USA > North Carolina > Rowan County > A history of Rowan County, North Carolina > Part 13
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tell the tale as they heard it from their forefathers, substantially as above written.
In a little graveyard, walled in with stones, a few hundred yards from the stone house, lie the remains of Michael Braun, and his wife, with quite a number of his descendants. The following is the inscription on a plain old-fashioned headstone, dedicated to the memory of the wife and mother.
I77I GESTORBEN JULIUS 20 HIER LIEGHT DER LIEB MRCREDA BRAUN DES ML. BRAUN'S EHE WIEB HAT 9 KINDER, 6 SON 3 D. ALT 37 JAHR 2 MO.
The above inscription is in the dialect known in North Carolina as "Pennsylvania Dutch." The fol- lowing is perhaps a good translation of the epitaph:
1771, DIED JULY 20
Here lies the body of Margaret Braun, Michael Braun's wedded wife. She had nine children, six sons and three daughters. , Aged thirty-seven years and two months.
As Michael Braun had an extensive family, and his descendants in this and adjoining counties are numer- ous, the reader may not object to see an account of this family as far as known.
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Michael Braun was married several times, and the following is a list of his children so far as known. In the absence of complete records we depend to a large extent upon the memory of one who knew per- sonally most of the individuals named. It is not postively certain that the sons of Michael Braun are mentioned in the order of seniority. They were named John, Peter, Moses, James, and Jeremiah.
I. John, the eldest, for some reason or other, was called "Continental John," probably because he served in the Continental army during the Revolution. He was the father of the late Mrs. Jacob Myers of Salis- bury.
2. Peter married Miss Susanna Bruner, a daughter of Mr. George Bruner, who lived at the place which is the present residence of Dr. Albert Powe, now known as the "Powe Place," formerly called the "Bruner Place." This couple were blessed with a number of children. Their daughter Elizabeth married Thos. L. Cowan of Salisbury, and was the mother of the late Mrs. Charlotte Jenkins and Mrs. Mary Hall. Mary, another daughter, married Barny Bowers. Susan married a Mr. Thompson, of Randolph. Margaret married Joseph Chambers, of Iredell County, and was the mother of Major P. B. Chambers, now of States- ville. Sally married Dr. Satterwhite.
Besides these daughters, Peter and Susanna Brown had two sons, the late Michael and George Brown, of Salisbury. These two sons married daughters of Alexander Long, of Yadkin Ferry, and sisters of the late Dr. Alexander Long, of Salisbury.
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Peter Brown first settled about two miles east of Salisbury, but soon moved into town. He purchased the building on the west corner of Main and Innes Streets, where he carried on a store for many years. The place was occupied by his son, Michael Brown, after him, until about 1860. The place is commonly known as McNeely's corner, and is now occupied by the firm of Ross & Greenfield.
3. Moses, the third son in the above list, was born February 24, 1773, and married Catherine Swink. The oldest son of Moses and Catherine Brown was named Michael S., and was born December 28, 1797. He lived near his birthplace, and left a large family. He died November 28, 1849.
A second son was the late Moses (L.) Brown of Salisbury, who lived where Martin Richwine now lives, and his daughters, Mrs. Richwine and Mrs. Johnston are residents of Salisbury.
A third son of Moses (son of Michael Braun) was the late Peter (M.) Brown, of Charlotte. Peter (M.) Brown was first married to Elizabeth Pool, of Salis- bury, by whom he had two children, John L. Brown, Esq., of Charlotte, and Margaret C. Brown, who was married to Dr. John R. Dillard, of Virginia. John L. Brown, of Charlotte, married Miss Nancy I, daughter of the late Jennings B. Kerr, of Charlotte, and has represented his County-Mecklenburg-three sessions in the Legislature; each time being elected almost unanimously. Moses Brown (son of Michael) had also another son, Alfred Brown, who settled in Con- cord; and two daughters, Sophia and Sally.
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4. The fourth son of Michael Braun, of the "Stone House," was named James. He continued to live in the old neighborhood, and his descendants are found scattered around the place of their nativity.
5. Another, the youngest son of Michael Braun, of the "Stone House," was Jeremiah. He married the widow of Tobias Furr. Mrs. Furr was the mother of three children by her first marriage-Mary Furr, who married John Murphy; Elizabeth Furr, who married Samuel Lemly; and Louisa Furr, who married William H. Horah, all of Salisbury. By her marriage with Jeremiah Brown she had also three children- Margaret, who married Thomas Dickson; Delia, who married John Coughenour ; and the late Col. Jeremiah M. Brown, whose widow and children still live in Salisbury.
