USA > North Carolina > Rowan County > A history of Rowan County, North Carolina > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35
In addition to these mounds, Mr. Baldwin, in his "Ancient America" (p. 24), mentions "Harrison Mound" in South Carolina, four hundred and eighty feet in circumference, and fifteen feet high. This mound is attributed to the "Mound Builders," or an- cient Toltecs. A still larger "Mound" has recently been brought to public notice through the columns of the Salisbury Watchman, situated in Old Rowan County-now Davidson-about eight miles from Salis-
43
THE ABORIGINES
bury. In many respects this is a work of considerable interest, both as to its situation and character. It stands within one hundred yards of the Yadkin River, at the point where Lawson seems to locate "Sapona Town," on "Sapona River," near the celebrated "Trad- ing Ford." As this lies in the ancient territory of Rowan, it will require a more particular notice. The "Trading Ford" is so named because it was on the ancient "Trading Path," leading from Virginia to the Catawba and other Southern Indians. Colonel Byrd, in his History of the Dividing Line (1728), describes this "Path" as crossing the Roanoke at Moni-seep Ford, thence over Tar River, Flat River, Little River, Eno, through the Haw Old Fields, over the Haw, the Aramanchy (Alamance), and Deep River. The next point was Yadkin River, where he says, "The soil was exceedingly fertile on both sides, abounding in rank grass and prodigiously large trees, and for plenty of fish, fowl, and venison is inferior to no part of the Northern continent. There the traders commonly lie still for some days to recruit their horses' flesh, as well as to recover their own spirits. Six miles further is Crane Creek, so named from its being the rendezvous of great armies of cranes, which wage a more cruel war at this day with the frogs and fish than they used to do in the days of Homer. About three-score miles more bring you to the first town of the Catawbas, called Nauvasa, situated on the banks of the Santee (Catawba) River. Besides this town there are five others belonging to the same Nation, lying on the same stream, within the distance of twenty miles.
44
HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
These Indians were all called formerly by the general name of Usherees, and were a very numerous and powerful people * but are now (1728) reduced to little more than four hundred fighting men, besides women and children" (History Dividing Line, p. 85). Speaking of the Sapponies, or Saponas, Colonel Byrd remarks that they formerly lived upon the "Yadkin River," not far below the mountains; thus placing them exactly where Lawson puts them, though he calls the river by another name, i. e., "Yadkin," in- stead of "Sapona." When these Indians had become reduced in numbers, and no longer able to resist the incursions of the Northern Indians-Iroquois or Sen- ecas-they resolved to form a combination, or fusion of the Saponas, Toteros, Keyauwees, and Occonee- chees, for mutual defense and protection. Two or three years after Lawson passed here, that is, about 1703, these consolidated tribes removed from Carolina into Virginia, and settled at Christiana, ten miles north of the Roanoke (Lawson, p. 83; Dividing Line, p. 89). After remaining there twenty-five or thirty years, they returned to Carolina and dwelt with the Catawbas (Dividing Line, p. 89). Colonel Byrd de- scribes these Saponas as having "something great and remarkable in their countenances, and as being the honestest as well as the bravest Indians he was ever acquainted with." Colonel Spottswood - the Gov- ernor of Virginia-placed a schoolmaster among them to instruct their children, though from the shortness of time they were under his tuition, he taught them little else than the much needed grace of cleanliness.
45
THE ABORIGINES
It was these Saponas that occupied the important post near "Trading Ford," when the trading cara- vans, with their goods packed on a hundred horses, stopped to recruit for five or six days, and doubtless to trade with the Saponas and their confederates. Of the transactions at that deserted metropolis, we have no records. Tradition says that at "Swearing Creek," a few miles beyond Sapona, the traders were in the habit of taking a solemn oath never to reveal any un- lawful proceedings that might occur during their so- journ among the Indians.
The "Indian Hill," as it is now called, standing in sight of the North Carolina Railroad, about a half- mile in front of Dr. Meares' residence, was evidently once the fort of the Indian Town of Sapona. Besides the pottery and arrow heads and chips of flint lying on its sides and base, the older citizens remember that in their boyhood they were accustomed to find lead there, in the shape of shot, bullets, etc. This lead was either dropped by the traders or the Indians, in their early days, or the fort was the scene of some unre- corded conflict between the Saponas and Iroquois after the introduction of firearms. Or it may be that In- dian Hill was the scene of some old-time shooting match between the sturdy marksmen of the "Jerseys," in the forgotten days of a past generation.
