USA > North Carolina > Rowan County > A history of Rowan County, North Carolina > Part 20
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As population drifted into North Carolina, slavery came along with it-from Virginia, from Pennsyl- vania, and from more Northern States. And when, in time, it was discovered that slavery was an unprofitable institution in the bleaker regions of New England, and the moral sentiments of the people began to recognize it as unlawful as well as unprofitable, many of the slaves were sold off to more genial latitudes. The mild climate, the fertile soil, and the unreclaimed wilderness of North Carolina furnished an inviting field for the employment of slave labor. And in gen- eral, just as fast as the early settlers accumulated
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AFRICAN SLAVERY
enough money to purchase a slave, it was expended in that way. This was peculiarly the case with the En- glish and Scotch-Irish settlers, and the immigrants from Virginia, but not so prevalent among the German settlers, though many of them also followed the same practice. As stated before, the records of the early days of Rowan show the presence of slaves in the county. At the first census, in 1790, there were 1,839 negroes in the county, including the territory now em- braced in Davidson and Davie, as well as Rowan. In 1800 there were 2,874 negroes. In 1830 the number had increased to 6,324. The separation of Davie and Davidson Counties reduced the number to 3,463 in 1840, and it rose to 4,066 in 1860. In the last-named year the white population of Rowan was 10,523, or about two and one-half whites to each negro.
The character of Rowan County slavery was gen- erally mild and paternal. On a few plantations, prob- ably, where a considerable number of slaves were quartered, and it was necessary to employ an overseer, there was severity of discipline, and hard labor; for the overseer himself was a hireling, and it was import- ant for his popularity that he should make as many barrels of corn and as many bales of cotton as possible, with the least outlay of money and provisions. But even then the overtasked or underfed slave had access to his master, either directly or through the young masters and mistresses, who felt a personal interest in the slave, and would raise such a storm about the ears of a cruel overseer as would effectually secure his dis- missal from his post. The slave represented so much
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money, and aside from considerations of humanity, the prudent and economical owner could not afford to have his slave maltreated and his value impaired. There was of course room for abuse in all this, and there were heartless and tyrannical masters, and there were oppressed and suffering slaves, just as there is tyranny and oppression in every form of social ex- istence in this fallen and ruined world.
But with many families, where there were only a few slaves, the evils of servitude were reduced to a minimum. The slave was as warmly clothed, as se- curely sheltered, and as bountifully fed as his master. He worked in the same field, and at the same kind of work, and the same number of hours. Sometimes the clothing was coarser and the food not so delicate; but often the clothing was from the same loom and the food from the same pot. The negro had his holidays too-his Fourth of July, his Christmas, and his Gen- eral Muster gala day. And where the family altar was established, evening and morning the negroes, old and young, brought in their chairs and formed a large cir- cle around the capacious hearth of the hall-room, while the father and master priest opened the big family Bible, and read the words of life from its sacred pages. And when the morning and evening hymn were sung, the negroes, with their musical voices, joined in and sang the "parceled lines" to the tune of Windham or Sessions, Ninety-fifth or Old Hundred. They wor- shiped in the same church with their masters, com- fortably seated in galleries constructed for their use, and when the Lord's supper was administered, they
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came forward and sat at the same tables where their masters had sat, and drank the sacred wine from the same cups.
In all this we are not affirming that there was social equality, or that the slave was always contented with his lot in life. No doubt he often chafed under the yoke of bondage, and sometimes when his master dealt hardly with him he ran away, and hid in the swamps and thickets, sustaining life by stealing, or by the aid of his fellow-servants who sympathized with him and who faithfully kept his secret from his master. Our weekly newspapers used to have pictures of fugitive negroes, with a stick over their shoulders, and with a bundle swinging to it, and the startling heading in large capitals "RUNAWAY." Something after this style :
And many a time the white children on their way to or from school, would almost hold their breath as they passed some dark swamp or deserted house, when they remembered that a RUNAWAY had been seen in the neighborhood. Generally the runaway got tired of lying out in a few weeks, especially if winter was near, and voluntarily came home and submitted to whatever punishment was decided upon.
