able to maintain themselves by their Hunting. Most of these Indians wear Mustachoes, or Whiskers, which is rare; by reason the Indians are a People that commonly pull the Hair of their Faces, and other Parts, up by the Roots, and suffer none to grow. Here is plenty of Chesnuts [we see few of them today owing to the Chestnut Blight], which are rarely found in Carolina, and never near the Sea, or Salt-Water; tho' they are frequently in such Places in Virginia.

At the other House, where our Fellow-Travellers lay, they had provided a Dish, in great Fashion amongst the Indians, which was Two young Fawns, taken out of the Doe's Bellies, and boil'd in the same slimy Bags Nature had plac'd them in, and one of the Country-Hares, stew'd with the Guts in her Belly, and her Skin with the Hair on. This new-fashion'd Cookery wrought Abstinence in our Fellow-Travellers, which I somewhat wonder'd at, because one of them made nothing of eating Allegators, as heartily as if it had been Pork and Turneps. The Indians dress most things after the Wood-cock Fashion, never taking the Guts out. At the House we lay at, there was very good Entertainment of Venison, Turkies, and Bears; and which is customary amongst the Indians, the Queen had a Daughter by a former Husband, who was the beautifullest Indian I ever saw, and had an Air of Majesty with her, quite contrary to the general Carriage of the Indians. She was very kind to the English, during our Abode, as well as her Father and Mother.

Thursday.

This Morning, most of our Company having some Inclination to go straight away for Virginia, when they left this Place; I and one more took our leaves of them, resolving (with God's Leave) to see North-Carolina, one of the Indians setting us in our way. The rest being indifferent which way they went, desired us, by all means, to leave a Letter for them, at the Achonechy-Town [Hillsborough]. The Indian that put us in our Path, had been a Prisoner amongst the Sinnagers; but had out-run them, although they had cut his Toes, and half his Feet away, which is a Practice common amongst them. They first raise the Skin, then cut away half the Feet, and so wrap the Skin over the Stumps, and make a present Cure of the Wounds. This commonly disables them from making their Escape, they being not so good Travellers as before, and the Impression of their Half-Feet making it easy to trace them. However, this Fellow was got clear of them, but had little Heart to go far from home, and carry'd always a Case of Pistols in his Girdle, besides a Cutlass, and a Fuzee. Leaving the rest of our Company at the Indian-Town, we travell'd, that day, about 20 Miles, in very cold, frosty Weather; and pass'd over two pretty Rivers, something bigger than Heighwaree, but not quite so stony. We took these two Rivers to make one of the Northward Branches of Cape-Fair River, but afterwards found our Mistake.

Friday.

The next day, we travell'd over very good Land, but full of Free-Stone, and Marble, which pinch'd our Feet severely. [Presumably by marble lawson means large chunks of quartz which are common in some areas of the Piedmont.] We took up our Quarters in a sort of Savanna-Ground, that had very few Trees in it. The Land was good, and had several Quarries of Stone, but not loose, as the others us'd to be.

Saturday.

Next Morning, we got our Breakfasts of Parch'd Corn, having nothing but that to subsist on for above 100 Miles. All the Pine-Trees were vanish'd, for we had seen none for two days. [Other authorities seem to agree that Pine trees were not nearly so common in Orange County 250 years ago.] We pass'd through a delicate rich Soil this day; no great Hills, but pretty Risings, and Levels, which made a beautiful Country. We likewise pass'd over three Rivers this day; the first about the bigness of Rocky River, the other not much differing in Size. Then we made not the least Question, but we had pass'd over the North-West Branch of Cape-Fair [Cape Fear], travelling that day above 30 Miles. We were much taken with the Fertility and Pleasantness of the Neck of Land between these two Branches, and no less pleas'd, that we had pass'd the River, which us'd to frighten Passengers from fording it. At last, determining to rest on the other side of a Hill, which we saw before us; when we were on the Top thereof, there appear'd to us such another delicious, rapid Stream, as that of Sapona, having large Stones, about the bigness of an ordinary House, lying up and down the River. [Authorities agree that this was somewhere near Swepsonville – perhaps in what is now that village or perhaps a few miles north.] As the Wind blew very cold at N. W. and we were very weary, and hungry, the Swiftness of the Current gave us some cause to fear; but, at last, we concluded to venture over that Night. Accordingly, we stripp'd, and with great Difficulty, (by God's Assistance) got safe to the North-side of the famous Hau-River [Haw River], by some called Reatkin; the Indians differing in the Names of Place, according to their several Nations. It is call'd Hau-River, from the Sissipahau Indians, who dwell upon this Stream, which is one of the main Branches of Cape-Fair, there being rich Land enough to contain some Thousands of Families [the Haw Old Fields or Hawfields]; for which Reason, I hope, in a short time, it will be planted. This River is much such another as Sapona; both seeming to run a vast way up the Country. Here is plenty of good Timber, and especially, of a Scaly-bark'd Oak [White Oak]; And as there is Stone enough in both Rivers, and the Land is extraordinary Rich, no Man that will be content within the Bounds of Reason, can have any grounds to dislike it. And they that are otherwise, are the best Neighbours, when farthest off. [Amen.]

