Tag Archive for: #aroundoldgranville

TownTalk: Around Old Granville – The Role of Tobacco in Old Granville County

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When folks bring up “the good ol’ days” as they reminisce about how things used to be, it often comes with feelings of nostalgia. You know – when times were simpler and less complicated.

Some may remember summer afternoons shelling beans on the front porch or squeezing lemons for sugary lemonade.

But whoever recalls sweating in a tobacco field, topping or priming as you made your way up and down the endless rows may have a different perspective about how “good” those days were.

There is no doubt that Vance County – indeed, all of the area once known as Granville County – has a long, rich history with tobacco. Tobacco paid the bills, literally, for a lot of farmers and played a tremendous role in the area’s economy.

People moving south from Virginia brought their “red” tobacco with them when they settled in this area, said local historian Mark Pace. It was cured differently and they used it for snuff, for chewing and for smoking in their pipes.

Fast forward to post-American Revolution days and Granville County not only had ideal soil for growing tobacco, but it also had lots of plantations that had lots of enslaved people.

“There was a crop here and there was a labor supply,” Pace said on Thursday’s TownTalk segment of Around Old Granville. He and WIZS’s Bill Harris chatted about the history of tobacco, their own memories about growing up in an area where the crop has played – and continues to play – such a vital role.

When the railroad came through in the 1830’s, it provided a way for tobacco farmers to get their product to market, whether it was Richmond, Baltimore or to the coast where it would be shipped overseas.

And tobacco was just as important as the railroad to Henderson’s prosperity, Pace said.

“There was a time in the 1880’s,” Pace said, “when Henderson, North Carolina was the world’s largest tobacco market,” moving something like 6.5 million pounds of tobacco from warehouses to manufacturers.

J.P. Taylor, one of the biggest in the world, was located in Henderson.

By 1878, there were close to a dozen tobacco warehouses in Henderson, and the second week in August, they’d come alive with activity. That’s when the tobacco markets opened and the air all around was filled with that unmistakable aroma of the cured golden leaf.

The local newspaper plumped up to rival the size of the Sunday New York Times, Pace said, with local businesses placing ads to get the attention of tobacconists and farmers alike during the market.

“Tobacco farmers got paid once,” Pace said. “That’s when you took your tobacco to market.”

Generations of families helped plant, cultivate, tend, prime and barn tobacco – it was important to the whole family that the crop be successful.

Pace said he remembers kids getting out of school early because they needed to help get the tobacco in; when the tobacco season was late, the opening of school was delayed, he said.

“It all revolved around tobacco,” Pace added.

Farmers worried about one thing or another during the season – weather, worms, wilt – and they continued to worry when the leaf was in the curing barn because of the risk of fire.

Farmers who were able to get their crop to market, however, could see the results of their considerable labor get auctioned off bundle by 500-pound bundle.

Buyers representing the major manufacturers were bidding and farmers were listening, hoping for top dollar.

But changes were in the offing, especially after the U.S. Surgeon General’s 1964 report that smoking causes cancer.

And when the price of tobacco fell, producers planted more tobacco to make up the difference. That led to a glut on the market, and the government stepped in to limit how much tobacco farmers could produce. At first, it was based on acreage, Pace said, but it changed from acreage to poundage to account for the fact that the crop grew better on some land than on other.

Tobacco auctions and warehouses largely went away, with the trend emerging to contract directly with tobacco manufacturers.

“The end of the price support program brought about the demise of the tobacco warehouse,” Pace noted.

The tobacco auctioneer’s chant will be in the air in Oxford next Sunday, Sept. 27 at the Tobacco Research Station on Providence Road. The Granville County Museum and Historical Society is hosting its second annual Mock Tobacco Auction on the grounds of the research station and Pace said folks can see – and hear – what auctions were all about.

Auctions will take place at the top of the hour during the afternoon event, which is a fundraiser for the museum.

N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler will be a featured guest.

Admission is free to attend, with a suggested donation of $5 per person – $10 per family.

There will be plenty of vendors and food items, and there will even be a tobacco tying contest.

 

 

 

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville – Major Events Since 1960 Part 1

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Local historians Mark Pace and WIZS’s Bill Harris are “of an age” now that things they remember when they were youngsters are now being considered as parts of local history that, with the benefit of hindsight, are proving to be noteworthy and important to the area.

