USA > North Carolina > Wake County > History of Wake County, North Carolina, with sketches of those who have most influenced its development > Part 11
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After the war between the States was over, after the assassination of Lincoln had given Andrew Johnson a seat in the Presidential chair,
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this son of Raleigh came back, not to be feast- ed and toasted, for in those grim depleted days there was not much festivity afoot, but to fulfil the filial duty of seeing a monument erected over his father's grave.
This monument stands today in the Old City Cemetery, and the visit of President Johnson furnished the occasion for the last of those historical addresses which Governor Swain wrote, and which are mines of informa- tion about old times. This is the one in which so many of the less conspicuous folk were characterized, as he gave the scanty annals of Jacob Johnson, the hostler at Casso's tavern, and janitor at the State Bank near by.
Mrs. A. B. Andrews has described her visit in company with her father, William Johnston of Charlotte, to the White House during Johnson's term, when her father removed his political disabilities by taking the necessary oath. She described the man and President, medium in height, broad and stocky, with his neat black dress, formal and somewhat stiff in manners as of someone not too sure of himself. He spoke to her of her name having the same pronunciation as his own, but spelled differ-
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ently, and asked her from what part of North Carolina she came. When she answered "Charlotte," he said in so many words, "I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina." Johnson's troubles grew more especially out of the kind- ness he could not but feel for the land of his birth and for his leniency, counted too great, in those bitter times, by his party.
Our next Presidential visitor was Theodore Roosevelt, who came to Raleigh many years later, after Reconstruction, and after many years of wholesome development had gone by and the war of '61 and its troubles had receded into that past time which will heal all things -years after the centennial of the founding of Raleigh had been celebrated, and after the twentieth century was already several years old. He attended the State Fair in 1905, and October 19th of that year found the usual fair-week crowd augmented a good deal by the natural curiosity to see the President, then in his prime, personally and politically, and but just recently elected to the office he held after he had filled out Mckinley's unexpired term. He was a man full of virile force, of the true joy of living, and with a hearty word and
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flash of his famous teeth in a smile to everyone who came to greet him.
North Carolina had given him no electoral vote, but she loved a strong, manly personal- ity, a real man, and so she extended the warm- est welcome she was capable of giving. He came in over the Seaboard, and his train stood the night outside the town, near Millbrook, and pulled into the station next morning.
Roosevelt spent the whole day in the city, riding in the procession to the fair-grounds, making his address there, lunching on the grounds, and then leaving town late that after- noon over the Southern Railway. In reading over the reporters' accounts of the sayings of the President on this occasion we are struck by the genial attitude he showed to life. He noticed the children, the horses, the crowds, the stir and the life of the occasion as though he loved it all, and his favorite comment, "Delighted," won the hearts of those who were admitted to his presence.
The plain clothes men, who had charge of his personal safety, had great difficulty in keeping up with the rapid darting way in which
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he turned in every direction where his vivid interest attracted him.
Roosevelt was here again as private citizen to speak on the subject of the Panama Caanl some years after, and addressed a record- breaking crowd in the Auditorium.
Honorable William Jennings Bryan has been in Raleigh several times, and on at least three occasions was a speaker invited. His oratory was well known to our citizens. Later, one of his daughters made her home here for a time and her noted father was fre- quently seen on our streets.
In the year 1911, Woodrow Wilson, soon to become Democratic candidate for the Presi- dency, came to Raleigh after the Commence- ment at the University where he made a memorable address. He was entertained by the city and given a reception by the Capital Club. He also spoke in Raleigh at that time, and his speech, re-read today, gives a wonder- ful forecast of his subjects on so many memor- able occasions since, recommending so many of the ideas then that he has always advocated since, and advanced as needed reform meas- ures. Its literary form is wonderful. He
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mentioned on this first occasion the necessity of young men espousing particular causes and reforms, not as connected with or led by some particular person, but as fundamental princi- ples appealing to the eternal sense of justice and righteousness.
