USA > North Carolina > Rowan County > A history of Rowan County, North Carolina > Part 6
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
Temple Coles, Matthew Troy, Peter Rep, James Kerr, Alexander Martin, and Daniel Little. These Commis- sioners were appointed by the General Assembly, and in case of a vacancy, the place was to be supplied by appointment of the Justices of the Rowan Inferior Court. Holding their offices for a term of years, or during life, these Commissioners would be able to mature and carry out extended schemes of improve- ment, without having before their eyes the constant fear of being left out the next year if they should chance to offend any of the people by the conscientious and faithful discharge of unpopular duties. This was the conservatism of monarchy, and doubtless it had its evils as well as the fickleness and instability of popular democracy. Perhaps the best results would be secured by a policy lying between these two ex- tremes.
CHAPTER IX
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RELIGION AND CHURCHES, WITH A RESUMÉ OF THE PARISH LAWS
The early settlers of Rowan County were religious people. The Presbyterians, of Scotch-Irish extrac- tion, were probably the most numerous in the section now comprising Guilford County, in the Jersey 'Set- tlement, in Western Rowan and Iredell Counties. The Lutherans and German Reformed (the latter some- times called Calvin congregations, and Presbyterians ), prevailed in parts of Guilford, Davidson, East and South Rowan, and Catawba Counties. I name the regions as they are now known, but they were all then in Rowan. In Davidson and Randolph there were Baptist churches. In Salisbury, in the "Jerseys," and elsewhere, there were some members of the Church of England. It is probable that William Temple Coles and his family, John Dunn, perhaps Corbin and Innes and the Frohocks were attached to that communion. We infer this simply from their nativity and their con- nection with Earl Granville and Governor Dobbs, as agents or officers of the crown. In regard to Dunn we have a more certain tradition, as we shall here- after mention. It will be remembered that
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
ST. LUKE'S PARISH
was established cotemporaneously with the county, as a part of the great system of government here wrought out, or attempted ; as nearly conformed to the system of the mother country as practicable. During the administration of Governor Dobbs-in 1754, according to Wheeler-ten years later according to other authori- ties (See Wheeler, p. 357; Caruthers' Caldwell, p. 175), steps were taken to provide for the ministry of the word according to the rubric of the Church of England. A petition, signed by thirty-four persons in the County of Rowan, and addressed to Governor Dobbs, represents : "That His Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects in this country, who adhere to the liturgy and profess the doctrines of the Church of England, as by law established, have not the privileges and advantages which the rubric and canons of the Church allow and enjoin on all its members. That the Acts of the Assembly calculated for forming a regular vestry in all the counties have never, in this county, produced their happy fruits. That the County of Rowan, above all counties in the Province, lies un- der great disadvantages, as her inhabitants are com- posed almost of all nations of Europe, and instead of a uniformity in doctrine and worship, they have a medley of most of the religious tenets that have lately appeared in the world; who from dread of submitting to the national Church, should a lawful vestry be estab- lished, elect such of their own community as evade the Acts of the Assembly and refuse the oath, whence
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we can never expect the regular enlivening beams of the holy Gospel to shine upon us."
From the fact that there were only thirty-four signers to this petition from the vast territory of Rowan, we may naturally infer that the population in those days was hopelessly plunged into "Dissent." And yet it was the purpose of the far-away rulers of Eng- land, and of the North Carolina Assembly, to have the Province to conform as far as possible to the ecclesiastical system at home. And so the parish sys- tem of England, as far as practicable, was incorpor- ated in the system of North Carolina law. What that system was, can be gathered from a voluminous Act, of thirty-three sections, passed by the General Assem- bly at Wilmington in 1764. Other Acts and regula- tions of the same general tenor had been adopted on various occasions before, but the Act of 1764-with a supplementary one in 1765-is the most full, and gives an impartial view of the system as perfected, just before the final downfall of the whole scheme at the Declaration of Independence in 1776. I will en- deavor to give an impartial resumé of the parish system.