6. The last wife of Michael Braun of the "Stone House" was Mrs. Eleanora Reeves. Mrs. Reeves was a Maryland lady, named Wakefield, and was first mar- ried to William Reeves, when quite young, by whom she had four children-Thomas, Samuel, Sally, and Nancy. Samuel was the late Samuel Reeves, the father of Dr. Samuel Reeves and of Mrs. Sarah Johnston. Nancy Reeves married a Mr. Kiestler, and was the mother of Mrs. Jane Price, and the grand- mother of Robert Wakefield Price and others, now of Salisbury.
By her marriage with Michael Braun, Mrs. Reeves had one child, Clementine, who was married to Charles Verble. Their daughter Eleanora is the wife of Mr. Thomas E. Brown, and mother of Lewis V. Brown
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of Texas, and Frank Brown of Salisbury. Of the daughters of Michael Braun the writer has no knowl- edge, nor has it been thought fit to extend the notice of other descendants to a later period. It is perhaps necessary to remark in closing this notice that the German word "Braun" signifies dark or brown, and that it was pronounced in German exactly as our En- glish word, "brown." Old Michael's descendants therefore discarded the German spelling and signed themselves "Brown."
DUNN'S GRAVES
On the north side of the Stone House farm, and ad- joining it, were John Dunn's country farm and resi- dence. The house was built of wood and has long since disappeared, but a depression in the ground still marks the spot where the old lawyer's cellars once ex- isted. Not far from this spot there is a small cluster of graves, known in the neighborhood as "Dunn's Graves." The plow of the farmer has gone over the spot, the wheat and the corn have grown rankly over it, and the eye of the stranger would never detect the place. But aged citizens, who may not linger long to hand down the tradition, are still able to point out with precision the spot where their fathers said John Dunn is sleeping his last sleep, side by side with some of his own race and kindred. As a general guide to the locality, it may be stated that the spot is a short dis- tance-say a half-mile-from Mr. Asa Ribelin's house, in the direction of Salisbury. It is a pity that so many of these country burial-grounds are allowed to fall into
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decay, to pass into the hands of strangers, leaving no trace of the spot where the pioneers of this land are laid in their last resting-place.
CAPT. ALEXANDER SHANNON
was an officer in General Greene's army, who lost his life in Salisbury in 1781. He was engaged in some unrecorded skirmish, or reconnoitering expedition, somewhere on the slope of the hill now covered by the South Ward of Salisbury, where he was slain by the British. Twenty years ago some of the older citizens could remember, in one of our cemeteries, a headstone, marked with his name. But it has either fallen down, been removed, or sunk beneath the turf. Captain Shannon was from Guilford County, a brave soldier and a true patriot. He was the grand-uncle of our fellow-townsman, S. H. Wiley, Esq.
JOSEPH HUGHES AND COL. DAVID FANNING
Colonel Fanning, the notorious Tory marauder, who kept Randolph, Orange, and Moore Counties in terror for several years, is said to have paid Salisbury at least one visit during the war. The reader of North Carolina annals will remember his atrocious murder of Col. Andrew Balfour, of Randolph County, on the ninth of March, 1782. About that time, an English- man by the name of Joseph Hughes was keeping a vil- lage inn, at the place afterwards known as "Slaughter's Hotel," in Salisbury. This place was afterwards known as the "Robard's Hotel," and the place is now occupied as a residence by Mr. Theo. F. Kluttz. Having heard
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that Fanning was crossing the Yadkin, somewhere about the Island Ford, and having lost an arm, and being thereby disabled from fighting, Hughes deter- mined to save himself and family by a stratagem. Accordingly he rolled some barrels of whiskey into the street in front of his inn, knocked the heads out, and placed a number of tin cups conveniently around. The bait took, and Fanning's myrmidons got beastly drunk, and so were disabled from doing the mischief they intended to do. Hughes seized the opportunity to escape through the thickets and brushwood in the rear of his house. It is not known that these desper- adoes did any serious mischief in the town. Joseph Hughes left one son, Hudson Hughes, who married the daughter of Col. Andrew Balfour. The daughter of this couple, Mary, became the wife of Samuel Reeves, Esq., and the mother of the late Dr. Samuel Reeves, and of Mrs. Sarah Johnston, now of Cin- cinnati.
