USA > North Carolina > Chowan County > Economic and social history of Chowan County, North Carolina, 1880-1915 > Part 9
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VARIETY AND DISPOSITION OF TIMBER PRODUCTS
The principal commercial timber was gum, cypress, poplar, oak, and pine. From the mill-ponds 2 and swamps
a pound. In 1890 it was selling above eleven cents, while the next year it was bringing about eight and six-tenths cents. This downward trend continued for some eight years, and during part of the time many farmers sold cotton below five cents. Cf. House Documents, vol. xxxix, p. 76, no. 15, parts 1-3, "Commerce and Finance." July-September, 1902, 57th Congress, 2d Session, 1902-3. Cf. also, U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin 149 (whole number), "Wholesale Price Series," no. 2, p. 83.
1 Cf. supra, pp. 99, 100.
The topography of the county being comparatively level (cf. supra, p. 17,) wherever a water-mill was erected the damming of the stream
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came the first two. The gum was sent to the butter-dish, crate, barrel and basket factories. The larger cypress tim- ber found its way to the shingle mills, while from the smaller trees, railroad ties were cut and hewn. Around the edges of swamps and in moist places in general, grew the poplar timber. This went to the veneering mills, furniture factories ,and butter-dish factories. Only a very little oak was shipped except some that was made into cross-ties. Most of what merchantable oak there had been in the county had been made into staves in earlier times. The prin- cipal timber was yellow pine, which grew all over the county except in the swamps and mill-ponds. Both the quantity and value of all other varieties of mill timber was small in comparison to pine. It was cut into lumber for general building purposes.
TIMBER SITUATION IN 1915
Since the coming of the railroads into the county, prac- tically all the forest has been cut over, much of it from two to four times, and so today there is very little first-growth timber standing. In fact there is comparatively little mill timber of any sort. After most of this had been cut, cross- tie " getters " went through and made ties out of the hearts 1
to get sufficient power caused water to pond up over a considerable area. Within the area over which the water stood constantly at a depth of two feet or more, all the trees except cypress died. Along the margin of the ponds where there was sometimes water and sometimes none, the flora was of the swamp varieties.
1 As is well known, pine sap when exposed to the weather soon rots, but good heart will last for years; in fact the best pine heart hardly rots at all, but rather, just gradually weathers away. Much of the first-growth pine had splendid heart, both as to size and quality. The lumbermen who came through first not only cut the best trees, but they carried away only the best portion of those they did cut, often leaving a large part of the top end in the woods. Nearly all that was not practically clear of knots was left. In a few years the sap rotted away leaving the best hearts as good as ever.
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of the pine tops left by the lumbermen. Everything has been cut so close on many tracts of land that there is now not enough timber left to furnish lumber for necessary building. Not a few landowners are even without sufficient timber for fence posts unless they use sap posts, which get very " tender " (weak) in one year's time, and rot off in the course of two. The policy followed by many serves to in- tensify the scarcity. No longer possessing any mill timber for market, they are now selling off all the pine trees (the only fast-growing timber trees in this section) that will make a stick of piling twenty-six feet long, measuring six inches in diameter at the top. They appear to have little regard for posterity. In fact their attitude seems to be that of Louis XIV when he said, "After us, the deluge," presuming they think that far ahead, which, however, is not very probable.
CHAPTER XI COMMUNICATION, TRANSPORTATION, AND COMMERCE IN 1880
PREREQUISITIES OF COMMERCE
AMONG the prerequisites of commerce are diversity of natural resources, division of labor, accumulation of stock, and ways and means of communication and transport. Aside from the advantages for fishing and transportation offered by the Chowan River and the Albemarle Sound, the natural resources, while differing in quality in different sec- tions, were quite the same in variety throughout the county. As has been previously noted, there was comparatively little division of labor, if the family be reckoned as the unit of production. Under these conditions, the most of whatever trade there was, was necessarily with people beyond the county's borders.