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Occasionally there were cruel hardships suffered by them. When the thriftless master got in debt, or when the owner died and his estate was sold at vendue, or if the heartless master chose, the negro husband and wife might be separated, or parent and child might be sold from each other, one party falling into the hands of a negro trader, and carried off to Alabama or Mississippi. Such cases occurred at intervals, and un- der the laws there was no help for it. But in all such cases the feelings of humane and Christian elements of the community were shocked. Generally, however, arrangements were made to purchase, and keep in the neighborhood, all deserving negroes. As sales would come on it was the habit of the negroes to go to some man able to buy them and secure their transfer to a desirable home. Sometimes, however, all this failed, and the "negro trader" having the longest purse would buy and carry off to the West husbands or wives or children against their will. Older citizens remember the gangs of slaves that once marched through our streets with a hand of each fastened to a long chain, in double file, sometimes with sorrowful look, and some- times with a mockery of gayety. The house of the trader was, perhaps, a comfortable mansion, in some shady square of town. Near the center of the square, and embowered in trees and vines, was his "barra- coon," or prison for the unwilling. There a dozen or two were carefully locked up and guarded. Other cabins on the lot contained those who were submissive
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and willing to go. On the day of departure for the West the trader would have a grand jollification. A band, or at least a drum and fife, would be called into requisition, and perhaps a little rum be judiciously dis- tributed to heighten the spirits of his sable property, and the neighbors would gather in to see the departure. First of all one or two closely covered wagons would file out from the "barracoon," containing the rebellious and unwilling, in handcuffs and chains. After them the rest, dressed in comfortable attire, perhaps danc- ing and laughing, as if they were going on some holi- day excursion. At the edge of the town, the fife and drum ceased, the pageant faded away, and the curious crowd who had come to witness the scene returned to their homes. After months had rolled away the "trader's" wagons came back from Montgomery, Memphis, Mobile, or New Orleans, loaded with lux- uries for his family. In boxes and bundles, in kegs and caskets, there were silks and laces, watches and jew- elry, ribbons and feathers, candies and tropical fruits, wines and cordials, for family use and luxurious in- dulgence, all the profits of an accursed traffic in human flesh and blood, human tears and helpless anguish and oppression. This was the horrible and abominable side of this form of social institution. It was evil, wretchedly evil. But it had and has its counterpart in the social evils of the poorer classes of all ages and all lands. Multitudes today, by inexorable necessity, by poverty and the demands for certain kinds of serv-
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ice, are as hopelessly enslaved by circumstances as these were by law. This is not alleged as an excuse or apology for a crying evil, but only as an intimation that he who is without sin may consistently throw stones at the vanished specter of African slavery in the Southern States. And glad are we that the specter has vanished from our fair land.
CHAPTER XXVI
FOLKLORE
The population of Rowan County, it has been truth- fully said, was made up of almost all the nations of Europe. There were English, Welsh, Scotch, and the ever present Scotch-Irish, the pure Irish, the French, and Germans from the upper and lower Rhine, the Palatines and Hessians, with now and then a Switzer or Italian. These all brought their own peculiar hab- its, prejudices, and national superstitions. And when these were all mingled together, and supple- mented by the belief in spells, charms, and fetishes of the African race, there was a little of almost every superstition under the sun. Let us catch a glimpse, before it vanishes forever, of this undercurrent of
POPULAR SUPERSTITION
as it existed a few generations ago, and may still exist in certain localities in Rowan County. It is but the reiteration of a well-known historical fact, when we assert that all nations and peoples have had their superstitious beliefs and practices; and it is no dis- credit to the inhabitants of Rowan to say that they shared with their contemporaries in the popular super- stitions of the day. Prominent among these was the
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
BELIEF IN WITCHES