THE OLDEST TREE
Before quitting this ramble among the antiquities of Salisbury and vicinity, it may not be uninteresting to call attention to the "oldest inhabitant" of Salisbury, in the shape of a venerable sassafras tree-the "Big Sassafras" of John Beard. It stands very near the embankment of the Western North Carolina Railroad, just after leaving the Company's workshops, on the town side of the embankment, on the same square on which Mr. Charles Gordon's house is located. A re- cent measurement of the tree, two feet from the
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ground, makes it fourteen feet two inches in circum- ference-nearly five feet in diameter. It was standing there in 1806, and seemed then almost as large in the body, and much larger in the crown than at present. At that day John Beard had extensive orchards all around in the neigborhood, and he chose the sassafras as the fulcrum of a cider press. It was on the hill- slope of a beautiful meadow, and just above a crystal spring. Here on the green grass lay heaps of blushing apples, which were crushed and pressed beneath the powerful lever until the golden-colored cider gushed out in great streams. The children from the whole settlement-for Salisbury was then a mere village, and most of its families connected with each other- gathered in the grassy valley, and drank to their heart's content of the beverage, so sweet to their sim- ple tastes. That was three-fourths of a century ago. Nearly all the children that played there then have passed away, while the old tree still stands, with trunk decaying, but leaves glossy and aromatic as in early days. How old is it? Everyone who knows the slow growth of that species of tree, will think that it would require more than a hundred years to attain such a size. It is probably two hundred years old, or more, and began its growth long before the first white settler pitched his tent or built his cabin between the Yadkin and the Catawba. Long may it stand !
"Woodman! spare that tree, Touch not a single bough ; In youth it sheltered me, And I'll protect it now."
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LORD CORNWALLIS DEPARTS
But it is time to return from these sketches, that have little or no connection with the occupation of the British army, to the departure of Lord Cornwallis. Having remained in Salisbury part of three days, he took his departure early on Tuesday morning, the sixth of February. His march was up the Wilkes- boro Road, crossing Grant's Creek, Second Creek, Third and Fourth Creeks. A march of about fifteen or eighteen miles brought them to their first encamp- ment, on the west side of the South Fork of the Yad- kin, not far from Rencher's (or Renshaw's) Ford. A little stream, called Beaver Dam, would furnish them water, and the well-to-do farmers of South River and Fourth Creek-the Johnstons, Luckeys, Grahams, Gillespies, and Knoxes-had capacious and well-filled barns, cribs, and granaries. It was at this encampment that William Young, mentioned in a pre- vious chapter, had his adventures with the British soldiers. On the seventh, the British crossed the Shal- low Ford of the main Yadkin, where little John Spur- gen caught sight of them, and hastened with the news to General Greene. They there passed out of Rowan County. The general histories of the State will in- form the reader of Greene's retreat across the Dan, Lord Cornwallis' march to Hillsboro, the return of both armies to Guilford, where the battle of Guilford Courthouse was fought on the fifteenth of March fol- lowing; of Lord Cornwallis' march to Wilmington, and Greene's hasty march to Camden, and his battle
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with Lord Rawdon at Hobkirk's Hill on the twenty- fifth of April. But these movements do not fall within the scope of these papers. The great armies had swept on, and Rowan County was left to herself. But it was an uneasy and unsettled time, for many were the Tories that hung around her borders, and depredations were frequently committed upon the peaceful families of the Whigs. The men who were able for war were absent, and the feeble noncombatants were unable to resist the violence of Tory raiders. But brighter days were near at hand. Cornwallis surrendered at York- town, October 19, 1781. On the fourth of March, 1782, the British House of Commons passed a resolu- tion in favor of peace, and active hostilities ceased. This day has been chosen as the day for the inaugura- tion of the Presidents of the United States.