Sunday.

As soon as it was day, we set out for the Achonechy- Town [Hillsborough], it being, by Estimation, 20 Miles off, which, I believe, is pretty exact. We were got about half way, (meeting great Gangs of Turkies) when we saw, at a Distance, 30 loaded Horses, coming on the Road, with four or five Men, on other Jades, driving them. We charg'd our Piece, and went up to them: Enquiring, whence they came from? They told us, from Virginia. The leading Man's Name was Massey, who was born about Leeds in Yorkshire. He ask'd, from whence we came? We told him. Then he ask'd again, Whether we wanted any thing that he had? telling us, we should be welcome to it. We accepted of Two Wheaten Biskets, and a little Ammunition. He advised us, by all means, to strike down the Country for Ronoack, and not think of Virginia, because of the Sinnagers, of whom they were afraid, tho' so well arm'd, and numerous. They persuaded us also, to call upon one Enoe Will, as we went to Adshusheer, for that he would conduct us safe among the English, giving him the Character of a very faithful Indian, which we afterwards found true by Experience. The Virginia-Men asking our Opinion of the Country we were then in? we told them, it was a very pleasant one. [This was the Haw Old Fields.] They were all of the same Opinion, and affirm'd, That they had never seen 20 Miles of such extraordinary rich Land, lying all together, like that betwixt Hau-River and the Achonechy Town. Having taken our Leaves of each other, we set forward; and the Country, thro' which we pass'd, was so delightful, that it gave us a great deal of Satisfaction. About Three a Clock, we reach'd the Town, and the Indians presently brought us good fat Bear, and Venison, which was very acceptable at that time. Their Cabins were hung with a good sort of Tapestry, as fat Bear, and barbakued or dried Venison; no Indians having greater Plenty of Provisions than these. The Savages do, indeed, still possess the Flower of Carolina, the English enjoying only the Fag-end of that fine Country. We had not been in the Town 2 Hours, when Enoe-Will came into the King's Cabin; which was our Quarters. We ask'd him, if he would conduct us to the English, and what he would have for his Pains; he answer'd, he would go along with us, and for what he was to have, he left that to our Discretion.

Monday.

The next Morning, we set out, with Enoe-Will, towards Adshusheer [a village NE of Durham], leaving the Virginia Path [the Native Trading Path], and striking more to the Eastward [probably along the Fish Dam Road – more or less Old NC 10], for Ronoack. Several Indians were in our Company belonging to Will's Nation, who are the Shoccories, mixt with the Enoe-Indians, and those of the Nation of Adshusheer. Enoe-Will is their chief Man, and rules as far as the Banks of Reatkin [the Haw]. It was a sad stony Way to Adshusheer. We went over a small River by Achonechy, and in this 14 Miles, through several other Streams, which empty themselves into the Branches of Cape-Fair. The stony Way made me quite lame; so that I was an Hour or two behind the rest; but honest Will would not leave me, but bid me welcome when we came to his House, feasting us with hot Bread, and Bears-Oil; which is wholsome Food for Travellers. There runs a pretty Rivulet by this Town. Near the Plantation, I saw a prodigious overgrown Pine-Tree, having not seen any of that Sort of Timber for above 125 Miles: They brought us 2 Cocks, and pull'd their larger Feathers off, never plucking the lesser, but singeing them off. I took one of these Fowls in my Hand, to make it cleaner than the Indian had, pulling out his Guts and Liver, which I laid in a Bason; notwithstanding which, he kept such a Struggling for a considerable time, that I had much ado to hold him in my Hands. The Indians laugh'd at me, and told me, that Enoe-Will had taken a Cock of an Indian that was not at home, and the Fowl was design'd for another Use. I conjectur'd, that he was design'd for an Offering to their God, who, they say, hurts them, (which is the Devil.) In this Struggling, he bled afresh, and there issued out of his Body more Blood than commonly such Creatures afford. Notwithstanding all this, we cook'd him, and eat him; and if he was design'd for him, cheated the Devil. The Indians keep many Cocks, but seldom above one Hen, using very often such wicked Sacrifices, as I mistrusted this Fowl was design'd for.

Our Guide and Landlord Enoe-Will was of the best and most agreeable Temper that ever I met with in an Indian, being always ready to serve the English, not out of Gain, but real Affection; which makes him apprehensive of being poison'd by some wicked Indians, and was therefore very earnest with me, to promise him to revenge his Death, if it should so happen. He brought some of his chief Men into his Cabin, and 2 of them having a Drum, and a Rattle, sung by us, as we lay in Bed, and struck up their Musick to serenade and welcome us to their Town. And tho' at last, we fell asleep, yet they continu'd their Consort till Morning. These Indians are fortify'd in, as the former, and are much addicted to a Sport they call Chenco, which is carry'd on with a Staff and a Bowl made of Stone, which they trundle upon a smooth Place, like a Bowling-Green, made for that Purpose, as I have mention'd before.