The two Vice-Presidents, Sherman with Taft, and Marshall with Wilson, were also here at different times each during his official term. Mr. Sherman, in a letter of apprecia- tion of a reception given in his honor in Raleigh, wrote, "It was a broadening of my viewpoint of our Southern civilization and a warming of the cockles of my heart towards a people that I had not before so well known." Mr. Marshall made one of the most genial, modest and common-sense addresses imagin- able, a speech full of kindly toleration, of ready humor, and treating of the pressing questions of the day in that broad and toler- ant spirit in which alone they will find solution.
After mentioning our great political and governmental figures well known to history, we must not omit those guests whose values as they came to us were a little different, men who whatever their especial gift, came to us
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THE "WEST ROCK" AT ST. MARY'S, RALEIGH. IN THIS BUILDING MRS. JEFFERSON DAVIS AND MISS WINNIE PASSED PART OF THE SUMMER OF '63, AND WERE HERE RESIDING WHILE THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG WAS TAKING PLACE
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as literary lights, men who were brought here to speak at the meetings of the State Literary " and Historical Association.
Edwin Markham, the poet, was one of the earliest of these. The three most distin- guished addresses were delivered in the year 1909 by James Bryce, Ambassador from Eng- land, 1911 by Henry Cabot Lodge of Mas- sachusetts, and in 1913 by Jules Jusserand, Ambassador from France.
Mr. Bryce is the author of the best book which has ever been written on the workings of the American Constitution. He was one who did everything in his power to cement the friendship of the two great powers of Anglo- Saxon institutions. He was a small, alert man, with dark piercing eyes and a most un- English quickness of movement and appre- hension and air of eager interest. His speech was very rapid and perfectly distinct, and was a part of his incisive personality. He was in these days of almost universal clean shav- ing, quite forested with a bush of white beard, which seemed somehow electric, and to pro- vide him with wireless tentacles connecting with the outer world.
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Mr. Bryce has left behind him a charming souvenir of his visit, for at his request, a finely engraved, autographed portrait of King Ed- ward VII of England was presented to the State of North Carolina, and now hangs in the Hall of History. This was an unusual courtesy, for the King seldom gives a portrait of himself, and did so this time in recognition of the antiquity of North Carolina, the oldest of the Thirteen, and thus the first settlement England made in America, her earliest colony.
Henry Cabot Lodge, lost also in a thicket of white beard, but bearing a colder eye, with as intellectual an outlook on the world as Mr. Bryce but with a fine New England conserva- tive attitude toward his subject, gave us a wonderfully written paper on the constitu- tional development of the United States. This address forms part of a volume which he later printed on kindred subjects.
The French Ambassador, M. Jusserand, also bearded, and with a dark scholarly counten- ance, a savant as well as a diplomat of a high type, gave from original French sources a de- lightful account of the friendliness and ideal conduct of the French and American troops
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in their association during the Revolution. He quoted Count Rochambeau, and officers with him who were present at Yorktown and during all the the glorious episode of that campaign. M. Jusserand was complete master of English as a written medium, but in his reading of his address many were a little confused by the persistence of his accent. William Howard Taft was also one of these speakers, during his ex-president life. His smile and chuckle were in fine working order.
During the Great War, there came to us many French visitors, some, such as M. Stephen Lausanne, sent by the Alliance Francaise, but one party especially, represent- ing the French High Commission, came on a most interesting errand to the Southern States.
The Marquis de Courtevron and the Mar- quis de Polignac, with their wives, one of whom was an American lady, were making this tour by reason of a hereditary connection. General, the Prince de Polignac of the C. S. Army, was the father of the Marquis de Cour- tevron and the uncle of the Marquis de Polig- nac. The older gentleman having been attach- ed to the Southern Armies during the War of
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'61, and having thus made bonds of affection which had not been forgotten, his sons were come to renew the association. These gentle- men and ladies were our most charming and memorable French visitors, and the so admir- able spirit of war-time France was well rep- resented by them.
General Tyson of the United States Army spoke at the Literary and Historical Associa- tion of 1919, giving a first hand account of the glorious history of the breaking of the Hinden- burg Line, accomplished by our Thirtieth Division, first and bravest.