Possessing an accumulated stock, or surplus of goods, which one is willing to exchange, and possessing the in- formation as to who has other goods he is willing to ex- change in return, the next question the prospective trader must consider is that of transportation; for the comparative ease or difficulty of transportation largely determines, or at least to a considerable degree limits, the class of goods which will be traded in. If the route is long or difficult, only those products of small bulk and weight in proportion to value can bear the expense of carriage; and if the time enroute is considerable, only such goods as do not rapidly deteriorate will go to market. Furthermore, in order to obtain the largest returns it is not enough merely to know that certain
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goods can usually be exchanged at a certain place for some value or other; one needs to know, in addition, the time when the exchange can take place to the best advantage. For this, quick and trustworthy means of communication are necessary.
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION
Post-office .- What were the means of communication in 1880? Including Edenton, there were six post-offices in the county. Edenton was served both by steamers and by stage- coach, one or two of the other post-offices were served by steamers, and the remaining ones were on star routes. Many people were from five to ten miles from any office, and frequently received their mail not oftener than two or three times a month. There were others who received no mail at all; many a one died at a ripe old age without hav- ing received a piece of mail during his entire life.
Telegraph .- The county was first reached by telegraph in 1879 (the year just previous to the beginning of the period covered by this treatise). The only station on the line was at Edenton. This was comparatively little used at first, and affected the people in the upper end of the county hardly at all.
Travelers and Traders .- The only remaining means of communication was through travelers and traders. The in- formation that many of the people in the country districts secured relative to prices of produce was principally that furnished by the class of traders known as " carters." 1 Since it was to their advantage that the people from whom they bought should think produce cheap, the information they gave out in regard to market 2 prices was not always
1 Cf. infra, pp. 135-7.
2 The market referred to in this treatise is always the Norfolk mar- ket, unless otherwise stated. This was the nearest and most accessible market that was at all sensitive to world, or even national, conditions.
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reliable. The merchants who bought country produce had the same reason for keeping the people in the dark concern- ing prices as did the carters. Thus it was that the producers knew very little about the market value of their products. It was probably because of these conditions that for many things there had come to be established certain customary prices which changed but little from season to season, or from year to year, regardless of market fluctuations.
TRANSPORTATION
Railroads .- As measured by present-day standards, trans- portation facilities were very inadequate. In 1880 the near- est railroad shipping point was Suffolk, Va., thirty odd miles from the upper end of the county, and some forty miles further from the extreme southeastern end.1
Waterways .- The greater part of the North Carolina coast is fringed with a chain of long, narrow, sandy islands called " the banks." These vary in width from a few yards to two miles, and are separated from the mainland by large bodies of water known as " sounds." Connecting the sounds with the ocean are several inlets, some of which at various times have been navigable for small boats. Until the digging of the canals it was through these inlets that the sea-going commerce of the whole Albemarle region had to pass.
Chowan has enjoyed more or less water transportation ever since the beginning of the first white settlements, but as far back as recorded history goes the inlets have been shal- low, have been constantly filling up, and their channels con- stantly shifting: hence their navigation has always been rather precarious even for small craft. Some of them
1 Those in the lower end of the county were about as near to Nor- folk as they were to Suffolk.
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have filled up entirely, and where once the sound connected with the sea, houses now stand. At no time since Chowan was settled has there been more than a few feet of water in any of them. Thus all except light-draft vessels, those drawing not over six or eight feet of water, have been pre- cluded from coming in at all.1 No sea-going vessel has, traded with Edenton since the Civil War.2
Once inside the Albemarle Sound the conditions for navi- gating it and the rivers emptying into it have always been fairly good for small craft. The products of the surround- ing territory, however, were, and continue to be, quite similar; hence there has been little occasion for exchange with the producers of neighboring counties. Because of these facts-lack of good inlets to the sea and the similarity of products of the adjacent country-the possession of a rather elaborate system of inland waterways has been of comparatively little value to the county. What the people of Chowan wanted were means of transport to outside mar- kets where they could trade the wares of which they had a surplus for those they lacked. The Dismal Swamp Canal and the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal offered outlets to world marts, but the former was only six feet deep and the latter seven-and-a-half, hence none but light-draft boats could be accommodated.3
Wagon Roads .- In the summer time the roads of the clay sections, which compose about half the county, were usu-
1 C. W. Weaver, Internal Improvement in North Carolina Previous to 1860, Johns Hopkins University Studies, vol. xxi, pp. 144-5.