Tuesday.

Next Morning, we set out, with our Guide, and several other Indians, who intended to go to the English, and buy Rum. We design'd for a Nation about 40 Miles from Adshusheer, call'd the Lower Quarter: The first Night, we lay in a rich Perkoson, or low Ground, that was hard-by a Creek, and good dry Land.

Wednesday.

The next day, we went over several Tracts of rich Land, but mix'd with Pines and other indifferent Soil. In our way, there stood a great Stone about the Size of a large Oven, and hollow; this the Indians took great Notice of, putting some Tobacco into the Concavity, and spitting after it. I ask'd them the reason of their so doing, but they made me no Answer. In the Evening, we pass'd over a pleasant Rivulet, with a fine gravelly Bottom, having come over such another that Morning. On the other side of this River, we found the Indian Town, which was a Parcel of nasty smoaky Holes, much like the Waterrees; their Town having a great Swamp running directly through the Middle thereof. The Land here begins to abate of its Height, and has some few Swamps. Most of these Indians have but one Eye; but what Mischance or Quarrel has bereav'd them of the other I could not learn. They were not so free to us, as most of the other Indians had been; Victuals being somewhat scarce among them. However, we got enough to satisfy our Appetites. I saw, among these Men, very long Arrows, headed with Pieces of Glass, which they had broken from Bottles. They had shap'd them neatly, like the Head of a Dart; but which way they did it, I can't tell. We had not been at this Town above an Hour, when two of our Company, that had bought a Mare of John Stewart, came up to us, having receiv'd a Letter by one of Will's Indians, who was very cautious, and asked a great many Questions, to certifie him of the Person, e'er he would deliver the Letter. They had left the Trader, and one that came from South-Carolina with us, to go to Virginia; these Two being resolved to go to Carolina with us.

Thursday.

This Day fell much Rain, so we staid at the Indian Town.

Friday.

This Morning, we set out early, being four English-Men, besides several Indians. We went 10 Miles, and were then stopp'd by the Freshes of Enoe-River, which had rais'd it so high, that we could not pass over, till it was fallen, I enquir'd of my Guide, Where this River disgorg'd it self? He said, It was Enoe-River, and run into a Place call'd Enoe-Bay, near his Country, which he left when he was a Boy; by which I perceiv'd,he was one of the Cores by Birth: This being a Branch of Neus-River.

Saturday.

This Day, our Fellow-Traveller's Mare ran away from him; wherefore, Will went back as far as the lower Quarter, and brought her back.

Sunday.

The next Day, early, came two Tuskeraro Indians to the other side of the River, but could not get over. They talk'd much to us, but we understood them not. In the Afternoon, Will came with the Mare, and had some Discourse with them; they told him, The English, to whom he was going, were very wicked People; and, That they threatned the Indians for Hunting near their Plantations. These Two Fellows were going among the Schoccores and Achonechy Indians, to sell their Wooden Bowls and Ladles for Raw-Skins, which they make great Advantage of, hating that any of these Westward Indians should have any Commerce with the English, which would prove a Hinderance to their Gains. Their Stories deterr'd an Old Indian and his Son, from going any farther; but Will told, us, Nothing they had said should frighten him, he believing them to be a couple of Hog-s[t]ealers; and that the English only sought Restitution of their Losses, by them; and that this was the only ground for their Report. Will had a Slave, a Sissipahau-Indian by Nation, who killed us several Turkies, and other Game, on which we feasted.

Monday.

This River is near as large as Reatkin; the South-side having curious Tracts of good Land, the Banks high, and Stone-Quarries. The Tuskeruros being come to us, we ventur'd over the River, which we found to be a strong Current, and the Water about Breast-high. However, we all got safe to the North-Shore, which is but poor, white, sandy Land, and bears no Timber, but small shrubby Oaks. We went about 10 Miles, and sat down at the Falls of a large Creek, where lay mighty Rocks, the Water making a strange Noise, as if a great many Water-Mills were going at once. I take this to be the Falls of Neus-Creek, called by the Indians, Wee quo Whom [Falls of Neuse]. We lay here all Night. My Guide Will desiring to see the Book that I had about me, I lent it him; and as he soon found the Picture of King David, he asked me several Questions concerning the Book, and Picture, which I resolv'd him, and invited him to become a Christian. He made me a very sharp Reply, assuring me, That he lov'd the English extraordinary well, and did believe their Ways to be very good for those that had already practs'd them, and had been brought up therein; But as for himself, he was too much in Years to think of a Change, esteeming it not proper for Old People to admit of such an Alteration. However, he told me, If I would take his Son Jack, who was then about 14 Years of Age, and teach him to talk in that Book, and make Paper speak, which they call our Way of Writing, he would wholly resign him to my Tuition; telling me, he was of Opinion, I was very well affected to the Indians.