The origin of this mound is surrounded with more doubt than its use by the wild Indians. It contains ten or fifteen thousand cubic yards of earth, some of it carried from pits a hundred yards or more distant. This would require, with their rude implements and
46
HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
dilatory habits, a hundred workers for a half-year. Now there is nothing better known than the improvi- dence, lack of foresight, and especially detestation of drudgery, that characterized the "gentleman savage." If done by the Indians, it was the work of the women alone; and this fact suggests the existence of a large and powerful tribe, somewhat more civilized than the wild Indians. And though it is not commonly held that the Toltecs, or Mound-builders, penetrated so far east as the Atlantic slope, still it is possible that in the distant ages when this civilized race dwelt in the val- ley of the Mississippi and the Ohio, there may have been some solitary out-stations, or colonies, between the valley of the Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean. When the "Ishmaelitish" wild Indians succeeded in overpowering their more civilized rivals, these mounds, on which wooden or adobe temples once stood, would lie in ruins like the mounds marking the site of Baby- lon and Nineveh. In process of time, the wild In- dians would utilize them as sites for forts, or refuges from the floods.
In closing, I may be allowed to mention that about a half-mile this side of Trading Ford, the old Trading Path turns off from the present road towards the south, and that it crosses Crane Creek somewhere in the neighborhood of "Spring Hill," running perhaps a mile southeast of Salisbury, and so on to the south- ward, between Salisbury and Dunn's Mountain. Along this path, before civilized men dwelt here, caravans passed to and fro, visiting the Redmen in their towns, and selling them guns, powder, shot, hatchets, or toma-
47
THE ABORIGINES
hawks, kettles, plates, blankets, cutlery, brass rings, and other trinkets. Parallel to this path the great North Carolina Railroad now rushes on, bearing the commerce of the nation. And it was along this same path that emigrants from Pennsylvania and Virginia began to pour into Old Rowan in the first half of the last century. Of these we will speak in our next chapter.
CHAPTER III
THE FIRST EUROPEAN SETTLERS
The earliest settlements in North Carolina were made on the coast, along Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, and near the mouth of the Cape Fear River. In a map of the inhabited parts of North Carolina, made by John Lawson, the surveyor-general, in 1709, we see the out- lines of the settlements. The line commences at the mouth of Currituck Inlet, and sweeps around in a semi- circle, crossing the Roanoke at Aconeche Island, pass- ing by the head of Pamlico Sound, crossing the Neuse near the mouth of Contentnea Creek, and so on east of where Fayetteville now stands, to the Atlantic, thirty miles south of the mouth of the Cape Fear. The pop- ulation was then less than seven thousand (Hawks, Vol. I, p. 89). In twenty years more, about three thousand had been added to the population, and there were five small towns : Bath, Newbern, Edenton, Beau- fort, and Brunswick. Of these, Edenton was called the metropolis.
In the year 1729, the King of Great Britain, accord- ing to act of Parliment, purchased seven-eighths of the territory of the Carolinas from the Lords Proprietors, for twenty-five hundred pounds (£2500) for each eighth part. But John, Earl of Granville, the son and heir of Sir George Carteret, refused to part with his
50
HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
portion, and his lands were laid off to him, extending from latitude thirty-five degrees, thirty-four minutes to the Virginia line, and westward to the South Sea, or Pacific Ocean. It is within the limits of Earl Gran- ville's lands and on the western portion of them that Rowan County was situated.
The Royal Governors of North Carolina were as follows: George Burrington, 1731-34; Nathaniel Rice, 1734-a few months; Gabriel Johnston, 1734- 52; Nathaniel Rice, 1752-53; Matthew Rowan, 1753- 54. During the terms of these Governors the popula- tion rolled upwards and westward, county after county being set off as the land was occupied. Bladen was set off from New Hanover in 1734, Anson from Bladen in 1749, Rowan from Anson in 1753, and Mecklenburg from Anson in 1762. Of course, population was in advance of county organizations, and there was a suffi- cient number of settlers in the territory of Rowan, previous to 1753, to demand a separate county govern- ment. But it becomes a difficult task to ascertain when and from whence came the first white settlers.