The two history buffs usually discuss people, places and events from the very beginnings of the formation of what they refer to as Old Granville County, but this week they talked about several events that have found their way into the headlines since 1960.

Depending on your perspective, some of these events functioned much like the proverbial double-edged sword.

Henderson was where Paul H. Rose founded Rose’s, which at its peak, had something like 175 stores across the region. But Henderson had the first one, and it was located on Garnett Street, right in the heart of downtown.

That was back in 1915, when downtowns were where shopping happened. Needed shoes? Downtown. Wanted a piece of jewelry for a special gift? Downtown. Groceries? A&P on one end of Garnett, Colonial on the other. Clothing, sporting goods and more all were found downtown.

Rose’s stood its ground when Kmart and Mammoth Mart came to town, Pace said. But it had difficulty competing with Walmart, and Rose’s emerged from two years of bankruptcy in 1995 and then sold to Variety Wholesalers in 1997.

But Rose’s took a chance back in the late 1960’s when developers constructed the Henderson Mall.

The mall, all 185,000 square feet of it, opened in July 1969. Pace remembers that he and his brother pestered their mother until she took them there for the first time.

Harris said the mall drew patrons from nearby counties, too. People could park their cars, go inside the mall and get all their shopping done.

“It was a big deal,” Harris said, adding that the mall had “a huge impact on the entire region.”

With those benefits, however, came consequences – especially for the downtown area. The mall “changed the focus of the entire community,” Pace said.

Of course, what happened in Henderson was happening all over the place with malls and suburban retail spaces luring business away from downtowns

People still went downtown for staples like the post office, the library and the courthouse, but the mall was where folks went to shop, eat and where young people could hang out with friends.

Just as malls shaped people’s shopping habits, so did the nation’s growing interstate system shape how people got from one place to another way back in the 20th century.

It was in 1960 that the first stretch of I-85 in the area was completed – 18 miles from Henderson to about Wise in Warren County.

And finally, in 1972, the final bit – dubbed “the Missing Link” connected Oxford and Butner. Pace said John K. Nelms was instrumental in completion of the Granville County section.

The original plans had the interstate going around Henderson to the east, hitting Gillburg and Kittrell before heading to Wilson and ultimately linking with Durham.

“The powers that be lobbied long and hard (and it was) with quite a great deal of effort that Oxford got included in the 85 path,” Pace said.

In close proximity to I-85 in Warren County was where Floyd McKissick planted the seed for Soul City, a planned city that, had it taken hold, was supposed to have 55,000 inhabitants by the year 2000.

The idea never really took off, but McKissick is someone locals point to as the person who helped bring a regional water system to the area.

McKissick, a Republican, was very influential in the political arena and he knew Richard Nixon.

After Nixon was elected president, Pace said McKissick “called in a marker” with his pal and said he wanted a regional water system.

Those efforts resulted in the creation of the Kerr Lake Regional Water System in 1976.

Listen back to the complete story at wizs.com to learn about other events that helped shape local history around Old Granville.

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville – The History of Alcohol

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In 1748, when North Carolina was just a colony and had to follow England’s rules, the first “ordinary” was opened in Granville County. The proprietor had to pay $30 in “proclamation” money for a license and he had to promise to provide food and lodging for travelers and their horses.

As local historian Mark Pace explained it on Thursday’s Around Old Granville segment of TownTalk, ordinaries provided food and drinks for a fixed price as compared to inns – which provided rooms and meals and maybe drinks. And taverns were places where alcohol was first on the menu, accompanied possibly by food.

But anyone who wanted to open one of these establishments had to go to court and get a bond – pay money.

Prior to the Revolution, for the price of one shilling (about $35 in today’s economy), you and your horses would get room and board. But for drinks stronger than water, you probably had to pay extra.

Choices for alcohol were probably quite limited back then, with port, stout and rum figuring highest on the list, Pace said.

Nowadays, we have a multitude of craft beers, wine and spirits to tickle our taste buds. But whether you enjoy the occasional adult beverage or you’re a teetotaler, the stories about the history of alcohol in North Carolina are nothing short of entertaining.

After the Revolution, George Washington’s federal style of government put an excise tax on alcohol.