Dorothea Dix was a visitor to us more than once in her beneficent journeys, and one is re- minded of her in rounding out the list of our guests and our honored speakers.
We must not omit the mention of another woman of real significance, greater than any- one can now determine. That she was a woman, makes the significance all the greater. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, the champion of equal suffrage for women, the sane wholesome magnetic woman who carried the banner all down the years to assured if not to actual victory, came here and spoke in the Commons
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Hall, before the Legislature. She probably represented, in her pioneer capacity, more in- fluence on the coming development of the world than any man of them all. Her sweet reasonableness, her intellectual power, her gift of real oratory, which made men say of her that of all speakers who ever came to us, she was the greatest, all these things should be recorded of her.
She was elderly, rather stout, with a massive face which lighted up into an indescribable inspired look, and a voice when she spoke which, while utterly womanly, had the search- ing power that filled a hall, and tones and echoes of sweetness that made the hearing an unique experience. It was as though she played on a wonderful musical instrument with rare skill.
A woman fair-time orator was Miss Jeanette Rankin, Representative from Montana, who spoke here during her term of office. She was a phenomenon, rather than an event, but she should be recorded. She was later killed, politically, by the report that she wept as she voted "no" to the Declaration of War, which was a ruse, rather than a true tale. Miss
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Rankin was a tall, self-possessed Western woman who spoke well, to the gaping wonder- ment of many a farmer who did not hold with these "new fangled women-folks."
Long years after the war was over, and years after his summons to the eternal rest, the ashes of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confed- eracy, were borne in state, from his far South- ern interment near Beauvoir, Miss., to a more glorious repose in his former Capital at Rich- mond, Virginia.
During this solemn progress the remains were halted to lie in state in the different states which had owned his command during that struggle. On 30th May, 1893, the coffin was placed in the Rotunda of our Capitol, there to be visited and venerated by those who loved and remembered him and the cause he represented.
All in this list, and many more, have breath- ed our air, trod our soil, become part of us for the time they remained with us, and brought to us what they had of value and of informa- tion and inspiration to bring.
In other lands, when we are shown a castle or a palace, the distinguished guests, the visit-
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ing sovereigns are enumerated, and by having been there they add interest and prestige to the house. So also should it be with a city, and we should count it a glory to have enter- tained so many visitors who are well known for all sorts of honor and attainment.
CHAPTER XII These Later Days
HERE is a development and a life story to a nation as well as to an individual, and as the noisy and spacious times of the fifties could only be likened to a young man's exuberant youth, so after the Civil War and its subsequent problems had sobered our people in the sixties and early seventies, and cramped their attention down to the stern practicalities of life, and as further lapse of time confirmed 'this attitude, we may be said to have thus entered on our maturer man- hood, speaking always of a nation as if it were an individual.
Young folk are seldom concerned about what has gone before them. It is not until time has ripened their conceptions that they want to study history, look up genealogy, and reconstruct the lives of their forefathers. The very young seldom occupy themselves with old folk's tales. It is so with individuals; it is true of commonwealths; and it has been
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that way generally in North Carolina. It is a rare and an unusual mind in the past which has really wished to grope backward. When Willianı L. Saunders began the research which produced the Colonial Records on that tiny first appropriation of five hundred dollars, he was still well in advance of the sentiment of his age. Only in the last fifty years have we faintly begun to insist upon building up a true picture of the influences which have wrought changes in our economic habits. For about the same period we have begun to predict the development of the future in a serious mood.
Leafing the pages of "before the war" old periodicals one finds notices of many beginnings of manufacturing in North Car- olina, beside the home spinning, weaving and dyeing, and the making of the various articles needed in a simple rural society.