Tuesday.

The next Morning, we set out early, and I perceiv'd that these Indians were in some fear of Enemies; for they had an Old Man with them, who was very cunning and circumspect, wheresoever he saw any Marks of Footing, or of any Fire that had been made; going out of his Way, very often, to look for these Marks. We went, this day, above 30 Miles, over a very level Country, and most Pine Land, yet intermix'd with some Quantities of Marble; a good Range for Cattel, though very indifferent for Swine. We had now lost our rapid Streams, and were come to slow, dead Waters, of a brown Colour, proceeding from the Swamps, much like the Sluices in Holland, where the Track-Scoots go along. In the Afternoon, we met two Tuskeruros, who told us, That there was a Company of Hunters not far of, and if we walk'd stoutly, we might reach them that Night. But Will and He that own'd the Mare, being gone before, and the Old Indian tired, we rested, that Night, in the Woods, making a good light Fire, Wood being very plentiful in these Parts.

Housing Segregation in Chapel Hill

2009-10-08T18:46:00.000-07:00

The Map of Chapel Hill as it was in 1875-1885 (H. D. Carter, 1934) shows a number of houses that are identified as African-American households. I thought it would be intersting to compare the distribution of those households with the early to mid 20th century housing segregation line.

In 1944, Charles Freeman made a map as a part of his Masters Thesis showing housing segregation in Chapel Hill:

Having lived in the Northside neighborhood in Chapel Hill, I can say that Freeman's color segregation line was largely still the case into the 1990's.

So I copied over onto H. D. Carter's map that segregation line in yellow and then circled the 1875-1885 African American households:

And the result is striking. Only one of the 1875-1885 African American households was in an area that was a segregated black neighborhood. All the rest were in areas that were white-only neighborhoods in the 20th century.

I think this pattern is consistent with the findings of professional historians and geographers that segregation was something that was imposed in many communities in 1900 or so, not immediately after the Civil War. I believe research has been done on Charleston, SC illustrating this.

History for Sale

2009-10-08T04:46:00.000-07:00

Orange County government is strapped for cash and will be selling four pieces of surplus real estate around the county. Among the properties to be sold is the Alexander Graham Building at 118 North Churton Street in Hillsborough.

This remarkable and beautiful building is made of mortared stone in the Greek Revival style. It is only one story tall with a columned porch that makes the building look a bit like a miniature bank or courthouse.

The building’s cornerstone says “Graham Building 1930” and a little sleuthing shows that this was originally built as a private law office for Alexander H. Graham. Graham was at one time Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina and lived in Hillsborough at Montrose.

I don’t know why Lt. Gov. Graham chose to build such a solid and beautiful law office, but he did. By any standards this building is an inspired little piece of architecture and the method of construction appears to have been of uncompromising quality. Graham went for quality, not only in the finished surfaces, which are still beautiful and intact 80 years later, but in structural soundness. The building looks and feels like it will still be in downtown Hillsborough 80 years from now.

The minimum bid has been set at $130,000, and although the building is only about 700 square feet, I feel pretty confident that the County will get considerably more than that for it. I hope whoever buys this building will treat it like a treasure, because that is what it is.

Ch. 20 of Suart-Smyth's A Tour in the United States (1784)

2009-10-03T18:50:00.001-07:00

CHAP. XX

Newse-River. Hillsborough. Stong Post. Haw
Fields. Singular Phenomena. Accounted for.

The last two considerable streams of water that I crossed on my way to this place, Fishing-creek and Tar-river, receiving several inferior creeks and branches in their course, form a tolerable large river, which passing by Tarburg, falls into the immense body of water, that is known by the appellation of Pamplico sound, at the Bath town, after a course of about an hundred and fifty miles, in a direct line, from the source.

It was in February when I left this place, and again proceeded on my journey.

At the end of two miles, I crossed Flat river, and in two miles farther, Little river; these, with another river (the Eno) within a couple of miles more, meet some small distance below, and form the river Newse.

Each of these small rivers, is larger than the Thames at Richmond, and the Newse is not much inferior to the Roanoak.

After a course of more than three hundred miles, it empties itself in Pamplico sound, about thirty miles below the town of Newbern, which is sometimes called and lately established as the capital of North-Carolina.

This town is situated in a very beautiful spot, on the banks of the Newse, at the confluence of a pretty stream, named Trent river.

After a ride of twenty-two miles, I arrived at Hillsborough, where I dined and passed the rest of the day.

This is the third appellation this town has already been honoured with since it was erected, being first named Corben town, next Childsburg, now Hillsborough; all in less than thirty years.