No man was ever burnt in Rowan County for witch- craft, as they were in some counties claiming to be more civilized. But this was owing, either to the su- perior charity of the people, or to the fact that they supposed themselves able to overmatch the witches with countercharms. A witch was generally sup- posed to be an old woman in league with the devil, and able to do wonderful things by Satanic agency. The usual way to become a witch was to go down to the spring at the dawn of day, and looking down at the image dimly outlined in the water, pledge the soul to Satan, upon condition of his rendering them the help needed. After this compact the witches could do won- derful things, such as riding on broomsticks through the air, transforming themselves into black cats, rabbits, and other animals. Walking along the road late in the evening, a man alleged that he saw three women sitting on a log beside the road. As he looked at them, the women suddenly melted from view, and three antlered deer galloped off in their stead. The witch or wizard was supposed to have power to trans- fer corn from the horse-trough of his neighbor to his own horse, and while his neighbor's horses got poor and lean, his own were sleek and fat. To see a rabbit hopping about a barn suggested the presence of a witch making arrangements to abstract the corn from the horses, or the milk from the cows. But an old-fash- ioned shilling, with its pillars of Hercules, nailed in the horse-trough, was supposed to break the spell and keep
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the corn in the trough. The only way of killing the witch rabbits and black cats was by using a silver bul- let. The rabbit would vanish, but the witch at home would suddenly die of heart disease or apoplexy. In the meantime, the witches were supposed to use a pecu- liar kind of a gun, which was simply a glass phial, open at both ends, and a bullet made of knotted and twisted hair. This bullet possessed the wonderful property of penetrating the flesh of an animal without making any hole in the skin. It was alleged that such bullets were found, and animals often, being skinned, would show the hole through which these bullets went.
It was believed that witches rode on the necks of horses at night, and their knotted stirrups were some- times seen in the manes of the horses. In these cases, they assumed the form of rabbits. A story used to be related of the mistake of an inexperienced witch in try- ing to increase the amount of butter at a churning. She took her cream, and measured it into her churn by the spoonful, repeating at each dip, "a spoonful from that house," and "a spoonful from that house." Unfortunately, speaking in German, she got the word for ladle instead of spoon, and so said, "a ladleful from that house." As a consequence, when she began to churn, the cream began to swell up as the ladlefuls came in, until the churn was full and it ran over and flooded the room. At that juncture a neighbor walked in, and found her unable to account for the abundance of cream, and in her confusion she divulged the em- barrassing secret.
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SPELLS AND CHARMS
Intimately connected with this witchcraft was the belief in spells and charms. This was very common among the negroes, and perhaps continues to this day. Nothing was more common than to account for certain obscure diseases as the result of a "trick." The sick person was said to be "tricked." This was supposed to be done in various ways, but very frequently by making some mixture of roots, hair, parings of finger- nails, and other ingredients, tying the compound up in a cloth, and laying it under a doorstep, or piece of wood or stone where the victim had to tread, or per- haps was put into the spring or well. In such emer- gencies the only refuge was a "trick doctor" or con- jurer, who knew how to brew a medicine, or repeat a charm more potent than the spell laid on. Such "trick doctors" were to be found in the memory of persons still living. They were generally men of a shrewd, unscrupulous character, who managed to delude the minds of the gullible victims of trickery. He who was weak enough to believe in the "trick," was not hard to be persuaded and imposed upon by the conjurer. Mar - velous stories were told of the skill of these conjurers. So potent was the skill of one of these that he needed no lock on his crib or smokehouse. All he did was to draw a circle in the dust or earth around his premises, and the thief who dared enter that magic circle would be found standing there next morning, with his bag of stolen meat or corn on his shoulder. One of these conjurers was believed to have the power of taking
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some straws and turning a thief's track upside down, and compelling him to come and stand on the reversed track. The premises of a man with such a reputation were generally safe without lock or key. To do them justice, the conjurers were generally very moderate in their charges, seeming to find their reward in the rep- utation which they achieved among their neighbors. And their countercharms and potions were generally innocent, and only calculated to work upon the imagi- nation. Sometimes they used real remedies, supple- menting them with certain passes and motions. For in- stance, many years ago, a boy cut his foot badly with an ax. The wound was loosely and awkwardly bound up, and the blood continued to flow, until the lad was like to die. In this emergency a neighbor was sent for about midnight to staunch the blood by "using" for it. He came promptly, and carefully unbound the foot, washed off the clotted blood, adjusted the lips of the wound, and bound on it the fleshy scrapings of sole leather. After this, he took another sharp tool, a draw- ing knife, and made various passes over the foot, at the same time muttering come cabalistic words-per- haps a verse from the Bible. The remedy as a whole was eminently successful, but the patient was dis- posed to attribute the cure to the careful adjustment, and the astringent properties of oak bark absorbed in tanning by the scrapings of the leather, rather than to the magic "passes" and the muttered words.