CHAPTER XIX
-
THE FIRST YEARS OF PEACE
On the nineteenth of October, 1781, Lord Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington, at Yorktown, in Virginia. It was in the middle of the night, a day or two after, that the news of this closing scene in the mighty drama reached Philadelphia. A watchman in the street called out. "Twelve o'clock, and a cloudy morning - Cornwallis taken." In a short time the whole city was aroused, and the wildest manifestations of joy were displayed. The same news ran rapidly over all the States, and the people in every village and hamlet were filled with gladness. In England, all hope of subjugating the States was abandoned, and Lord North retired from the Ministry and the Whigs took charge of the government. Negotiations for peace were entered into, and five commissioners from the United States met a like number from England in Paris, and a provisional treaty of peace was signed September 3, 1782. A final treaty was signed at the same place, on the third of September, 1783, and each of the original Thirteen Colonies was acknowledged by Great Britain to be an Independent and Sovereign State.
But though peace with England was declared, there were many bitter heartburnings in the breasts of the
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
people among themselves. The army was unpaid, and efforts were made to array it against Congress, and thus turn over the public civil government into a mil- itary despotism. Nothing but the courage and patriot- ism of General Washington averted that sad calamity.
Besides this there were many Loyalists in every part of the country, some of whom had taken up arms in behalf of Great Britain, and many others had re- mained neutral in the struggle. When peace came the Whigs could scarcely feel that their Tory neighbors ought to enjoy equal rights and privileges with them- selves, and no doubt were easily provoked to taunt them with insulting epithets. These were days of violence, and he who had the brawniest arm, or was most active of limb, came out conqueror. Many of the Loyalists voluntarily removed to distant parts of the country, while others received legal notice to de- part. Besides this, suits were brought against many for the confiscation of their property for disloyalty, according to Act of the Assembly of North Carolina. This Act was adopted at the first meeting of the Gen- eral Assembly under the Constitution, at Newbern, April 8, 1777, and declared it to be treason and pun- ishable with death and confiscation of goods, to take commission in the army of Great Britain in North Carolina, or to aid or assist in any way the enemies of the State. The law was terribly severe, and was never fully executed. Still, in 1782, twenty-two persons were summoned to appear before the Rowan Inferior Court charged with disloyalty. Some were found guilty and some were acquitted. But the sale of the
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THE FIRST YEARS OF PEACE
property of those found guilty was postponed. At the Inferior Court of Rowan for February, 1783, no less than one hundred and sixty persons were cited to appear and show cause why their estates should not be confiscated. Though the citation was signed with the names of Griffith Rutherford, James Macay, Wil- liam Sharpe, and Robert Mackie, magistrates, holding the Court, it is recorded that the entire lot made de- fault, and thereby ignored or defied the Court. The curious reader will find a list of their names on Minute Docket of Rowan Inferior Court for February, 1783, volume 1778-86. It has been supposed that a con- siderable part of the German population of Rowan were neutral or averse to the war. But if such was the case not many of them committed any overt act bringing them within purview of the law provided against disloyalty. Out of one hundred and eighty- two names but a small part-about one-fifth-are German names; the rest are common English names. The revolutions of one hundred years have softened the asperities and rounded off the sharp prejudices en- gendered by the great conflict, and we are now able to see that it could be possible for a man to be con- scientiously convinced that it was his duty to main- tain his loyalty to the king to whom he had given his oath of allegiance. But it was more than could be reas- onably expected of the suffering patriots of that day to see it in that light. Still-slowly, imperceptibly- better days came on, and the husbandman could again devote his whole time to the improvement of his farm, and the good housewives to their domestic affairs. In
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those days the farmer's life was far more independent and self-sustaining than at present. With the excep- tion of a few articles, such as iron, salt, a little sugar and coffee or chocolate, pepper and spice, the farm, the flocks and herds yielded all that was consumed at the homes of our people. The table was loaded with home productions.