It is also the capital of a district, and the county-town of Orange.

Hillsborough is a healthy spot, enjoys a good share of commerce for an inland town, and is in a very promising state of improvement.

The land for some distance around Hillsborough, consists of a mixture of loam and strong red clay of so bright a colour that white horses and cattle, soon after they are brought there, become in appearance a fine scarlet. [I suppose this is true in a way, but really, scarlet?]

In the vicinity of Hillsborough, and to the westward of it, there are a great many very fine farms, and a number of excellent mills.

The inhabitants are chiefly natives of Ireland and Germany, but of the very lowest and most ignorant class, who export large quantities of exceeding good butter and flour, in wagons, to Halifax, Petersburg, &c. besides multitudes of fat cattle, beeves [beefs], and hogs.

There is a very steep and high hill, or small mountain, with two summits of an equal height, on the south-west of Hillsborough, which arises abruptly in the middle of an extensive plain, and commands the whole country for a great distance around.

This might easily be rendered a very strong post, by works thrown up on the summits, which are near enough to cover and support each other, and so situated, as the communication between them could not be interrupted. The flanks and rear likewise would be strengthened by the river Eno, which runs at the base of this mountain, and two sides of it. [Such an unusual perspective on Occaneechee Mountain. Says a lot about the author and his times.]

The staple produce of all this country being provisions of every kind, a fortified post in this place would thereby be enabled to subsist and maintain itself in every necessary supply, excepting arms and ammunition, and might be defended, by a small force, against a very considerable and superior army.

Almost every man in this country has been the fabricator of his own fortune, and many of them are very opulent.

Some have obtained their riches by commerce, others by the practice of law, which in this province is peculiarly lucrative and extremely oppressive; but most of them have acquired their possessions by cropping, farming, and industry. [Pretty much what the War of the Regulation was all about.]

I dined next day, by invitation, at the house of Mr. Frank Nash.

{Since then it has happened, in the vicissitudes of fortune, that Mr. Nash and the author were engaged in battle on different sides; Mr. Nash as a General in the American army, and the author a Captain in the British, at the action of German-Town, near Philadelphia, where Mr. Nash received his mortal wound.}

Here, at Mr. Nash’s, I happened to meet a Mr. Mabin [Alexander Mebane presumably] (a native of Ireland) who very kindly insisted on my accompanying him to his seat on Haw river, adjoining the Haw fields, to spend some weeks there.

Having a great desire to view the Haw fields, a place I had heard much about, I went along with him to his plantation, which is about an easy day’s ride, west of Hillsborough.

Mr. Mabin’s farm is very valuable and extensive, but not particularly remarkable. [Mr. Smyth Stuart is not a terribly gracious guest.]

I rode several times over the Haw fields, but could not perceive any thing in them extraordinary. [You know, John Lawson said of this area: "the Land is extraordinary Rich, no Man that will be content within the Bounds of Reason, can have any grounds to dislike it. And they that are otherwise, are the best Neighbours, when farthest of[f]." So I guess we know who Lawson was talking about.]

They consist partly of wide savannahs, or glades, and partly of large fields overgrown with shrubs, brush, and low under-wood, entirely destitute of heavy timber. But there appears many vestiges of trees, which in all probability have been blown down by a hurricane, and the young shoots afterwards choaked by the extreme thickness of the low bushes, and scrubby underwood. This I have also observed to be the case in many other places besides. [Sounds doubtful.]

From the effect of these most violent and tremendous hurricanes and tornadoes, which being sometimes partial, frequently move in strange and fantastic directions, and from the irresistible force of the wind, and the vast deluges and inundations of water that generally accompany them, all the appearances may be readily

[It seems as though the typographer omitted a portion of the text here. There is a page break before the next word and I think maybe an entire page was erroneously omitted.]

accounted for in a common natural way, which, however, have lately given scope to an ingenious, celebrated and elegant author’s (Dr. Dunbar) and others of less note (Mr. Carver,&c.) vague imaginations; hazarding their fanciful and wild conjectures of some of these being vestiges of military works erected many ages past by a people then conversant in the science, but whose descendants, by the mere dint of practice, (for war and hunting appear from the most early period of time to have been the sole study and occupation of their lives,) and by some other equally absurd and unaccountable transitions, have thereby forgotten, and, at this day, have lost every trace thereof.

Indeed it must be confessed, that the elephant’s bones, or those of some other unknown animal of vast magnitude, found on the banks of the river Ohio, the antique sculptures in the Delaware’s country, on the north-west side of that amazing river, the shells and marine substances in the Alegany mountains, together with many other strange appearances and singular phenomena, so frequently to be met with throughout this most extensive continent, display a fertile field for a creative, fanciful genius to explore, and may give rise to the most novl, elegant, and beautiful flights of imaginstion, and the brightest, most ingenious and splendid embellishments of fiction. [He sure has a way of wandering pretty far afield.]