Quilts and spreads were an outlet to the art- istry and love of color of women at the South, as every where in the United States, in the days when homemade carpets and simple furnishings were the rule. These womanly arts were well exemplified in weaving the coverlids which are made by old patterns brought from overseas,
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and handed down from mother to daughter. These were very intricate and beautiful, and the yarn was homespun cotton and wool mix- ed, and home-dyed as well. Usually the wool used in them was colored and the cotton left uncolored, and many of these are treasured today, among the antiques most prized. Homespun cloth for men's clothing was dyed with vegetable dyes in such a manner that the colors never really faded, but only soften- ed into more subdued tints. A wonderful indigo, a good brown, a yellow and a soft grey were among the best colors, while the bright red and the black were brought in if any was used.
Blacksmithing was rough, but the shoe- making was wonderfully fine. This was taught to slaves, as was also expert carpentry, and other building trades. Some of the wooden mouldings that occur, and some of the plaster modeling which centers and edges the cornice of many old houses which have been care- fully used, show the taste of the old folk and capabilities of the negroes as well as do their furniture and silverware.
There were wool hats made at some farms in Wake County, and brought in for sale dur-
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ing court week, so that they were called "County Court Hats." This is, of course, a lost art, along with the greater part of the other handicraft and basketry which is reviv- ed and treasured nowadays.
Candle moulds and snuffer trays are interest- ing features of every museum of antiquity, and the sewing, when machines were still un- known, was exquisite.
Cotton was raised in quantity after the in- vention of the cotton gin, and early the idea suggested itself that it might be manufactured at home without the costly transportation of raw material out, and of manufactured goods back into the States. Many small mills are to be noticed in the forties, and we find stated in journals of the time that there were in North Carolina in that day the quite respect- able number of twenty-five cotton factories, employing fifty thousand spindles and con- suming fifteen thousand bales of cotton yearly.
None of these factories were in Wake County however. Gins there were, of course, run at first by horse-power, and also the old- fashioned horse-driven cotton presses, which
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were often flanked with a heap of cotton seed left to rot unused. Not always so, however, in Wake County.
There was over near Rolesville, on Neuse River, quite early in the nineteenth century, One infant industry which was far ahead of its time. Several citizens of Wake County have recently given accounts of a cotton seed oil mill there which pressed ten gallons of oil in a day, and produced much oil-cake, in great cheese shaped masses, as if taken from some- thing like a cider-press. This oil-cake was was fed to milch cows and considered fine to increase their milk, while the oil is vaguely stated to have been "taken to Raleigh." What use it was put to there they did not know. To dilute linseed oil, probably.
A few pianos were made in Raleigh before the war by a man named Whitaker, and were very good ones too, by the standards of the time.
The works were imported, and the cases were made and mechanical parts installed and adjusted here. One or two of these instruments are still in existence to show their excellence.
This is not a matter of great importance in the real progress of the city, but is told simply to show that the tide was turning toward the
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making of things before the coming of the war made necessary the manufacturing of articles for subsistence.
There were formerly two successful paper mills in Wake County. The first one was at Milburnie, and was where a small stream came into the main stream of the Neuse, because clear water is necessary for making paper. This first one was started by Joseph Gales, the editor, for supplying his printing paper, and was burned before the middle of the nine- teenth century. The other was owned later at Falls of Neuse, by the father of Dr. W. I. Roy- ster and his brothers, and was dismantled when Sherman's army was near, and the machinery was hidden and saved. It is this massive stone building that is today the major part of the Neuse River Cotton Mill.
The inhabitants of Wake County before the war were, nevertheless a most exclusively agri- cultural society and did not use very advanced methods. They had felt the lure of the West in those days that swept out the younger, more adventurous men, and the remaining ones were not the eager spirits. Good farmers there were, for as someone has said, there was
OLD COTTON PRESS, WITH PART OF THE SHELTER STILL STANDING. THESE WERE DRIVEN BY MULE-POWER, AND WERE CONSTRUCTED OF WOOD.
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no need for a good farmer to move West. But the pristine fertility of virgin land was used up by the customary methods of exhaustion. The new ground was cropped and turned out as old field, to become a prey to gully-wash- ing rains, or grow up in old field pine if circum- stances were fortunate. New fields were con- stantly cleared, and this was the wasteful method all over the American continent at some stage of its development, before the need of conserving fertility was regarded.