In his Sketches of North Carolina, Colonel Wheeler says: "Rowan was early settled (about 1720), by the Protestants from Moravia, fleeing from the perse- cutions of Ferdinand II .; and by the Scotch, who, after the unsuccessful attempts of Charles Edward, grandson of James II., to ascend the English throne, and whose fortunes were destroyed on the fatal field of Culloden (sixteenth of April, 1746), had fled to this country ; and by the Irish, who after the rebel- lion of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, in the
51
THE FIRST EUROPEAN SETTLERS
time of James I., were forced to leave the country. These, or their ancestors, previously had come from Scotland, and hence the term Scotch-Irish" (Wheeler, Art. Rowan County). It would be difficult to crowd more mistakes into one short paragraph than are found in this brief account of the settlement of Rowan. First of all, Ferdinand II., Emperor of Germany, reigned from 1618 to 1648, more than one hundred years before the time required, and the Mora- vians, or United Brethren, did not appear in Moravia until 1722, in England in 1728, in New York and Georgia in 1736, and in North Carolina not until 1753. Again, very few of the Scotch came to Rowan directly, but to the Cape Fear section, and not there in numbers until some time after 1746. It was not the native Irish, after the rebellion of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, but the descendants of the Scotch whom James I. had placed on their escheated lands, who came to Rowan. They remained in Ireland for more than one hun- dred years, enduring many trials and disabilities dur- ing that period, and then in the early part of the eighteenth century immigrated to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and thence to North Carolina.
The earliest settlements in Rowan of which we have any accurate knowledge were made about 1737. Dr. Foote, in his Sketches of North Carolina, states that the Scotch-Irish began their settlements in Shenan- doah Valley in Virginia in 1737, and in North Carolina soon afterwards. Some scattered families followed the Trading Path and settled in chosen spots from the Roanoke to the Catawba. As the Indians were friendly,
52
HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
and the caravans of the traders frequent, it would be but natural that immigrants would be attracted by their glowing descriptions of the fertile prairies that lay be- tween the Yadkin and the Catawba-a land abounding in game, and whose streams were stocked with fish, and its flowery meadows affording pasturage for their cattle. (See Foote, p. 188.)
Fortunately for the settlement of this point, the Clark family, who have resided on the Cape Fear since about 1745, have preserved memoranda showing that, as early as the year 1746, a family or a company of emigrants went west of the Yadkin to join some other families that were living sequestered in that fertile region (Foote, p. 189). Thus it appears that there were settlers, families, residing here previous to 1746. They would scarcely think it necessary to enter lands in a region where all was open to them, and if they did, their deeds would be recorded in the Court of Bladen or New Hanover, of which Rowan then constituted a part. It is worthy of notice that there was once a set- tlement and a church of the Scotch in South Rowan, called Crystal Springs, and in the old minutes of the Presbyterian Church, Crystal Springs and Salisbury are represented as asking for ministerial supplies. This church was about ten miles nearly south of Salisbury, near the residence of Dr. Paul Sifford, and in its old graveyard lie the remains of the McPhersons, the Mahans, the Longs, and others. Since 1812, this church has not been in existence, as it is said that at that time the members were transferred to Old Bethphage, about eight or ten miles west of Crystal Springs.
53
THE FIRST EUROPEAN SETTLERS
But the Scotch-Irish were probably the most numer- ous and the leading people of the settlement. The old records of the Court here show the names of many of these old families, some of them now extinct, such as the Nesbits, Allisons, Brandons, Luckeys, Lockes, McCullochs, Grahams, Cowans, Mckenzies, Barrs, Andrews, Osbornes, Sharpes, Boones, McLauchlins, Halls, with many others whose names are as familiar as household words.