However, I have reason to believe, that some of the Haw fields have been cleared of woods by the Indians, in ages past, who were undoubtedly settled here; many insignia, and vestiges of the remains of their towns, still remaning. [So generous. All authorities certainly agree the that Haw old fields are far older than the European settlers.]

Chapter 21 of Smyth-Stuart's A Tour in the United States (1784)

2009-10-03T06:58:00.000-07:00

CHAP. XXI.

Haw river. Deep river. Cape Fear river. Carroway mountains. Grand and elegant Perspective. Bad Accomodations. Unsuitable to an Epicure, or a Petit Maitre.

Having it in speculation to visit Henderson’s settlement on Kentucky, I mentioned my intention to Mr. Mabin [Mebane], who appeared very strenuous in dissuading me from undertaking such an enterprise at present, on account of the misunderstanding and disturbances now subsisting between the Indians and the Whites.

He informed me of a report, that even Henderson’s whole settlement was either exterminated, or in imminent danger of being so.

For this reason, I concluded to postpone this arduous undertaking, until such time as more certain and favourable intelligence of their situation in the settlement should arrive, and a better prospect of reaching it without molestation.

On the third evening after I came here, a gentleman, named Frohawk [Thomas Frohawk, the Clerk of Court in Salisbury?], called at Mr. Mabin’s, on his return to Salisbury, where he resided.

As he tarried all night, we had much conversation, and form his accounts of the Catawba Indians, my curiosity was strongly excited to visit their nations, which was only about an hundred miles beyond the town of Salisbury.

Accordingly, having expressed my desire and intention to Mr. Forhawk, he was so obliging as to propose to conduct and accompany me; an opportunity and eligible offer, which I with great satisfaction embraced, and set out along with him next morning.

The road we traveled in is named the Great Trading Path, and leads through Hillsborough, Salisbury, &c. to the Catawba towns, and from thence to the Cherokee nation of Indians, a considerable distance westward.

We forded the Haw river [Presumably at Swepsonville, NC], which is there about twice as broad as the Thames at Putney, and within a few miles farther, in the like manner, we crossed Reedy river [I think he must mean Alamance Creek or possibly Rock Creek], another branch of the same stream and as large.

We dined just by a Quaker’s meetinghouse (no modern Quaker Meeting House lies along this course, as far as I can tell; no idea what Meeting House it might have been), and in the afternoon crossed the Deep river, at a ford [probably at Randleman, NC]. This is also about twice as wide as the Thames at Putney, and joins the Haw river some distance below, after washing the base of the north-east side of a ridge or chain of high hills, named the Carroway mountains.

The Haw is then a large river, and runs through the settlement and town of Cross creek [Fayetteville, NC], which is chiefly inhabited by Scots emigrants from the western Highlands and the Hebrides; it then assumes a new appellation, being called the Northwest, or Cape Fear river, and passing by the town of Wilmington, which has been frequently considered as the metropolis of North-Carolina, on the north-east, and Brunswick, which is a little lower on the western bank of the river, it falls into the Atlantic ocean at Cape Fear, after a course of more than three hundred miles from the source.

We lodged that night at an inn or ordinary, as it is called here, at the foot of the Carroway mountains, which we had frequently had a glimpse of, during this day’s ride. [I wonder if this ordinary could be identified? None is shown on the Hughes Hist. Doc. Map of Randolph. Need to look at the G P Stout map.]

We pursued our journey early on the following morning, which was extremely pleasant and fine; and when we arrived at the summit of the mountain, the sun just began to verge above the horizon.

Here I alighted, and indulged myself in gazing with great delight on the wild and extensive prospect around me.

On the north-east I beheld the mountains at Hillsborough, distant above fifty miles; on the south-west, the mountains near Salisbury; and on the west, Tryon mountains; with the wide extended forest below, embrowned with thick woods, and intersected with dark, winding, narrow chasms, which marked out the course of the different mighty streams that meandered through this enormous vale; thinly interspersed on the banks of which, the farms and plantations appeared like as many insignificant spots, that, while they pointed out the industry, served also to expose the littleness of man. [Although I bet the view from here is still excellent, I doubt that it would any longer ‘expose the littleness of man.’]

On this spot I could with pleasure have passed the day, had not a craving, keen appetite reminded us, that there are more gratifications necessary for our support, than feasting our eyes; so we descended the mountain, and pursued our journey.

It was fortunate for me, that at this time, my constitution, health, and taste, enabled me to subsist on any kind of food, without repining, and with sufficient satisfaction, however coarse or unusual it might be. For this is not an enterprise for an epicure, or a petit maitre: the apprehension of perishing with hunger and want, would as effectually deter the one from such an undertaking, as the dread of absolutely expiring with fatigue with and hardships, would the other; the fare and accommodations a traveler meets with throughout this country, being very indifferent indeed, even at best, and generally miserable and wretched beyond description, excepting at ward or opulent planters houses, where there is always a profusion of every thing, but in the coarsest and plainest style. [I don’t really doubt him, but I have to say that he is such a whiner.]