“This did not go over well with everybody, particularly with Pennsylvania,” Pace said, and the tax led to the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.

“It was the first time the federal government had issued a tax and the first time the people had risen up in arms against that tax,” he said. After all, they’d just fought a Revolution to get out from under British rule, and here they were, getting taxed again.

Washington sent 13,000 troops to quash the rebellion, and they made quick work of it.

When Thomas Jefferson took the Presidential oath in 1801, he abolished the tax.

And liquor was not taxed again until 1862, when it was reinstituted to raise money for the Civil War.

During that period leading up to the Civil War, it was perfectly legal to make your own alcohol, with no taxes imposed. And that’s what a lot of farmers in and around Granville County did, Pace explained.

One particular area in the vicinity where present-day southern Granville County meets Franklin County, achieved local notoriety for being rife with moonshine stills.

The dense orange-red  clay in the area known as the “Harracan” wouldn’t grow tobacco, but it would grow corn.

So resourceful farmers and others took the opportunity to turn that crop into something they could make money with – and that was alcohol, Pace said. You may even be able to find the remains of stills along creeks or other water sources in the Haracan, “just down the road a little ways,” as old-timers recall.

After the Civil War, the feds started allowing people to have large-scale distilleries, and many towns had them, including Henderson, Oxford and Warrenton.

These distilleries were licensed and there were hefty federal taxes involved. Back then, a  gallon of alcohol cost about $2.50 – and $1 of that was tax.

That was a bitter pill to swallow for some, Pace said. And that’s what led to bootlegging.

From 1870 to 1908 or so, bootleggers were running up, down, across and through the state with their untaxed spirits.

People figured out they could get their alcohol cheaper from their neighbor than they could from a licensed distillery, so business was booming for a good while.

In 1908, North Carolina passed a law stating that distilleries could be located in incorporated towns only.

Layer on that the 18th Amendment to the Constitution that enacted Prohibition and the black market for alcohol became even more important and intriguing.

The bootleggers needed to be able to outrun the revenuers, Pace said, and they created souped-up vehicles that paved the way for NASCAR racing, a perennial favorite for many.

One bootlegger from Wake County has a road named after him in the southern part of Granville County. Bruce Garner was arrested a bunch of times, paid his fines and kept on making liquor.  He found religion, however, and turned from the liquor business. After World War II he moved to Raleigh and opened up a couple of restaurants. The burger joint he started in 1960? Yep. It’s called Char-Grill.

The 13 years or so that made up the Prohibition era was anything but dry, however. And when the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition in 1933, North Carolina was one of the states that, in essence, got into the liquor business when the Alcohol Beverage Control board was established a couple of years later.

Vance, Warren and Franklin counties set up ABC stores in 1935. It took Granville County until 1963 to join the party.

Pace said at one time there was a bus route that ran from Oxford to the train station in Henderson – which was conveniently located across from the town’s ABC store on William Street.

Locals felt like having a liquor store right across from the station was a blemish on Henderson’s reputation, Pace said. But apparently that didn’t bother the folks who made the round trip from Oxford one little bit.

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville – Nathaniel Macon

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Some may say that the area known as Old Granville County can lay claim to having the original “Senator ‘No’” among its residents, more than a century before the longtime TV editorialist-turned politician Jesse Helms was known by the dubious nickname.

That man – Nathaniel Macon – was perhaps the foremost public figure from North Carolina in the early 19th century said WIZS’s Bill Harris. Bill and local historian Mark Pace recounted stories about Macon and his rise to prominence in the political arena in the 1800’s on Thursday’s Around Old Granville segment of TownTalk.

“He might have been the most important and significant North Carolinian in his time and his day,” Pace said. “He personified North Carolina.” The North Carolina of that time, anyway. Which meant that he was a staunch conservative who didn’t believe the government had any business doing much of anything that interfered with individual rights and private industry.

His ideas aligned more with those of Thomas Jefferson, who was a champion of individual liberty and states’ rights and talked up the virtues and the lifestyles of landowners.

Macon was a 24-year-old serving in the New Jersey militia during the American Revolution when he got word that he’d been elected to the State Senate. That set him on a career path that spanned close to four decades and sent him to Washington, D.C.