According to this "Act" the Freeholders of each county, on Easter Monday of every third year, were required to elect twelve vestrymen to hold said office for the term of three years. A "Freeholder" accord- ing to existing laws was a person who owned at least fifty acres of land, or a lot in some town. These Freeholders were required to vote for vestrymen under a penalty of twenty shillings - equal to
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
two dollars and fifty cents in specie-and the vestry- men so elected were required to subscribe an oath that "they will not oppose the doctrine, discipline, and liturgy of the Church of England, as by law estab- lished ;" and in case of refusal to qualify, any vestry- man-elect was to be declared incapable of acting in that capacity. Out of the twelve vestrymen two church wardens were to be chosen, who were required to hold office at least one year, under a penalty of forty shillings, equal to five dollars in specie or sterling money, and they were to forfeit five pounds (£5) if they did not set up their accounts for public inspection in the courthouse. These vestries might appoint one or more clerks, or readers, to perform divine service at such places as they might designate.
The vestry were also empowered to lay a tax of ten shillings, proclamation money, on each "taxable" in the county, for the purpose of building churches or chapels, paying ministers' salaries, purchasing a glebe, erecting "mansions or parsonages," etc.
"Taxables," as we gather from another Act, were all white male persons over sixteen years of age, all negroes, mulattoes, and mustees, both male and female, over twelve years of age, and all white persons male and female over twelve years of age who intermar- ried with negroes or persons of mixed blood. Such a tax, faithfully collected, would have yielded an im- mense revenue for the support of religion. Being a poll tax, and not a property tax, it fell heavily upon the poor, and lightly on the rich. The tax thus levied was to be collected by the sheriff, as the other taxes,
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RELIGION AND CHURCHES
and paid over to the vestry ; and in case of refusal, the sheriff was required to "distrain" the goods of the delinquent and sell them at public auction, after pub- lishing the sale by posting it on the courthouse door, the church door, and by public announcement to the people immediately after divine service. (See Davis' Revisal of North Carolina Laws, Edition 1773, PP. 304, 309. )
By an "Act" passed in 1765, during the administra- tion of William Tryon as Lieutenant-Governor, and called an "Act for establishing an orthodox clergy," it was provided that every minister of a parish was to receive a stated salary of £133, 6s, 8d., and for each marriage solemnized in the parish, whether he per- formed the ceremony or not, provided he did not re- fuse, twenty shillings ; for preaching each funeral, forty shillings. In addition to this he was to have the free use of a "mansion house" and "glebe," or "tract of good land" of at least two hundred acres, or twenty pounds (£20) additional until such time as the "man- sion house" and "glebe" were provided. The "mansion house was required to be thirty-eight feet in length, and eighteen feet in width, and to be accompanied with a kitchen, barn, stable, dairy, and meathouse, with such other conveniences as they may think necessary." (See Davis' Revisal, 1773, pp. 338-39.) From this it will appear that the Assembly of North Carolina made a fair and liberal provision for the support of her parish ministers, and with the exception of the glebe, which he need not cultivate himself, rendered him "free from worldly cares and avocations." But
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
the difficulty lay in putting these regulations into effect. In Governor Dobbs' letter to the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," he informs the Society, in 1764, that in North Carolina "there were then but six clergymen, though there were twenty-nine parishes, and each parish contained a whole county." (Rev. R. J. Miller's letter to Dr. Hawks, 1830.) The fact was that a large part of the population were "Dissenters," and they resisted every effort to settle a parish minister over them, and thus refused to subject themselves to additional taxation. In Unity Parish, in Guilford County, the people elected non-Episcopalians for vestrymen, and it be- came necessary for the Assembly to dissolve the ves- try and declare their actions null and void. (See Caruthers' "Caldwell".)
But let Parson Miller, in the letter above referred to, tell how matters were conducted in Rowan County, and in Salisbury especially. He says : "Subsequently to the year 1768, the Rev. Mr. (Theodore Drane) Draig came to Salisbury, in Rowan County, which was then St. Luke's Parish, and so far succeeded as to be able to have a small chapel erected in what is called the Jersey Settlement, about nine or ten miles east of Salisbury. But the opposition made to his settlement as rector of that parish, by the Presbyterians, was so very rancorous as to raise great animosity in their minds against all his endeavors to that end-they be- ing far the most numerous body, having several large congregations well organized in the adjacent counties, and one of them in the vicinity of Salisbury. I well
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remember an anecdote told me by Dr. Newnan [and] John Cowan, Sr., in their lifetime, and indeed by several others in the vicinity of Salisbury, some of whom may yet be living: 'That on Easter Monday, when an election according to the then law of the Province was to be held for the purpose of electing vestrymen, the Presbyterians set up candidates of their own persuasion and elected them, not with any design either to serve or act as vestrymen, but merely to prevent the Episcopalians from electing such as would have done so.' This caused much bitter animosity to spring up between the parties, and so, much discouraged the reverend gentleman. Perhaps the approach of the Revolutionary War had its influ- ence also; but be that as it may, after a four years' fruitless effort to organize an Episcopal congregation in this section, he left it as he found it, without any" (Rev. Mr. Miller's letter in "Church Messenger," Octo- ber 15, 1879). A fuller sketch of each of the churches of Salisbury will be furnished in the future chapters, but so much was deemed necessary here, to give a glimpse of the early days before the Revolution. To the stirring times immediately preceding the great struggle for American liberty we must now direct our attention, for Rowan County was rather before than behind her neighbors in that struggle, as the record will show.