The operations of the farm were carried on with rude and simple implements and in a primitive way. The market for grain and flour was several hundred miles distant, and the expense of transportation was too great to justify the raising of more than was needed on the farm. The rich new grounds and bot- tom lands with their virgin soil brought forth a bountiful crop with little labor, and left a large margin of time for fishing and hunting. There was always a "slack season" between the "laying by" of crops and fodder-pulling time. That was the time to hunt squir- rels, and the crack of the rifle might be heard around the cornfields on all sides. And then fishing expedi- tions were organized to some favorite pond or stretch of the river, where with long circling seine the jump- ing trout and the blushing redhorse were captured. The farmers' boys knew where the sweetest wild grapes or the most tempting muscadines grew, or where the thinnest-shelled scalybarks, or fattest hickory nuts, or the plumpest and juiciest black haws were to be found, and visited them accordingly. Those same farmers' boys also knew the haw trees, persim- mon trees, and grapevines in all the country around that were likely to be frequented by the fat opossums
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THE FIRST YEARS OF PEACE
in the later fall, and they had their 'possum dogs in good training by the time the first hard frost ripened the persimmons and the opossum himself, and made his flesh fit for eating. But before that time came around, even the "slack season" had some work to be done. No circulating threshing machine or separator was then to be found, to clean up the wheat and oats of a farm in a single day. Instead of that the farmer built his double log-barn with a threshing or tramping floor between the stables. The wheat and oats were hauled from the harvest fields and packed on the sta- ble lofts, and on the loft over the barn floor. This floor was usually twenty-five or thirty feet square, and was shut in on both sides with huge folding doors. When the tramping time came a floor of wheat was thrown down, bundles untied and laid in a circle around the center of the floor. The folding doors were thrown open, and several spans of horses were put in to walk around and around upon the wheat until it was separated from the straw and chaff-the attend- ants in the meantime turning over the straw as re- quired. At first the wheat was winnowed with a sheet, or coverlet tied up by two corners, and briskly swung by two men, while one slowly poured down the mixed wheat and chaff. But wheat fans were soon introduced, and their clatter could be heard at a great distance, doing up the work neatly and rapidly.
The oats, being more easily crushed by the hard hoofs, and the straw being used to make "cut feed" for the horses, were usually threshed out with flails, the bundles being kept entire. No matter if the grain was
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not entirely taken out-the horses would get it in their feed.
Later in the fall was the time for pulling and shuck- ing the corn. A huge long heap, or straight or cres- cent-shaped, containing thirty, fifty, or a hundred loads of corn in the shucks, was piled up in the barnyard. On a given day a boy was sent out to ask hands to come in to the shucking on a night appointed. Fifty hands perhaps, might come just at dark. A rail would be placed in the middle, and the hands divided by two captains who threw up "cross and pile" for first choice of hands. Then came the race, the shouting, the hur- rahing, and the singing of corn songs if any negroes were present. And generally a bottle of brandy was circulated several times and was sampled by most of those present. Quite a number would sometimes get excited by the liquor, but it was considered disgraceful to get drunk. Sometimes a fight would occur, espe- cially if the race was a close one. The winning side would try to carry their captain around the pile in triumph, but a well-directed ear of corn, sent by some spiteful hand on the beaten side, would strike a mem- ber of the triumphal procession, and thereby bad blood would be excited, and a promiscuous fight occur. But these were rare accidents. After the corn was shucked, and the shucks put into a pen, came the shucking supper-loaf, biscuits, ham, pork, chicken pie, pumpkin custard, sweet cakes, apple pie, grape pie, coffee, sweet milk, buttermilk, preserves, in short a rich feast of everything yielded by the farm. It re- quired a good digestion to manage such a feast at ten
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THE FIRST YEARS OF PEACE
or eleven o'clock at night, but the hardy sons of toil had a good digestion. Or if anything were wanting, a tramp of four or five miles, on an opossum or coon hunt, lasting till one or two o'clock in the morning, would be sufficient to settle the heartiest shucking sup- per that ever was spread on the farmers' tables in bountiful Old Rowan County.
The tanner and the shoemaker, the hatter, the black- smith, and the weaver plied their vocations all over the county. The wandering tinker came around at in- tervals, with his crucible and his molds for spoons, plates, and dishes, and melted and transformed into bright new articles the old broken pewter fragments that were carefully preserved. How the youngsters would stare at him as he stirred the molten pewter with his bare finger! And how diligently the boys hunted the rabbit, mink, muskrat, otter, and raccoon, and preserved their skins, to be taken to the hatter at Jumping Run or Cross Keys or Dutch Second Creek, to be made into a sleek and shining beaver, to be worn as their first "fur hat," instead of the old heavy, hard "wool hat," that was now to be used only as an every- day hat. Every house had its pairs of cards for wool and cotton, its large and small spinning wheel, revolv- ing rapidly under the pressure of deft fingers or strong and elastic foot, while the thread or yarn, by the "cut" and "hank," hung on pegs on the wall. As the visitor approached the house, as soon as the morning chores were "done up," he would hear the deep bass rumbling of the large wheel, or the buzzing of the little flax wheel, with its hooked "flyers" whirling the thread
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