" Internal Improvements in North Carolina," North American Re- view, vol. 12, pp. 22-28.
Hints on the Internal Improvement of North Carolina (New York, 1854), pp. 6-8.
2 Information furnished by Richard Dillard, who has been port doc- tor since 1881.
$ Bureau of the Census Report (1880), vol. iv, p. 753.
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ally fair for dirt roads to which little attention was given, but in winter they frequently became so bad that an empty cart was itself almost a load. The roads of the sandy sec- tions were heavy most of the time, both winter and summer. The roads in all parts of the county could have been made pretty good as dirt roads go, and with comparatively little expense, but they were worked, or rather neglected, by that time-honored, unjust, inefficient plan of requiring all able- bodied males between the ages of eighteen and forty-five liv- ing on a given road, or section of it, to put in on it an equal number of days each year. Each had an overseer who decided how many days, within a maximum limit,1 it should be worked. Some overseers would spend a half day annually on their allotments, while others would work five or six days on theirs. The work, however, was never arduous. The men went late, quit early, and worked light while there, some of them doing practically nothing except talk. In fact the whole affair was largely a social gathering.
Instead of the roads being graded up in the middle so that the water would " sheet off," they not infrequently were lower in the middle than anywhere else. What little work was done, was done in the fall of the year, hence the dirt thrown in the roads would not have time to harden before the winter-freezes, with the result that for that season they were often worse than if they had not been touched. The sandy roads were never clayed, nor the clay roads ever sanded. This could have been done at small cost, since the different types of soil are usually so close to each other that the haul is short.
In winter and spring considerable portions of the roads
1 This limit was rarely ever reached, though sometimes an overseer who had been angered by the men would warn them out the full num- ber of days simply to "get back at them."
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between Chowan and Norfolk were even worse than those in Chowan. Not only were they tough and full of great holes, but on the road usually traveled by those going from the upper part of the county to Norfolk there were no less than four swamps which had to be forded. During wet spells and after big rains the water often rose so high in them that it came up into one's cart. At times these swamps were so deep that crossing was dangerous, and when frozen over, it was still more hazardous. At high-water one of them was some four hundred yards long.
At this time the majority of the ducks and chickens sold were carted to Norfolk alive. In loading they were put in a coop and suspended from beneath the cart. Except dur- ing dry times there was nearly always enough water in some of the swamps to give them a good wetting, and, when the swamps were full of water, they would be immersed for such a long time that it was a common occurrence for sev- eral of them to drown. In winter it was especially hard on chickens, for those that did not drown would nearly freeze after getting wet all over.
Service .- In 1880 there were two transport lines between Edenton and Norfolk, each maintaining a regular tri-weekly service. One was a stage via Elizabeth City, carrying mail and passengers only. The other was a combined rail and steamer route, handling mail, passengers, and freight. This latter route was via Franklin, Va. A line of steam- ers plying on the Chowan and Black Water Rivers between Edenton and Franklin connected at Franklin with the Sea- board and Roanoke railroad, running between Weldon, N. C., on the Roanoke river, and Portsmouth, Va.1 In addition, there were irregular steamers and sailing vessels
1 Portsmouth and Norfolk were then as now, practically one city, there being ferry service back and forth between the two places every few minutes.