CHAPTER X
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THE INDIAN WARS; SCHOOLS; SOCIAL LIFE
Though the Indians had retreated from the lands occupied by the whites, yet they still continued upon the frontiers, and both in peace and war were often seen in the "settlements." On the records of the Rowan County Court, about 1756, there is an account of a visit from a party of Indians, one a Sapona In- dian, another a Susquehanna Indian, who were pass- ing through Salisbury on their way to the Catawbas. Their object was to conclude a treaty of peace with the latter, and they asked that a "pass" be granted to them, and as a token of their good will they left a "belt," or "string" of "wampum," in the hands of the Clerk of the Court. But their visits were not all of such a peaceful character. The terrible war-whoop sometimes rang out in the dead hours of the night, and families of settlers were mercilessly slaughtered, or carried off to a hopeless captivity beyond the moun- tains, west of the Blue Ridge.
Where the shadows of the giant mountain-peaks lingered longest in the morning, lived the powerful and warlike Cherokees. Bancroft, in language that beautifully describes the scenery of that region, thus
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
pictures the land of the Cherokees. "Their homes were encircled by blue hills rising beyond hills, of which the lofty peaks would kindle with the early light, and the overshadowing ridges envelop the val- leys like a mass of clouds. There the rocky cliffs, rising in naked grandeur, defy the lightning, and mock the loudest peals of the thunderstorm; there the gen- tler slopes are covered with magnolias and flowering forest trees, decorated with roving climbers, and ring with the perpetual note of the whippoorwill; there the wholesome water gushes profusely from the earth in transparent springs ; snow-white cascades glitter on the hillsides; and the rivers, shallow, but pleasant to the eye, rush through the narrow vales, which the abundant strawberry crimsons, and coppices of rhododendron and flaming azalea adorn. At the fall of the leaf, the fruit of the hickory and the chestnut is thickly strewn on the ground. The fertile soil teems with luxuriant herbage on which the roe-buck fattens ; the vivifying breeze is laden with fragrance ; and daybreak is welcomed by the shrill cries of the social nighthawk and the liquid carols of the mocking- bird. Through this lovely region were scattered the little villages of the Cherokees, nearly fifty in number, each consisting of but a few cabins, erected where the bend in the mountain stream affords at once a defense and a strip of alluvial soil for culture" (History United States, Volume 3, pp. 246-47).
In 1759 the whole frontier of the Southern Prov- inces was threatened by the savages, and the Indian
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THE INDIAN WARS
scalping knife had already begun its bloody work upon the unsuspecting borderers. After the reduction of the French forts of Frontenac and Duquesne by the American forces, the Cherokees, who were allies of the Americans, on their return home, appropriated some horses to their own use from the pastures of the Virginia settlers. Upon this the Virginians rose against them and slew twelve or fourteen of their warriors. This ill-advised severity aroused the whole nation, and the young warriors flew to arms, and began an indiscriminate slaughter of the white settlers. Governor Littleton of South Carolina promptly called out the troops of the State, and in this campaign young Francis Marion first fleshed his maiden sword. Col. Hugh Waddell, of Belmont, Bladen County, N. C., was sent to the West to aid in holding the Indians in check. His headquarters were in Salis- bury, while his troops ranged through the foothills of the Blue Ridge. Under his direction Fort Dobbs, on the headwaters of the South Yadkin, near States- ville, was erected, and Fort Tellico appears to have been another outpost in the same region of country. Colonel Waddell, though not a citizen of Rowan County, spent a considerable portion of his time in the neighborhood of Salisbury, and was the owner of a large amount of lands in the county, including a town lot, over six hundred acres on the south side of Fourth Creek, and about seven hundred acres adjoining the south line of the Salisbury Township lands, on both sides of Crane Creek. His Fourth Creek lands he sold in 1767 to Walter Lindsay, Esq., and his lands
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
near Salisbury were sold in 1793 to Conrad Brem and Louis Beard.