But along with these Scotch-Irish immigrants, and settling side by side with them, there came settlers of another nationality to whom Rowan is no less indebted for her material wealth and prosperity. These were the Germans, or as they were familiarly called the "Penn- sylvania Dutch." They were of course not of Dutch or Holland extraction, but Germans from the Palatinate, and from Hessen Cassel, Hessen Homburg, Darm- stadt, and the general region of the upper and middle Rhine. Prominent among these for its history and the numbers of its emigrants is the Palatinate, or "Pfalz" as it is called in the maps of Germany. This country lies on the western banks of the Rhine, below Stras- burg, and along the eastern boundaries of France. This beautiful land is watered by numerous small streams, the tributaries of the Rhine, and is divided by a range of mountains, the Haardts, running from north to south. Manheim and Speyer (Spires) are the two principle cities, situated on the Rhine, while Neustadt, Anweiler, Zweibrucken, Leiningen, are among its towns. This Province was the theater of many bloody and atrocious deeds during the reign of
54
HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
Louis XIV., of France, a time when such great generals as the Prince of Conde, Marshal Turenne, Prince Eugene, the Duke of Marlborough, and Wil- liam, Prince of Orange, won glory or infamy on the bloody field of battle. It was in the Palatinate that Turenne sullied his glory by an act of the most savage barbarity in laying waste the country with fire and sword, reducing two cities and twenty-five villages to ashes, and leaving the innocent inhabitants to perish of cold and hunger, while the unfortunate Elector looked helplessly on from the walls of his palace at Manheim. And a few years after, Louis again invaded the Pal- atinate, and laid the cities of Mentz, Philipsburg, Spires, and forty others, with numerous villages, in ashes. Thus this little principality, whose inhabitants by their industry and peacable habits had made it the most thriving and happy state in Germany, was literally turned into a desert. Ravaged by fire and sword, and trodden down under the iron heel of despotism, the wretched inhabitants were forced at last to leave their beautiful country and seek a home among strangers. Their first place of refuge was the Netherlands, where a liberal and Protestant government afforded them a safe asylum.
From the Netherlands many of them found their way into England, where Queen Anne gave them a safe refuge from their enemies. But England was itself a populous country, and the English government determined to induce as many of the Palatines as pos- sible to cross the Atlantic and become settlers in the American Colonies. In that broad land they could
55
THE FIRST EUROPEAN SETTLERS
find comfortable homes, and by their industry they might make its deserts blossom as the rose. Some of them came over with De Graffenried and Mitchell and found homes on the lower waters of the Neuse, where a New "Berne" would remind the Swiss portion of the colonists of the old Berne they had left behind them among the Alps. Others found homes in the State of New York, and others still in Charleston, S. C., and along the banks of the Congaree and Saluda Rivers. Many others from this general section of Germany settled in Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, and Lancaster Counties in Pennsylvania. Find- ing this country thickly settled and good land to be secured only at high prices, in a few years they turned their attention southward. Here Earl Granville's lands-lately set off to him-were offered at a cheap rate, and the climate was much more mild than in the homes they had chosen in Pennsylvania. The first arrival of Germans in Western North Carolina, in the bounds of Old Rowan, is believed to have taken place about 1745, though it was five years later that the great body of them came. The stream thus started continued to flow on for years, many of them arriving after the Revolutionary war. They traveled with their household goods and the women and children in wag- ons, the men and boys walking and driving their cattle and hogs before them. They came side by side with their Scotch-Irish neighbors, sometimes settling in the same community with them, and at other times oc- cupying alternate belts or sections of country. Thus: we can trace a German stream through Guilford,
56
HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
Davidson, Rowan, and Cabarrus Counties, and just by its side a stream of Scotch-Irish. But as years passed away these streams, like the currents of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, have mingled into one, resulting in a mixed race of German-Scotch-Irish, perpetuating the virtues and perhaps also the weak- nesses of all the races. Dr. Bernheim, in his interest- ing work on German settlements in North and South Carolina, has given a list of names, found in common use in Pennsylvania and in North Carolina, such as Propst, Bostian, Kline (Cline), Trexler, Schlough, Seitz (Sides), Rheinhardt, Biber (Beaver), Kohlman (Coleman), Derr (Dry), Berger (Barrier), Behrin- ger (Barringer). To this list may be added other names familiar in Rowan County, such as Bernhardt, Heilig, Meisenheimer, Beard, Mull, Rintelman (Ren- dleman), Layrle (Lyerly), Kuhn (Coon), Friese, Eisenhauser, Yost, Overcash, Boger, Suther, Wine- coff, Cress, Walcher, Harkey, Savitz, Henkel, Moser, Braun (Brown), and many others familiar to all our people. The German settlers have generally been re- markable for industry, enonomy, and the habit of living within their means and not getting into debt.