He was in the State Senate from 1781 to 1785, and then was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1791. He served there until 1815 and was elected Speaker of the House and served for six years – from 1801 to 1807.

He was elected to the U.S. Senate and served from 1815 to 1828, including seven years President pro tem from 1825 to 1827.

Over the years, he said ‘no’ to cabinet posts, appointments and even re-entered military service in 1780 as a private instead of accepting a higher rank that could have been his for the taking.

He didn’t like making government appropriations and didn’t think government had any business in private industry.

Despite his penchant for saying ‘no,’ however, Pace said Macon’s oratory skills and ability to compromise served Macon the politician well.

“You always knew where you stood with him,” Pace said. “He was a personable guy. It was  hard not to like him.”

Macon retired to his home in present-day Warren County – Buck Spring – in 1828, following his storied career in the House and the Senate.

But the home was nothing fancy, no columns across the front or sprawling staircases inside.

No, in keeping with his humble, no-frills ideas, Macon instead lived in what amounted to a one-room house that contained few possessions other than books.

Although the original Buck Spring home was partially burned about 40 years ago, Pace said some parts were salvageable and the reconstructed home currently is part of a park in the Littleton area.

The project received some federal funds to complete, an appropriation Macon himself most likely would have frowned upon.

 

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville – Townsville

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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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TownTalk: Around Old Granville – The Ingleside Community

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Most anyone traveling the stretch of N.C. 39 between Henderson and Louisburg probably passes through the unincorporated community of Ingleside with little fanfare, but this general area holds on to some interesting history since it was first established in the decades before the Civil War.

Leave it to local history sleuths Bill Harris and Mark Pace to come up with some tidbits worthy of mention about this northern Franklin County crossroads in the most recent segment of Around Old Granville.

Ingleside was originally known as Macon, Pace said. There was a post office there from 1830-1834, but perhaps to avoid confusion with the other Macon post office in what is now Warren County, the name was changed to Ingleside and remained open until August 1907.

That may have been the reason to change the name, but why was the name Ingleside chosen? Well, there was a home with that name in the vicinity at the time owned by the Littlejohn family from Granville County. It was located about a half mile from the present-day intersection of N.C. 39 and U.S. 401.

It had a similar fate of many other homes of that period – it burned in the 1920’s.

Another home called Monreath is located near Ingleside. This home was built in the late 1770’s and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

There’s also Locust Grove, Harris said, which is a great example of Georgian-style architecture that dates possibly from the 1760’s. Although there’s some speculation that the home has been moved from its original location, not everyone’s on board with that theory. Some point to the discovery of Roman numerals notched on the home’s structural beams as evidence that the house had been disassembled – the numerals would have indicated how the house would be put back together.

“That’s a big house to move, back in the day – and a long ways,” Pace said. Regardless, the home certainly has been around since at least 1790 and was originally owned by Thomas Bell.

“It’s an absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous house,” Harris said.

The property eventually was sold to John Haywood, who served as the state’s treasurer from 1787 until he died in 1827. It was sold to Peter Foster of Gloucester County, VA., one of Harris’s ancestors.

Locust Grove provided room and board to some students of nearby Mt. Welcome Academy in the early 1800’s. According to an 1828 ad, students could stay for $36 a session.

A grandson of Peter Foster was Fenton Garland Foster, an inventor who is credited with a typesetting machine that basically is the forerunner of the typewriter.

Foster had a falling-out with his grandmother, and she kicked him out of the house for not paying rent. He moved to Connecticut and got in on the ground floor with a newish company called Sperry Rand and ended up losing the rights to all his patents.

There are a few more homes in the general area with names that end in Grove – there’s Maple Grove, Elm Grove and Oak Grove, the name of the home where Harris lives.

Oak Grove was built by a son of Peter Foster, Dr. Peter Stapleton Foster. The good doc, born in 1823, built the home in the 1850’s, Harris said. And the house has stayed in the family since its construction.

It is scheduled for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, fingers crossed, by next week, the proud owner stated.

Just down the road from Oak Grove is Traveler’s Rest, a tiny building that, as the name implied, offered respite from the road for stagecoach passengers.

“It’s one of the most iconic structures” in the area, Pace said.

Right near Ingleside is Rocky Ford, where a structure known simply as the “little stone house” or the “little rock house” stands.