The greater number of those who travel through this country, have acquaintances among the inhabitants, at whose houses they generally put up every night, and seldom call at ordinaries.

Those that drive and accompany waggons on a journey, sleep in the woods every night under a tree, upon dry leaves on the ground, with their feet towards a large fire, which they make by the road side, wherever night happens to overtake them, and are covered only with a blanket. Their horses are turned loose in the woods, only with leather spancills or fetters on two of their legs, and each with a bell fastened by a collar round his neck, by which they are readily found in the morning. Provisions and provender, both for men and horses, are carried along with them in the wagon, sufficient for the whole journey.

Even these advantages, trifling as they may appear, a traveler on horseback is destitute of, and is obliged to trust to Providence, and the country through which he passes, for accommodation and subsistence; both of which are not always to be me with and even when they are, are seldom as good, never better than the waggoners.

CHAP. XXII.

Yadkin River. Salisbury. Beautiful Perspective. Tryon Mountain. Brushy Mountains. The King Mountain distinguished for the unhappy Fate of the gallant Major Ferguson.

Late in the afternoon we crossed the river Yadkin, at a ford, six or seven miles beyond which is the town of Salisbury, where we arrived that evening, being about one hundred and twenty miles west-southwest- from Hillsborough.

[The author continues his narrative, describing King’s Mountain, Salisbury and the land beyond, but it moves outside the scope of this blog, so I will stop transcribing here.]

The Iron Mountain Spur

2009-09-26T04:49:00.000-07:00

I recently came across this map of the Chapel Hill Iron Mine in an 1892 publication on mining in North Carolina. The Chapel Hill Iron Mine was operated by Gen. Robert F. Hoke, supposedly from about 1872-1882 and was a critical factor in how and where the rail line into Carrboro was built. Alternate connections to Durham, Hillsborough or Apex were considered, but connecting to University Station was the cheapest route and involved passing by Gen. Hoke's mine, so he put forward significant resources to make it come that way.

The map gives an interesting view into the workings of the mine. It shows the two main shafts (one of them already collapsed in 1892), which are now in the center of the Ironwoods neighborhood in Chapel Hill. I have previously found references (Orange County Observer, 10/23/1881) to a spur connecting from the rail line to the mine, but this map is the first time I have seen any indication of where it was. Apparently it went down the gully between Cardiff Place and Birchcrest Place. The 3’ gauge railroad must have wound back to the NW in order to connect with the main rail line without crossing Bolin Creek, so I suppose it must have followed a route like this:

The two red dots are supposed to be the locations of the shafts. I wonder if any remaining evidence of this narrow gauge railway can still be seen out there today?

UPDATE: Sure enough, we hiked up along the tracks just north of Bolin Creek and immediately found the abandoned grade. It looks like a good amount of work was involved in building up the grade for the spur and at least one small trestle must have been used. The spot where my gradual swooping curve takes a northward indentation was drawn to follow the contours on the topo map, but actually a trestle bridged that cove. In a couple of places, the OWASA sewer lines tore up the former railroad grade, but the grade is mostly intact and quite discernible.

Here's a picture of the historical marker at the top:

Trespassers in the Alston Quarter

2009-09-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

Here's a little bit of further interpretation on this map:

First, this map is redrafted from an earlier survey or surveys. It's not clear who made this, but I suggested it might be W. D. Bennet. David Southern says it might by Miles Philbeck. Either way, I do not know what document it is drawn from - it would be interesting to find that.

Second, the map shows parts of the land grants belonging to five different men:
Richard Everard (labeled Averett on the map),
Robert Forster,
John Lovwick (or Lovewick),
Edward Moseley,
George Moore,
and Lewis Conner.

Of these men, Moseley, Little and Lovwick were part of the surveying party that established the dividing line between North Carolina and Virginia in 1729. Many of those in the party were granted choice pieces of land in exchange for their service (it was a dangerous mission into the wilderness at the time). Moseley and Lovwick apparently chose parts of the highly desirable Haw Old Fields - lands traditionally settled by Native Americans, but more or less abandoned due to declining populations, disease, colonial pressure etc. Copies of Lovwick's grant and one of Moseley's are at the SHC at UNC and show taht they were granted by Lord John Carteret (later Lord Granville) in Nov. 1728 and reconveyed to George Burrington in 1730.

Richard Everard was the last Governor under the Lords Proprietor of North Carolina serving from 1725-1731. He is credited with initiating the NC-VA border survey (and little else). Everard evidently got a choice piece of the Haw Fields as well. His land passed to his grandson George Lathbury or Lashbury or Lashberry. Lathbury's 1o,000 acres passed to Edund Fanning, Abner Nash and Thomas Hart in 1770 for 670 Pounds, but only Nash's third was spared from confiscation following the Revolution (p. 45 2nd Report of the Ontario Archives, Alexander Fraser, 1904; State Records of NC, Vol 24, pg 285). Likely Sheriff John Butler wound up owning a part of the Everard tract. See Orange DB 3, pg 462.