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from Edenton and other points along the county's coast- line to Norfolk and Baltimore via the afore-mentioned canals. Vessels even went up some of the small creeks. Another means of transportation-that of private convey- ance-played an important rôle, particularly in the upper end of the county. Much of the produce marketed from this section, and a considerable number of fresh herring from the Chowan River and Albemarle Sound, went to market by horse and cart.
Some little produce was carried to Suffolk, Va., tho the usual market was Norfolk, which by the country road ranged from 60 to 80 miles from different parts of the county.1 The hauling thru the country was practically all done with one-horse teams carrying from four hundred to a thousand pounds to the load, the size of the load de- pending upon the condition of the roads and the size of the team. The round trip required from three days to a week.2
Transportation to and from Chowan, whether by water, water and rail, or horse and cart, was slow at best, and rather expensive, except for timber products, salt, salt fish, cotton, and such other goods as could stand a long, uncertain trip by sail without serious damage.
COMMERCE
Articles Traded In .- The principal articles traded in were as follows : outgoing-timber products, fish, melons,
1 Those in the lower end went by a different route from that taken by those in the upper end. Hence the difference in the distances from Norfolk to the upper end and from Norfolk to the lower end, was not the distance from one end of the county to the other.
2 By driving both night and day, those in the upper end of the county could make the trip, stand market, and return, all in three days and two nights. If one had a horse that was used to going to Norfolk and would keep the track, he could lie back and sleep, but it was killing to the horse to have to travel both day and night.
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cotton, pork, bacon, peas, eggs, poultry, grapes, huckle- berries and cattle; incoming-dry-goods, shoes, hats, no- tions, hardware, confectionery, tobacco, and snuff. The cattle were driven to market, while the grapes and huckle- berries, most of the eggs, poultry, pork and bacon, and some of the fish, were hauled by the carters. The greater por- tion of the remainder of the outgoing products and the major portion of the incoming were shipped. In the upper end of the county, however, quite a few goods were brought in by the carters.
Country Merchants .- There were two classes of middle- men-the " merchant " and the " carter." Each individual merchant kept a small stock of the goods most in demand by his neighbors. His stock consisted of certain varieties of hardware, drugs, notions, dry-goods, shoes, hats, groceries, tobacco, snuff, and confectionery. This carry- ing of a general line of merchandise was characteristic to a greater or less degree of all country merchants, tho in Edenton there were some merchants with special lines. In reality each country merchant kept a minature department store, tho the assortment was necessarily meagre, since the biggest of the merchants carried but a few hundred dol- lars worth of goods. For days, and even weeks, at a time, many of them would be out of the articles most frequently sold.
A goodly portion of the merchant's business was barter, or the trading of " store " goods for farm products. He bought tallow, beeswax, poultry, eggs, bacon, cotton, corn, peas, wood ashes, rags, and such home-manufactures as socks, tubs, chairs, bread-trays, horse collars, hames, axe helves, and cart-saddles. He took in comparatively little actual cash at any time, and hardly any at all except in the fall of the year. From sixty to seventy-five per cent of the
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mercantile business was done on a time basis, payment be- ing made in the fall. Many a one who paid up in Novem- ber or December would again be trading on time by Febru- ary. Numerous accounts and parts of accounts were car- ried over from one year to another. In poor crop years this was especially prevalent. Under such conditions the mer- chants were forced to buy on time, which meant high prices both to themselves and to their customers, even to those who paid cash.
Transactions were small. Merchants made many a deal, trading manufactured goods for farm produce, in which the total values involved on both sides did not exceed three or four cents. People frequently would walk a mile or two to a store for the express purpose of buying less than five cents worth of goods. They would bring as little as a pound or two of seed cotton, one or two quarts of corn, a gallon or two of ashes, a pound or two of old rags, or one or two eggs. If the value of the produce a person brought in amounted to as much as six or eight cents, it was nothing out of the ordinary for him to make four or five purchases, probably one or two cents worth of tobacco, and a like amount of snuff, of candy, and of sugar. Much of the small stuff, like that mentioned above, which was sold during the spring and summer months went for snuff and tobacco. Many people seldom went to the store without buying these articles. Their use was common among a large body of the people, both young and old. Some few formed the tobacco habit so early in life that they could not even remember the time.