They don’t know much about its history, but there are some theories floating around that it could have been a place where people would have taken refuge if they feared trouble from the Native Americans living close. Another theory has it being a mental institution.

It’s left experts and architectural survey professionals stumped, Pace said. “Nobody really knows what it was used for…it’s just an enigma.”

There’s a lot more to learn about Ingleside and the surrounding area – listen back to the complete conversation on Thursday’s Around Old Granville segment of TownTalk.

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville – 250th Anniversary of the USA in Old Granville County Part 2

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With the nation’s approaching 250th birthday as a backdrop, WIZS’s Bill Harris and local historian Mark Pace continue their conversation about people, places and events from right here in the four-county area, “Old Granville County.”

Franklin County’s Regiment of Militia was officially formed in January 1779, in the middle of the Revolutionary War. This group of men, along with the Granville County militia, fought the British troops in battles across the Carolinas in the early 1780’s, including the Siege of Charleston, Camden and Charlotte before giving the Brits a fit at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

Gen. Charles Cornwallis led his troops to major victories, but they met their match at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.

Local historian Mark Pace said the British technically won the battle, but suffered such heavy casualties at the hands of the Patriots – led by Gen. Nathaniel Greene – that it was a hollow victory.

Just a year earlier, Cornwallis had spent 16 days in Charlotte trying to suppress the Patriots in that area, Pace said. Most likely members of the local militia were there as well and contributed to Cornwallis’s description of the then-small town as a “hornet’s nest.”

(A couple of hundred years later, the NBA team that called Charlotte home took note of the description and now the Charlotte Hornets play in an arena called The Hive.)

The Granville County militia performed well at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, Pace said on Thursday’s Part 2 of Around Old Granville on TownTalk.

The Continental Line, akin to a national Army, of sorts, Pace explained, got much-needed assistance from states’ militias. North Carolina furnished about 4,000 or so men to the militia, each county calling up recruits or volunteers to join the effort.

Why did the states feel the need to call up militias in the first place?

Well, it’s probably not the only reason, but back in the mid-1750’s, the Colonists were being required to pay all kinds of taxes to the British Crown. But they didn’t have anyone in England to speak on their behalf, which was how the phrase “no taxation without representation” came about.

Two big taxes “that irritated Americans to no end,” Pace said, were the Stamp Act and the Sugar Tax. The Stamp Act taxed printed materials, from wills and deeds to newspapers and playing cards. The Sugar Act is self-explanatory, but it became a thorn in the side of Americans because of what was the most popular drink at the time – rum, which is derived from molasses. And molasses is made from sugarcane juice.

The Granville militia, in the mid-1770’s was under the leadership of Micajah Bullock, who is buried near Bullock’s Church located along U.S. Hwy 15 South near Creedmoor and Col. John Taylor of the Williamsboro vicinity.  Another prominent Granville County resident was Thomas Person, who was a general in the militia. At the time, he was the wealthiest person in the county and he opened up his estate for training purposes during the Revolution.

Pace called Person “the heart and soul of the Revolution in this area.”

During previous “Around Old Granville” segments, Pace and Harris have talked about the significance of Williamsboro, once a prospering center of commerce that today is merely a crossroads that people pass through as they travel N.C. Hwy 39.

The community was named for John Williams, Pace said, whose name can be found among a list of Founding Fathers for this nation.

Williams, along with Robert Burton, John Penn and Benjamin Hawkins, all hailed from the Williamsboro area and were elected to the Continental Congress. Penn signed the Declaration of Independence, but Williams signed the Articles of Confederation. He also became speaker of the N.C. House, and was one of the first N.C. Supreme Court judges.

Sadly, Williams’s home, Montpelier, no longer stands. But it was a hub of activity back then, Pace said.

Montpelier was where N.C. Gov. Burke went when it became  clear he needed to evacuate Hillsborough (then the capital) in advance of Cornwallis’s arrival.

Montpelier is also where Leonard Henderson, for whom Henderson is named, is buried.

In fact, Williamsboro had been considered as the state’s capital, but leaders ultimately chose the more centrally located Raleigh.

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville – 250th Anniversary of the USA in Old Granville County

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Mark Pace was a teenager when the United States celebrated its 200th birthday in 1776. He remembers watching CBS’s ‘Bicentennial Minute’ productions, mini history lessons that aired in 60-second episodes, featuring celebrities and other famous people talking about snippets of history from 200 years ago.

