It’s a short drive today on Highway 39 to get from Williamsboro to Townsville – about seven miles separate the two Vance County communities. But back in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, it most likely took a lot longer to get between the two areas to conduct business or to go to church.
Ironically, it was wars and the railroad that heavily influenced both towns – for good and for ill. Today, both are little more than busy crossroads.
In the early 1900’s, Townsville boasted a bank, a hotel, a funeral home, a box factory, a drug store and a post office. Local historian Mark Pace said back then, Townsville was the second largest community in Vance County.
“It had a bright future,” Pace said Thursday on TownTalk’s Around Old Granville segment. He and WIZS’s Bill Harris talked about the heyday of the township and how it came to be.
It was originally called Lyneville, for the Lyne family that came from Caroline County in Virginia in the late 1700’s.
John Penn – yes, THAT John Penn – had married Henry Lyne’s daughter, Susannah, and she wanted to move to North Carolina to be closer to her family. And that’s how John Penn came to live in the area and be one of three North Carolinians to sign the Declaration of Independence, Pace explained.
Fast forward to 1855 or so, and a man named Edmund Townes living in the area donated the land for the railroad right-of-way. And so the name was changed to Townesville in his honor.
(Who knows why the “e” was dropped from the town’s name.) The railroad came through in the general area between where the post office and the historic Holy Trinity Episcopal Church now stand.
Townsville was the halfway point along the railway between Clarksville and Manson, Pace said.
“That’s why they put the box factory there, that’s why they put the bank there,” Pace said – because of the railroad.
In the mid 1800’s, the railroad played a significant role for folks who lived nearby. At that time, most farmers were producing tobacco, and the railroad “brought access to the rest of the world” for tobacco farmers. They could get their crop to markets in Richmond and Petersburg. It was a game-changer.
But the rails were taken up during the Civil War, the metal used for the Confederacy’s war effort in shipbuilding.
The Marrow brothers led the effort to bring the railroad back to Townsville. In the early 1900’s, the town passed a bond referendum. “The citizens of Townsville ponied up $75,000,” Pace said, which meant that the railroad was owned by the citizens.
At that point, the railroad only went to Manson, via Drewry and across Nutbush Creek. And because there was only one track and no place to turn around, the train had to back up to make its return trip from Townsville to Manson.
In 1918, a forest fire got very close to the 90-foot wooden bridge that took the train over Nutbush Creek, Pace said.
Everybody thought the bridge was ok, and the storage, passenger and coal cars were pushed safely across. But when it was the heavy locomotive’s turn – remember, it was going backwards – the bridge collapse under the weight. The engineer and brakeman died in the accident as the locomotive plunged deep into the muddy creek bed.
“The train engine was never brought up or salvaged,” Pace said. And now it’s just part of the underwater landscape of Kerr Lake that was built in the early 1950’s.
The town bought a new engine but it was so hard to maintain it was replaced with a sturdy, locally built Corbitt truck that was fitted with wheels to move along the tracks. It closed for good when the Depression hit in the 1930’s.
Pace attributes metal drives held during World War II for the lack of metal remains today along the railway path.
But unused rails and rail spikes aren’t the only thing that Townsville contributed to the war effort. A couple of hopeful gold prospectors, Joseph and Richard Hamme, discovered tungsten in 1942 just a little ways outside Townsville.
“Within six weeks, they were producing tungsten for the U.S. Army,” Pace said. Tungsten is the hardest naturally occurring metal known and has the highest melting point. The army put a tungsten coating on artillery shells so they could better penetrate brick and other metals.
Townsville has a number of historic churches in its vicinity, including Tabernacle Methodist Church. Most likely, Bishop Francis Asbury was one of the circuit riders that visited this American outpost after it was established.
Nutbush Presbyterian Church, established in 1757, is likely the oldest Presbyterian Church in the Old Granville area. The first building was built in the mid 1700’s; a 1941 wooden addition burned and was rebuilt.
These churches still stand, as well as homes including Machpelah and the David King Glover house, which Pace said may well be the oldest home in Vance County.
Its “brick knobbing” construction – placing pieces of brick as insulation between exterior and interior walls was used in the 1750’s and 60’s.
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