During their sojourn here, a century and a quarter, they have passed through the ordeal of changing their language. As the laws were written and expounded in English, and all public affairs conducted in that language, the Germans were incapable of taking part, in most cases, in public affairs. Hence, letting public affairs alone, and attending to their home interests, they surrounded themselves with well-tilled farms, and
57
THE FIRST EUROPEAN SETTLERS
adorned their premises with capacious barns and threshing floors. Who has not seen the immense double barns, with wide double doors, to admit a four- horse wagon with its towering load of hay or straw or wheat; and the threshing floor, where the horses tramped out the wheat, and the "windmill" blew the chaff into the chaffhouse? And who has forgotten the long stables where the cows were yoked to the troughs, each one knowing her place, while the calves were tied to a trough at the other wall?
But the "Pennsylvania Dutch" has almost ceased to be heard on our streets where once its quaint tones of mingled German, French, and English were so famil- iar. The dialect is gone, but the accent and the idiom still linger on many tongues, and the traditions and folklore of the old world still flow in a deep un- dercurrent in many families.
Not long after the Scotch-Irish and Pennsylvania Germans came into the territory of Old Rowan, came another people that have added much to the wealth of the State. I mean the Moravians, or United Brethren. These people purchased a tract of 98,985 acres, called the "Wachovia Tract," in what is now Forsyth County, but originally Rowan. This was in 1751, but the deed for the tract was signed in 1753, and in the autumn of this year twelve single brethren came from Bethlehem, Pa., and began the settlement of Bethabara. Bethany was founded in 1759, and Salem in 1766; Frieburg and Friedland, in 1769 and 1770. In 1804 the well-known Salem Female Academy was
58
HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
founded, at which many of the fair daughters of the South have been educated.
Along with these settlers from Ireland and Germany came, from time to time, others of English, Welsh, and Scotch descent, who have mingled with the former in working out the destiny of Old Rowan-the mother of counties.
Although Rowan was not settled by Cavaliers or Huguenots, or by the aristocracy of old-world society, she has good reason to be proud of the early pioneers who laid here the foundations of their homes. They were men and women who had suffered for conscience' sake, or fled from despotism to seek liberty and hap- piness unrestrained by the shackles of a wornout civ- ilization.
CHAPTER IV
ORGANIZATION, BOUNDARY, ETC.
The early settlers of Rowan were peaceable, indus- trious, and law-abiding men, who had come to this land to make homes for themselves and their children. When therefore their numbers had increased suffi- ciently to justify the measure, steps were taken for the formation of a county government, and the ap- pointment of county officers and courts of justice. Accordingly, at the sessions of the General Assembly of the Province of North Carolina begun and held at Newbern, March 27, 1753, an Act was passed estab- lishing the County of Rowan. Gov. Gabriel Johnston, after a long and prosperous term of office, had died in August, 1752, and the duties of the office de- volved upon Nathaniel Rice, first Counselor of the King's Commission. But President Rice lived only until January, 1753, and at his death the Hon. Matthew Rowan, the next Counselor in order, qualified as President, in Wilmington, on the first of February, 1753. As he was now President of the Council, and acting governor, the new county formed during his administration was called after his name. The Act of the Assembly establishing the county is, in part, as follows: "That Anson County be divided by a line, to begin where (the) Anson line was to cross Earl
60
HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
Granville's (line), and from thence in a direct line north to the Virginia line, and that the said county be bounded on the north by the Virginia line, and to the south by the southernmost line of Earl Granville's : And that the upper part of said county so divided be erected into a County and Parish by the name of Rowan County and St. Luke's Parish, and that all the inhabitants to the westward of said line, and included within the before-mentioned boundaries shall belong and appertain to Rowan County" (Iredell's Laws of North Carolina, Ed. 1791, p. 154.) To get an idea of these extensive boundaries, we have only to remem- ber that, in 1749, Anson was cut off from Bladen by a line starting where the westernmost branch of Little Pee Dee enters South Carolina, thence up to the head- waters of Drowning Creek, and so on by a line equi- distant from Great Pee Dee and Saxapahaw. All west of this somewhat indeterminate line was Anson County. The design in 1753 was to include in Rowan all that part of Anson which was comprised in Earl Gran- ville's lands, that is, all north of latitude thirty-five degrees, thirty-four minutes as far as to the Virginia line. The "point" where Anson line was to cut Earl Granville's line, as well as can be determined by the writer, must have been somewhere near the south- eastern corner of the present County of Randolph, not far from the point where Deep River passes from Ran- dolph into Moore County. The eastern line of Rowan, if this be correct, would run due north from that point, along the eastern boundaries of the present Randolph, Guilford, and Rockingham Counties. The southern
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.