At the defeat of General Braddock, in 1755, Major Hugh Waddell appears as the commander of two Companies of North Carolina troops, and in the ex- pedition against Fort Duquesne, in 1758, Major Wad- dell with some North Carolina troops served under General Washington. It was a North Carolina sol- dier, named John Rodgers, a sergeant-major in Wad- dell's troops, that captured the Indian whose informa- tion led to the attack on and subsequent abandonment of that celebrated fort at the junction of the Monon- gahela and Allegheny Rivers, where Pittsburg now stands. Rodgers obtained a reward from the Assem- bly of North Carolina for his meritorious services.
In 1759, Col. Hugh Waddell, with all the provin- cials and all the militia of Orange, Anson, and Rowan Counties, joined with the troops of South Carolina in an expedition against the Cherokees. Fort Prince George, on the banks of the Isundaga River, within gunshot of the Indian town of Keowee, was the place of rendezvous for the North Carolina forces. The Chief of the Cherokees, Atta Calla Culla, alarmed at the approach of so numerous an army, sued for peace, and a treaty was concluded. Colonel Waddell re- turned home, where with five hundred militia kept in constant service he protected the frontier from the incursions of the Cherokees, whose hostility still man- ifested itself on every suitable occasion, notwithstand- ing the treaty of peace.
III
THE INDIAN WARS
SOCIETY AND SCHOOLS
Such was the condition of the inhabitants of West- ern North Carolina from its first settlement, about 1745, up to the period of the Revolution. Moore, in his History of North Carolina, describing this period of time, with great truth and force says: "Life in the eastern counties was full of pleasure and profit. The Indians, save those of King Blunt on the Roanoke, were all gone toward the setting sun. The rude cabins of the first settlers had been replaced by brick or framed houses. Hospitality was unbounded, and the weddings and other social gatherings were largely attended. West India rum and the negro fiddlers added charms to the midnight revel. The strict mor- als of the Puritans and Quakers did not prevail in the Albemarle region. The curled and powdered gentle- men, and the ladies with their big hoops, were never so well pleased as when walking a minuet or betting at a rubber of whist. Horse races and the pursuit of the fox were also in high favor as pastimes. Very different were the men of Rowan, Orange, and Cum- berland. Swarms of Cherokee warriors were just be- yond the Blue Ridge Mountains, and death by the tomahawk was possible at any moment. Long per- secution had stimulated the zeal and enthusiasm of the Scotch-Irish, until religious devotion became the ab- sorbing habit of whole communities. The log churches were to them almost what Solomon's temple had been to the Jews. The ministers in charge and the ruling elders were followed implicitly, both in matters of
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
church and State" (School History, p. 37). Those were the days, from 1758 until 1766, when the Rev. Alexander Craighead resided in Mecklenburg County, but extended his labors to the settlements of Rowan, and laid the foundation of Thyatira, Fourth Creek, and Center Churches. The inhabitants, being of that respectable middle class of society, equally removed from the cultivated vices of the rich and from the ignorant meannesses of the abject poor, generally pos- sessed the rudiments of an English education, and could "read and write, and cipher as far as the Single Rule of Three" with considerable accuracy. The German settlers brought their Luther's translation of the Bible along with them, and their "Gemainschaft- liches Gesangbuch," or Union Hymn Book, adapted to the wants of both Lutherans and German Reformed. In those days the "old-field schools" were established, and taught by some citizen whose knowledge of letters was something above the average. They obtained the name of "old-field" schools because they were fre- quently built on or near an old field or other open piece of ground. The open ground furnished a fine place for the games of the boys, such as "town-ball," "bull-pen," "cat, " or "prisoner's base," while on its edge the rosy-cheeked lasses enjoyed themselves with the less laborious games of "blind-man's-buff," "drop- the-handkerchief," "fox-and-geese," "barley-bright," and "chichama-chichama-craney-crow." The passing traveler could easily identify the log schoolhouse, by the bell-like tones of mingled voices of the boys and girls as they studied their spelling and reading lessons
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THE INDIAN WARS
aloud - sometimes rendering the schoolroom a very babel of confused sounds. As the weather grew warmer-if the school did not close up for the summer -the children would devote themselves to the gentler games of marbles, mumble-peg, or housekeeping in leafy arbors, with moss carpets, beneath the spreading branches of the trees.