Carters .- The class of middlemen known as carters has already been referred to. They were both freighters and
1 The proportion here given is based on interviews with various mer- chants in the county.
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traders, who dealt in country produce destined for outside markets. Some of this they obtained from the merchants who had collected it in exchange for " store " goods, but they probably secured the larger portion direct from the producers. They drove around thru the country and bought up whatever marketable stuff they could find for sale. When one had gathered a load, he packed his cart, drove to Norfolk, and there in the open market-place sold to the consumer direct.1
Many of the farmer folk preferred selling to the carters rather than to the merchants, because they could usually get about as much in cash from the carter as they could in " trade " from the merchant, and with cash they could buy cheaper. Most merchants would not pay cash for produce, because their profits were expected largely from the goods they sold to the farmers rather than from those they bought of them. Of course, they frequently made on both ends of the deal, but they figured principally on the merchandise they bought to be sold. The merchant sold on a compara- tively staple market; that is, when he bought his goods he knew about what he was going to sell them for. Not so with the carter; his selling market was ever fluctuating, hence he never knew what he was going to get for the pro- duce he was buying. This was one of the factors which tended to make him buy everything as low as he could, if the article was one with no standardized price. For in- stance, in buying an old lady's spring chickens there was no price standard, except in so far as the old lady judged they
1 Some preferred to "lump" (wholesale) all or part of their loads to the huxters (who stayed on the market all the time) to retailing it themselves. This saved them some trouble, but usually brought them in less money. However, where one had a whole load of one product, for instance eggs, he could not retail them all out in one day, so always wholesaled some of them, as it was very rare for a carter to stand market two mornings with one load unless practically forced to.
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were about the size she had sold the year before for a certain price. In such deals there was a lot of higgling.
Aside from the business out of which he made his profits, at times the carter also did a considerable " accommodation " business-business from which he neither expected nor re- ceived any cash returns. His neighbors and others from whom he bought produce felt that they had a perfect right to send by him to town for anything the country stores did not keep, or which could be bought in town to much better advantage. It not infrequently happened that he took up more time buying goods for his neighbors than he did in selling out his load. He brought out such things as ladies' millinery and the better-class dressgoods, and even wares troublesome to haul, like bedsteads, plows, and trunks. Where the article had considerable weight or bulk, a small charge was made for freight, otherwise there was no charge whatever.
The carter's life, while not all sunshine and roses, was nevertheless fascinating to many. Carters usually traveled two or more together, and so there was little occasion for lonesomeness. In fact, unless the weather was especially bad, or something serious the matter, nearly every one was in high spirits during the whole trip. On the return their natural humors were often made still more hilarious by the presence of the " pint tickler " and the "little brown jug."
At different points along the way there were exceptionally good feeding places. Of these there were two general classes-the pine thickets and the churchyards. When the weather was cold the thickets were usually chosen, since they acted as windbreaks, and also furnished plenty of fire-wood. When it was warm the churchyards were quite popular, as there was usually plenty of water and some breeze. Where the churches were set in thick woods, with only a small open space around them, they were good stop-
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ping places all the year round. Here the carters fed and watered their horses, built fires, made coffee, warmed and ate their victuals, spun yarns, joked one another, and slept.
Some followed carting as a business, going nearly every week. Uusually they had little crops which sometimes they worked, and which sometimes the grass took. Then there were others who made only a few trips a year, just to carry their own produce to market and to make purchases for their families. In the upper end of the county the merchants themselves hauled part of the produce they took in and part of the goods they sold.
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