The long-leaved pines of the south-eastern portion of the county were soon stripped by turpentine seekers and lumbermen, while the hogs running out kept the young trees from sprouting up. Fear of deep plowing was held as a steadfast belief by farmers who had brought these ideas with them from the sandy country.
We will have to accord to the women a good part of the sudden awakening to possibilities of manufacture which came later in 1861. During the War, the city and county became a real hive of industry. The socks which were knitted for the army by the good women every where were a case in point. Even so late as
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the World War, when distributions were made of wool for the Red Cross knitting, there were found, all over the country, old ladies who knew exactly what to do with their knitting needles, who rejoiced that they could help in their old age.
After they were taught the "Kitchener Toe," and had been instructed in size of needles, and number of stitches to cast on, they industriously turned out socks by the dozen pair. These old ladies would reminisce, and tell of the sewing they had done for the soldiers in their youth, when cut-out garments were brought to them from Raleigh. Some had made up the cloth for love, and some had been obliged to ask for a little money. All had had their part in the efficient organization of industry at that time.
Powder was made near Raleigh during the War and guncaps were manufactured by Keu- ster and Smithurst. Cartridges were filled by the children at the blind institution, by the deaf and dumb, and the blind also, who could thus do their bit. Matches and curry combs, wooden saddle trees, and metal findings such as spurs, belt buckles, and other things which
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could be stamped out, employed the hands of women and boys and some spare negroes. "John Brown Pikes," those unique weapons, were made here also.
Wooden shoes which could be worn by the home folk, and thus saved the much needed leather for the use of the army, were also made in Raleigh and are remembered as having been used by some of the wearers of this clumsy footgear.
When the old Devereux house was pulled down some years since to make way for the development of Glenwood, two bolts of cotton cloth were found under the roof, hidden and forgotten. One of these may be seen in the Hall of History, and while not woven in Raleigh, it was made in the State during the War.
Thus the necessities of the conflict develop- ed the hands and skill of both men and women, and the people who had hitherto subsisted by agriculture alone, found out that if an incen- tive were given, compelling toward making a start, they were capable of making many need- ed things, and could become skilled workmen in the doing of it.
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The Reconstruction period was a sad and exasperatng interlude, and trailed its discour- agement across a land where there was not much beauty or thrift remaining visible to the traveler over country roads, deep in mid- summer dust or winter mud; but after the citizens of North Carolina who had the right, resumed the direction of affairs, there was found a good deal to build upon. This was not in material resources, for these were as depleted as it is possible to imagine, but in ideals, and in interest in several things pre- viously carried on with success and efficiency.
The winter of discontent forebodes the promise of spring. spring. Agriculture, as soon as the War was fairly over, made some beginning at improvement, and the high price of cotton induced farmers to raise all they could culti- vate. I have been told of a farmer-boy near Raleigh who had by some means raised a fine colt for himself. When Sherman's men ap- peared they appropriated the animal. As they led it away the boy followed, and duly turned up at headquarters asking payment for his property. He was told that he might have as many of the old broken-down army
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mules which he was shown in a vacant lot, as he thought his horse was worth. Seeing here an opportunity, he took away a string of twenty of the least disabled ones, and by means of this foresight had mules to cultivate a large crop of cotton that summer, and sell- ing at the high price of the first year after the War he thus made his start.
Mr. Priestley Mangum, a farmer of Wake County, finding that the washing out of gul- lies and the channelling out of the fields on his farm made so great a loss of surface soil and fertility as to reduce his yield permanently, attained one of those visions of simple ex- pedients which, although they may seem very plain to "hind-sight," have never been thought out before. He found that by throwing up ridges which followed the contour of the hill- side, and at the same time maintained a slight but continuous fall of level, he could thus con- trol the water in its course, allowing it to drain away slowly, and sink into the soil on its way. These ridges, arranged at intervals on his hilly fields, obviated washing, conserved moisture, and did not interfere with customary cultiva- tion.
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