ACADEMIES
But the people were not content with the common "old-field school." About 1760 a classical school was established at Bellemont, near Col. Alex. Osborne's residence, called the. "Crowfield Academy." The location is about two miles north of Davidson College, on the headwaters of Rocky River, and in the bounds of Center congregation. Here a number of distin- guished men, who acted well their part in their day, received their education, or were prepared for college. Among these were Col. Adlai Osborne, who was for a long time Clerk of Rowan Superior Court, and a lead- ing man in the Rowan Committee of Safety at the opening of the Revolution. Dr. Samuel Eusebius McCorkle, the pastor of Thyatira and preacher in Salisbury, and who for a long time conducted the "Zion-Parnassus Academy," near Thyatira, also began his classical studies at "Crowfield." Dr. James Hall, the soldier-preacher of the Revolution, the founder and conductor of "Clio's Nursery School," on the headwaters of South Yadkin, began his literary course at this same institution. The same is true in regard to Dr. Ephraim Brevard, who is said to be the author of
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775. The Rev. David Caldwell, about 1766, is said to have taught in the Crowfield Academy for a short season. But he soon removed to northeastern Rowan-now Guilford-where after a short time he established a school on the headwaters of North Buffalo, about three miles from where Greensboro now stands. This school was in operation ten years before the Declara- tion of Independence, and also a number of years after, and it is computed that there were about fifty ministers, besides a large number who entered the other liberal professions, who were educated at this "Log College" of North Carolina. The old-field schools and a few classical academies comprised the educa- tional facilities of Western North Carolina at this time. But those whose means would allow it were sent to complete their education at Princeton, or "Nassau Hall," as it was then called. There, under the instructions of President Witherspoon-the cleri- cal signer of the National Declaration of Independence -they imbibed not only a knowledge of the liberal arts and sciences, but also the principles of liberty and independence, which brought forth such rich fruit a few years afterwards.
CHAPTER XI
"THE REGULATION"
The echoes of the Indian war-whoop had not died away before the mutterings of another storm was heard over the hills and valleys of Orange and Rowan Counties. This is what is known in the history of North Carolina as the war of the "THE REGULATION." It can scarcely be called a war, and yet it rises above the dignity of a riot. It was rather the first blind, un- organized rising of the spirit of liberty against a long train of oppressive acts, for which there was no remedy and of which there appeared to be no end. As the men of Rowan were to some extent connected with this struggle, some on each side, it will not be amiss to give a brief sketch of its rise and sad termination- though a detailed account would exceed the limits pro- posed in these papers.
As the first factor in this problem we have a liberty- loving population, who came to the wilds of North Carolina for the express purpose of escaping from political and ecclesiastical oppression. Such were the early refugees from Virginia, who settled on the Albe- marle Sound; such the hardy Scotch who came from the Highlands to the banks of the Cape Fear; such the Swiss and Palatines on the Neuse and Trent; and in a peculiar sense were the Scotch-Irish and Germans of
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HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY
ancient Rowan, Orange, and Mecklenburg. These, or their fathers, had once felt the weight of the oppres- sor's iron hand, crushing out their liberties-almost their manhood; and having once suffered they were jealous of the approaches of tyranny in their new homes.
As the next factor we have the most wretched sys- tem of misgovernment of modern times. This mis- government began with the cumbrous and Utopian Constitution prepared by Locke and Shaftesbury, hav- ing in it the germs of a provincial nobility - land- graves and caciques-totally uncongenial to the wild and free spirit of the people. And such governors as Seth Sothel, George Burrington, and Richard Everard were a reproach to humanity and a stench in the nos- trils of decency. The testy and prosy Irishman, Gov- ernor Dobbs, the warlike and ambitious Tryon, and the incapable Josiah Martin, who enacted the last scenes in the drama of the royal government, were peculiarly calculated to irritate and annoy the people, to aggravate and sting to rebellion a population far less independent and intelligent than the inhabitants of North Carolina. Nor could the prudence of such gov- ernors as Drummond, Archdale, and Johnstone coun- teract the deep-seated opposition of the people to the oppressive and tyrannical legislation dictated by the royal cabinet of England, and enacted by an obse- quious Colonial Legislature.
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