This leaves the question of who Lewis Conner, Robert Forster and George Moore were. I am not sure who they were, but they were clearly all important folks in North Carolina around 1730.

George Moore (or Roger?) received this tract on 12 Nov. 1728. This land was later known as the Alston Quarter or Austin Quarter and over 1,000 acres of it is still in single ownership as a single lot. Moore's land apparently passed to a member of the Ashe family (a lawyer who was involved in the litigation over Strudwick's 30,000 acres - see below). The Ashe family included Gov. Samuel Ashe among many other notables. His grave is supposed to be there on the Alston Quarter (per Stockard's History of Alamance).

All of the tracts between Everhard's and Moore's, totalling almost 30,000 acres were somehow coveyed to Gov. George Burrington. This constituted all of the area that is now Hawfields, Saxapahaw and Swepsonville. Burrington tried to sell the Hawfields tracts several times including through an ad that ran in the Virginia Gazette 2/10/1738, a transcript of which is here:
http://www.ncpublications.com/colonial/Newspapers/subjects/Agri.htm#1736

Here are his descriptions of the five tracts [with my interpretations]:

1. The Tract of Land which was Mr. Robert Forrester’s, containing 2425 Acres. The first Tract lies between Sir Richard’s Land, and Marrowbone River.
[This is between the Everard-Lashbury tract and Back Creek - i.e. the area just upstream of Back Creek. Note that in one of the Land Grants in the SHC at UNC, it refers to neighboring property owner Robert Porter.]

2. The Tract of Land which was Mr. William Little’s, containing 4200 Acres. The second Tract lies between Marrow bone River, and Flat Branch; and has in it on the River, Saxapahaw, Low ground Run, and Indian Banch; and on Marrow-bone River, one Run or Branch. Flat Branch is opposite to the Entry of Arrunky River.
[Flat Branch is probably one of the creeks that flows into the Haw in Swepsonville, perhaps the one that flows almost immediately through the Virginia Mills site. Arrunky is clearly a mis-spelling of Aramanchey or Alamance. No real idea where Lowground Run or Indian Branch are, but he appears to mean that they are tributaries of the Haw directly. One Run – Lone Run? – is a tributary of Back Creek, but it is not clear which one, perhaps Mill Creek. Little's Tract includes the upper part of Swepsonville including the millsite.]

3. The Tract of Land which was Mr. John Lovick’s, containing 4200 Acres. The third Tract lies between Flat Branch and Buffelo Creek; and in it, on the said Saxapahaw River, is Dry Branch, and the Westward Indian Trading Path.
[The trading path apparently passed right through here and this would be consistent with maps which show the trading path crossing the Haw immediately upstream of Big Alamance Creek. Lovwick's Tract includes the lower part of the Town of Swepsonville and the Puryear Mill site.]

4. The Tract of Land which was Mr. Edward Moseley’s, containing 10000 Acres. The fourth Tract lies between Buffelo Creek, and Island Creek: At the South East Corner of the third Tract turns with an Elbow North, and passing by the East Ends of the first Three Tracts, terminates on the East Line of Sir Richard Everard’s; and is bounded on the East, with the afore mentioned Lands of Mr. Jones, and Major [James?] Pollock. In this Tract, are Jumping Run, Fish pond Branch, and the Pond; all on Saxapahaw River.
[Jumping Run is probably merely the east branch of Haw Creek, misinterpreted for a time as being a direct tributary of the Haw; no idea what the Fishpond Branch or the Pond were.]

5. The Tract of Land which was Mr. Edward Moseley’s, containing 8400 Acres. The fifth Tract lies between Island Creek [Meadow Creek], and Rocky Run, in a Sort of Triangle; and in it are Briery Creek [Motes Creek?], and Brick house Branch [Hobby Branch?].
[This is essentially the area just NW of the Alston Quarter and includes Saxapahaw and the Cedar Cliffs Mill.]

All of this land was sold by Gov. George Burrington to Samuel Strudwick per a deed recorded in the New Hanover County in 1754. When Strudwick came to America a decade later he discovered taht all sorts of folks had moved onto his land and commenced litigation (the map above apparently was a part of the litigation). It seems that the matter was not entirely resolved in Strudwick's favor. Some of the 'intruders' were there under color of title obtained from Granville's agents, who presumably did not really have a legitimate claim to the land since it was conveyed previously to the folks who were in Strudwick's chain of title. Nonetheless, a series of deeds from Strudwick appear to convey much of the land onward to Thompsons, Clendenins, Morrows, Millikans etc.