In fact, Pace credits the whole Bicentennial celebration as one of the main reasons that he first became interested in history. Pace, North Carolina Room Specialist at Thornton Library in Oxford, and WIZS’s Bill Harris talked about some key people and events from that time when the 13 Colonies were subjected to taxes they considered unfair and laws they considered unjust.

Massachusetts has Boston and the Tea Party; it has Lexington and Concord, the site of the first military conflict in the American Revolution. The city claims Paul Revere and John Hancock, too.

But North Carolina has the Halifax Resolves, the Battle of Moores Creek and  the area known now as Old Granville County.

No battles were fought in the area that now encompasses present-day Vance, Granville, Warren and Franklin counties, Pace said, but there were many individuals who became quite well known for their roles in the American Revolution.

John Penn, one of the three signers of the Declaration of Independence, made his home in northern Granville County, near what is now Stovall.

But there were other “movers and shakers,” Pace said, who hailed from Granville County.

Take Thomas Person, for example. He was the largest landowner in the county, with about 80,000 acres, Pace said. “But he was a behind-the-scenes guy,” he added. It was Person, he said, who pushed for Penn to be a delegate to the Continental Congress, the group which ultimately produced the Declaration of Independence.

Person was a key player in the creation of the Halifax Resolves, which was drafted in April 1776 calling for independence from Britain – three months before the iconic Declaration of Independence.

That three-month head start is the reason that North Carolina license plates boast “First in Freedom.”

Truth be told, Pace said, in 1775, North Carolina was sitting the proverbial fence about whether to remain loyal to the Crown or to take up the cause for freedom and a new form of government.

The Battle of Moores Creek, which took place near Wilmington, was one example of that divided allegiance.

“It was a significant battle because it was North Carolinians versus North Carolinians,” Pace said. The battle was short, he said, only lasting about 10 minutes. On the Patriot side, there was only one casualty; but on the other side, more than 100 Tory sympathizers were captured.

That short encounter showed the British that they couldn’t count on having support from that part of the American Colonies.

“It was going to be a little bit tougher than they thought to put down this rebellion,” Pace said.

The sentiment around Granville County back then, however, most definitely came down on the side who backed independence from Britain. Pace said residents were an independent-minded group, and support to break from the Crown rule was strong.

One way they pushed back included renaming a part of Granville County that had splintered off in 1764 to form Bute County. By 1779, the area known as Bute County was split again to be known as present-day Franklin and Warren counties.

See, the Lord of Bute was a tutor of the much-maligned King George III, and Pace said the new counties were renamed “specifically for patriotic reasons, in addition to practicality.”

Franklin County is named for Benjamin Franklin; Warren County gets its name from Dr. Joseph Warren, who died in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Franklin County lays claim to Richard Fenner, who was born in New Bern but who moved to the area after his military service came to an end. Fenner joined the Second Regiment of the Continental Line of the N.C. militia in 1777 and was a lieutenant when taken as a prisoner of war. He was held in Charleston until the war ended.

He came to Franklin County, studied medicine and was elected to be the first president of the N.C. Medical Society in 1799.

As for Warren County, Pace said perhaps its most famous son was Nathaniel Macon.

He became the fifth Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, made him one of the most powerful North Carolinians in the 1810’s and 1820’s.

Before rising to national political prominence, Macon served in the American Revolution as a teenager – probably when he was 16 or 17.

At that time, Warren County was very influential in state and national politics. At one point, the governor, both U.S. senators and a congressman all were from Warren County and in office.

As a private in the American Revolution, Pace said, Macon no doubt developed at an early age a mindset of individualism – and a dislike of the British Empire.

One person from the area – Philemon Hawkins – had been supportive of the British Crown during the Regulator War, which had taken place in North Carolina just a few years prior to the start of the Revolution.

This Philemon Hawkins (there was an original and then many namesakes, Pace and Harris explained), was Philemon Hawkins II, who lived from 1717-1801.

Hawkins was Gov. Tryon’s aide-de-camp during the Regulator War, but then he shifted his allegiance to back the movement for independence.

He is buried in Warren County.