It was believed that if witch rabbits sucked the cows it would cause them to give bloody milk. The remedy for this was to milk the cow through a knothole of a
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
piece of rich pine plank, and the reader may have seen, as the writer has, such pieces of plank, with a knothole in them, hanging up beside the kitchen, and ready for use at any time. In those days a worn horseshoe nailed over the door was regarded as a spell against witch power, and the cause of good luck. At present it has become the fashion to form many ornaments after the horseshoe pattern as a symbol of good luck. Some persons believed that if a rabbit ran across the road from the right to the left hand, it foreboded bad luck, but if from the left to the right, good luck. To catch the first glimpse of the new moon through the branches of the trees was a token of trouble during the next month, but if seen in the open sky the first time it was the harbinger of a prosperous month. For a funeral procession to stop before getting off the premises or plantation was a sign that another funeral would soon take place from the same house. But the great em- bodiment of signs was the moon, and in many families scarcely anything of importance was undertaken with- out first inquiring whether it would be in the "dark" or the "light" of the moon. The Salem almanac was and is an institution that no prudent believer in the signs would think of dispensing with. Corn, potatoes, turnips, and beans, in fact everything, must be planted when the sign is right, in the head, or the feet, or the heart, in Leo or Taurus, in Aquarius or Pisces, in Gemini or Cancer, according as large vegetables or many vegetables are desired. Briars are to be cut and. fence foundations laid exactly in the right sign, or success is not expected. In fact, attention to the signs
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frequently superseded attention to the seed and the soil, and the proper method of cultivation, and has probably done much to retard agricultural progress.
There is a charm in the mysterious that fascinates the untutored mind ; and many would rather be skillful in discerning the signs than prudent in bestowing pro- ductive labor.
It would be an endless task to enumerate all the superstitious notions that have floated through the popular mind, and that have been the theme of serious conversation and meditation among the people, in the century and a half that has passed since this region was peopled. With many, these superstitions have been but a fancy, a curious theme of discussion, not seriously believed. But others have been the slaves of these unfounded notions, and have been made miserable by the howling of a dog, or the ticking of a "death watch" in the wall. As the light of education and religion is more widely diffused, this slavery has passed away, and there are probably few today who are willing to confess their belief in the notions that still linger in their minds as traditions of their fathers.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE CHURCHES OF ROWAN
The early settlers of Rowan County were religious people, and in many instances the enjoyment of perfect liberty of conscience was the great object which they were seeking when they were making for themselves a home in the Western world. The poor Palatines had endured much suffering in their home on the Rhine, and been driven forth to seek shelter for their families in foreign lands. They, or their descendants, found a resting-place in Eastern Rowan.' The Scotch-Irish fled from the North of Ireland, in consequence of dis- abilities imposed on them for the sake of their religion. They found a home in the fertile lands of Western Rowan; and with them they brought an intense love for their own peculiar doctrines and forms of worship.