 

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville – Lost and Forgotten Communities

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People find all kinds of items when they clean out parents’ and grandparents’ attics that can provide insight into bygone times – diaries, vintage clothing and photographs all provide glimpses into the past.

But what about whole communities? Once-vibrant places where folks could go for mail, fabric for new clothes and other provisions?

Communities literally got “on the map” because of post offices, general stores and churches.  But road construction and, more importantly in and around the area known as Old Granville County, railroad construction, are what determined a community’s ultimate rise or decline.

WIZS’s Bill Harris and local historian Mark Pace ran through a list of forgotten and almost-forgotten communities, in Thursday’s Around Old Granville segment of TownTalk. Some of those spots in the road are marked with signs – like Huntsville in Granville County – but places like Monroe in the northeast corner of Warren County live on mostly in historical accounts.

This community, named for President James Monroe, got on the proverbial map when a ferry operator named Robinson offered for sale a hundred or so 1/4 -acre lots in that vicinity. He sold a third of them right quick – for the tidy sum of between $35 and $150, Pace said.

The stagecoach stopped there and numerous notables of their day stopped in for visits. There was U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall, for example, and Vice President Aaron Burr, whose name would become forever remembered for killing his political rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel.

There was only one thing missing from Monroe, however, Pace said.

“The railroad didn’t come through,” Pace said. “And that was the end of Monroe.”

As Monroe, went, so went other small communities that started off in relative prosperity but were doomed because the Raleigh & Gaston didn’t come near.

Take Bunn, for instance, in Franklin County. “Old” Bunn is located a little to the east of present-day Bunn. “When the railroad came through, Bunn moved a mile or so to the east, Pace explained.

And then there’s Lynesville, a precursor to Townsville in Vance County. The railroad moved it a little to the west, drying up Lynesville and giving new life to the unincorporated town that remains today.

And before there was Henderson, there was Chalk Level, which boasted a stagecoach stop, a store and more. It was the mid-1830’s when Lewis Reavis gave land for the right-of-way for the railroad that created a dead end for Chalk Level. The train depot was basically in Reavis’s front yard, Pace said. The advent of the railroad created economic prosperity for what would become Henderson and signal a death knell for Chalk Level.

There are still signs for Tally Ho in Granville County, and there’s a Tally-Ho Road, but when the Stem family gave land for the railroad, Tally Ho died off while the town of Stem gained traction.

Before there was an Oxford, there was a community called Harrisburg, Pace said. Harrisburg played a role during the American Revolution as a gathering point for American supplies.

“As early as 1759 Harrisburg was as large and important as Williamsboro,” Pace said, referring to the once-prominent Vance County community that also fell victim to the placement of the railroad.

In Harrisburg, there was a post office, a dozen or so houses, a community center and the obligatory horse racing track, Pace said. But its exact location wasn’t really clear – until recently. He said thanks to some metal detection work and studied of historical records and deeds, Harrisburg was situated in the general area between the Oxford exits 204 and 206 along I-85.

The community of Letha south of Rocky Ford in Franklin County had a post office from 1890 to 1910. There also was Whitaker’s Mill, as well as a store and perhaps a community cemetery.

“The mill no longer stands,” Harris said, “but you can still see evidence of where the mill was. It’s one of the prettiest areas of Franklin County.”

Most likely it was the mill closing that sent Letha into relative obscurity.

Up in northern Granville County, in the Cornwall community, there was Big Rock. It had a post office from 1885 until the mid-1930’s, Pace said.

When he went off in search of any evidence of the place, Pace said he had to travel several miles through the woods on an ATV.

What did he find? Nothing really was left, he said.

Except, you guessed it – the big rock.

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TownTalk: Around Old Granville – Black History in Old Granville County pt. 2

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Historians tend to look at things in chronological order – after all, dates and timelines are an important tool that help put facts and events and people’s actions into context.

Events of long ago can have a ripple effect into the present-day, and WIZS’s Bill Harris and local historian Mark Pace zeroed in on a few of those events and people who are remembered for their accomplishments and for their place in this nation’s history.

In Part 2 of a discussion about African Americans from this area who went on to achieve great things or otherwise make a mark in society, Thursday’s Around Old Granville segment included folks who got their start locally and went on to greater things in the field of music, medicine and the military, among other aspects of society.

During the time of The Great Migration, Blacks left the South for the Midwest and the North in search of life beyond farming and sharecropping.

Pace said between 1900 and 1970, between 5 million and 7 million people left the South. During that seven-decade span was born the Chicago Blues-style of music and the Harlem Renaissance. Blacks were leaving Reconstruction and Jim Crow behind to find fortune and fame elsewhere.

Whatever their reason for leaving may have been, there are numerous notable musicians who call Henderson home.

Shirley Owens, a founding member of the Shirelles, hails from Henderson. So does Johnny Fields, one of the original members of The Blind Boys of Alabama, Pace said. They join other artists mentioned previously in Around Old Granville segments like Ben E. King and Gerald Alston, also from Henderson.

Military service was another avenue for African Americans, Pace said.

Lt. Col. Thomas J. Bullock was a member of the famous 367th Infantry known as the “Buffalo Soldiers” Bullock was killed on Sept. 2, 1918 in France. Of the 22 soldiers from the county who died in WWI, at least eight were African Americans.

Sixty-two service members from Vance County were killed in World War II, and Pace said 16 of them were African American.

He remembered the Christmas brothers – Simon and Walter, Jr. from Williamsboro. Simon, just 19, died of rheumatic fever in 1945; his older brother, Walter, Jr., died of appendicitis in Manila in 1944. He was just 21.

“So many African Americans that served in World War I and World War II didn’t serve in active combat,” Pace said. They were given more menial tasks stateside or keeping supplies moving.

“Nevertheless, they gave their lives for their country,” he said. “And Mr. and Mrs. Christmas sent their two boys off to serve their country and neither of them came back.”

The brothers are buried at Flat Creek Church Cemetery in Williamsboro.

More recently, Lunsford Brown, also of Henderson, was killed in a mortar attack in Abu Gareeb, Iraq on Sept. 20, 2003. He was 27.

His younger brother, Jason, created a park at his Franklin County First Fruits Farm in memory of his brother. The space overlooks a big pond and has a circle of 50 flags around a 30-foot flagpole.

As with the military, the field of medicine was an aspect of society that had to reassess widely-held notions about segregation as the Civil Rights era came into focus.

Granville County had Cheatham Memorial Hospital around 1940 and in Henderson, there was Jubilee Hospital. It was established in 1911 with heavy involvement from the Presbyterian Church, Jubilee was at the time, the only hospital in a 40-mile radius that would treat Black patients.

“It was actually a cutting-edge hospital for its time,” Pace said.

Dr. John Adams Cotton was instrumental in the hospital, as well as Henderson Institute and Cotton Memorial Church.

A new Jubilee Hospital was built in 1959 on Beckford Drive and it operated until 1966 – when LBJ’s Great Society created Medicaid and Medicare and any hospital who wanted to participate in the federally funded programs couldn’t have segregation policies.

“The first places integrated were hospitals,” Pace said. By 1966, Jubilee had merged with Maria Parham.

Well-known African American physicians in the area included Dr. Samuel Beckford, Dr. John Earl Baxter and Dr. James P. Green. Green was instrumental in establishing Toler Nursing Home and he later served three terms in the N.C. Senate.

People of a certain age may remember the name of Jake Gaither, who got his football coaching start at Henderson Institute and had an illustrious career at Florida A&M.

“He was one of the truly great, most famous football coaches ever,” Pace said. He coached from 1945-1969 and ended up with a record of 203 wins, 36 losses, and 4 ties. His FAMU Rattlers won 6 Negro Collegiate Football championships.

Elson Floyd made a name for himself at Washington State University, not as a winning football coach but as a university president who put his money where his mouth was.

Floyd was born in Henderson in 1956 and graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill. “E Flo” as he was known, had a stellar career in education and will be remembered for doing something unheard of – he voluntarily took a pay cut.

“There was a budget crisis at Washington State,” Pace explained, and Floyd said he’d take a pay cut to help out. Turns out, that pay cut was about $100,000.

Floyd died of complications of colon cancer in 2015 at the young age of 59.

Read more about noted African Americans in Ruth Anita Hawkins Hughes’s 1988 book titled Contributions of Vance County People of Color or Andre Vann’s 2000 book in the Black America Series by Arcadia Publishing.

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