PRESBYTERIANISM IN ROWAN
is older than the organization of the county, not only in the affections and doctrines of the settlers, but in the form of organized Presbyterian congregations. On pages forty-six and forty-seven of the first volume of deeds in the Register's office, we find it recorded that, on the seventeenth of January, 1753, John Lynn and Naomi Lynn gave a deed for twelve acres of land, more or less, on James Cathey's line, in Anson County,
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
"to a congregation belonging to ye Lower meeting- house, between the Atking River and ye Catabo Do., adhering to a minister licensed from a Presbytery be- longing to the old Synod of Philadelphia." This deed was witnessed by Edward Cusick, John Gardiner, and William Brandon. On the eighteenth of January, 1753, a similar deed for twelve acres more, "on James Cathey's north line," was conveyed to the same con- gregation. From this we learn that there was an or- ganized congregation of Presbyterians at this point, capable of purchasing land, and its popular name was the "Lower Meeting-house." The second name by which it was known was "Cathey's Meeting-house," doubtless because in the neighborhood of the Catheys. Its third and present name was and is Thyatira. Whether it was an organized church, with its regularly ordained elders, at that early day, we have no means of determining. It is probable that some of the first set- tlers-the Catheys, Brandons, Barrs, Andrews, Gra- hams, or Nesbits-were ordained elders before leaving Pennsylvania, and exercised their office in planting a church near their new homes.
A second thought suggested by the name, "Lower Meeting-house," is that there was at that date an "Up- per Meeting-house," or perhaps more than one. The "Upper" one would naturally be looked for higher up the principal streams-the Yadkin and Catawba-and was no doubt to be found in the settlement where Statesville was afterwards built, and which was after- wards divided into the three churches of Fourth Creek, (Statesville), Concord, and Bethany. These four
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THE CHURCHES OF ROWAN
churches of Rowan, with seven churches of Mecklen- burg, constituted the eleven historical churches of Western North Carolina, whose boundaries were de- fined, and whose organization was completed, by the missionaries, Rev. Messrs. Spencer and McWhorter, in 1764. The latter is the date generally assigned as the time of their organization, but most of them are really a dozen or perhaps twenty years older, or con- temporaneous with earliest settlement.
From the History of Fourth Creek Church, written by Rev. E. F. Rockwell, we learn that Fourth Creek was gathered into a congregation at least as early as 1751, and their place of worship was fixed upon as early as 1756. The Rev. John Thompson came into this region as early as 1751, and settled near Center Church. He preached at Fourth Creek, and various other stations in Rowan County, for about two years, and it is said the people came twenty or twenty-five miles to his appointments. "From the Davidson Set- tlement and the region of Beattie's Ford, they came ; from Rowan, the Brandons, the Cowans, the Brawleys. Sometimes he baptized a score of infants at once." He had one preaching station near where Third Creek Church is, one at Morrison's Mill, one near the present site of Davidson College. As Cathey's Meeting-house (Thyatira) was established about this time, or earlier, no doubt John Thompson preached at that place also.
From a manuscript map of Fourth Creek congrega- tion, drawn up by Hon. William Sharpe in 1773, it appears that there were one hundred and ninety-six heads of families, one hundred and eleven different
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
names, residing within ten miles of Fourth Creek Church, and belonging to the congregation. The num- ber of persons, at the usual estimate of five to a family, would be nearly one thousand. Out of these were formed, in later days, the churches of Fourth Creek, Concord, Bethany, Shiloh, Bethesda, Third Creek, Fifth Creek, Tabor, and Clio, or parts of them, now numbering one thousand and ninety-seven members. But though these were in Old Rowan, they are now in Iredell County. Cathey's or Thyatira is the mother church of modern Rowan Presbyterians. In 1753, two missionaries were sent by the Synod of Philadel- phia to visit Virginia and North Carolina, with direc- tions to show special regard to the vacancies between the Yadkin and Catawba. The names of these min- isters were McMordie and Donaldson. In the fall of 1755, the Rev. Hugh McAden made a tour through North and South Carolina, preached at Cathey's Meet- ing-house, and was solicited to remain, but declined. The same year, the Rev. John Brainard and the Rev. Elihu Spencer were directed by the Synod of New York to supply vacant congregations in North Caro- lina, but there is no report of their visit. For ten years after this, there is no record of any laborer in this region, but the congregations still held to- gether and awaited the arrival of a minister. In 1764 the Synod of Philadelphia sent the Rev. Messrs. Elihu Spencer and Alexander McWhorter to form societies, adjust the boundaries of congregations, ordain elders, and dispense the sacraments. It was at this period that the seven churches of Mecklenburg,
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