USA > North Carolina > Wake County > History of Wake County, North Carolina, with sketches of those who have most influenced its development > Part 3
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"The first Constitutional Convention of North Carolina was held at Hillsborough on
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HISTORY OF WAKE COUNTY
the twenty-fifth of July, in the year of our Lord 1788, in the thirteenth year of the in- dependence of the United Colonies of America, in pursuance of the resolution of the last General Assembly, for the purposes of deliber- ating and determining on a proper form of Federal Government; and for fixing the unal- terable seat of government for this State."
Thus runs the opening phrase of the report of this convention. A full delegation was present, five from each county represented the best minds and most patriotic hearts of the land. The delegation from Wake con- sisted of Joel Lane, Thomas Hines, Brittain Saunders, James Hinton and Nathaniel Jones. Governor Samuel Johnson presided as Gov- ernor of the Colony. The debate of the de- legates shows a good deal of opposition to ratification on the part of the extreme Jef- fersonians, led by Willie Jones of Halifax. The second part of their task, that of fixing an "unalterable seat of government" was at- tended with many jealousies and bickerings. This is a matter of tradition as well as of re- cord, and even mixed into the conventional phrases we may today trace bitter rivalry be-
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THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
tween the west and the east, between one town and the other. Tradition has it that Willie Jones was a master at log-rolling and took a hand for his friends in this free-for-all contest.
The first motion making this business the order of the day was made by Mr. Rutherford of Rowan, seconded by Mr. Steele, his col- league, also of Rowan. "Resolved, that this Convention tomorrow at four o'clock in the afternoon fix on a proper place for the seat of government."
This resolution was passed but protested against by Mr. Blount of Beaufort County. Next day, accordingly, a committee was se- lected to choose places for the Convention to vote upon in turn "Exact spot not to be fixed, but that it be left to the discretion of the Assembly to ascertain the exact spot; provided it be within ten miles of the point or place de- termined by this Convention."
This defined indefiniteness is accounted for by considering that the provision was made in order to prevent the speculation in land that could suddenly be brought to pass if the spot should be more definitely located. Besides, we may consider that conditions as to water
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WAKEFIELD, THE RESIDENCE OF JOEL LANE. BUILT BEFORE 1770. REMOVED AFTER 1900 TO ITS PRESENT LOCATION. THIS PICTURE SHOWS IT ON ITS OLD SITE ON BOYLAN AVENUE.
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THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
and water courses, and levels and slopes were not entirely known, and room for ad- justment would be afforded in a twenty-mile diameter.
The following places were voted on by the Convention. Smithfield, Tarborough, Fay- etteville, The Fork of Haw and Deep Rivers, Mr. Isaac Hunter's Plantation in Wake County (placed in nomination by Mr. Ire- dell of Chowan), New Berne, Hillsborough.
On ballot Mr. Isaac Hunter's plantation in Wake County was fixed on for the future location of the Capital in its immediate neighborhood. This vote was taken on Au- gust second, 1788.
Willie Jones of Halifax (being, as a living man an astute politician, and none the less still to be reverenced as one of our constructive statesmen so long after his death), seems to have moved on the stormy waters at this junc- ture, and to have shaped things to his mind.
Just why he wished to locate the Capital in Wake, and why he moved in such myster- ious ways to that end, the terse record does not show; but tradition insists that he did a good deal of the dealing, and as we are too far
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down the river of time to review his conclus- ions, we will just be satisfied with the result, and be glad he made so good a selection, using his so great influence to bring it about. From out the past comes a whisper about the recipe which he used for apple toddy, and about supper at Joel Lane's tavern. Surely they slander the city's founders who repeat this old story! Scarcely was the vote counted when Mr. Barry Grove of Fayetteville entered a protest on the following grounds: "First, because the situation chosen is unconnected with commerce and can never rise above the degree of a village. The same mistake has been made in the selection of Williamsburgh and of Annapolis, and the result is seen there. Secondly, because Fayetteville would have a great effect upon commerce, being a thriving town at the head of navigation."
This protest was signed with one hundred nineteen names, and would indicate that the opposing factions, though strong, did not get together quite early enough to thwart Mr. Jones or accomplish their own wish.
The west wanted Fayetteville or Hills- borough; the eastern section was divided, each
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THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
delegate wanting the chief town of most con- venient location in his own immediate neigh- borhood; and rather than vote for a rival town would vote for a western place, by this means restraining the rival from profiting.
Thus the vote being so close and so doubt- ful, a committee was appointed to report later upon this matter, when the constitutional convention should meet at Fayetteville the next year.
Accordingly, in the autumn of 1789, the Convention ratified the United States Con- stitution with far less wordy war than they had expended upon the question of a site for the capital the year before. The com- mittee which was to report upon the matter of the seat of government was not ready at that time and made its recommendations two years later, by which time all the tumult and shouting had finally died, and the matter was settled once for all in favor of the Wake County site.
Fayetteville still felt aggrieved and said so, and her indignation was reasonable enough, but such compromises are very often made.
Perhaps we should be justified in raising a statue to the memory of that great Jeffer-
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THE OLD STATE HOUSE, DESTROYED BY FIRE IN 1831. (FROM A PAINTING BY JACOB MARLING, IN THE HALL OF HISTORY.)
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THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
sonian, Willie Jones, as the real founder of Raleigh, for to his interest the actual parcel- ing out seems due. Nine commissioners were given the task of laying off ground for the new city, and selecting for that purpose among the various tracts offered.
The names of the commissioners were James Martin, Hargett, Dawson, McDowell, Blount, Harrington, Bloodworth, Person, and Willie Jones, and while all did not actually ride over the various lands, all have their names perpetuated in the names of streets of Raleigh.
Joel Lane's tract was chosen, and a thous- and acres of land bought from him. Part of this land was originally Mr. Lane's, but part belonged to Theophilus Hunter of Hunter's Lodge, was sold by him to Mr. Lane a short time before, and was bargained for by the commissioners as part of the Lane tract. The original Lane land ended at Morgan Street and all south of that line was Mr. Hunter's. This purchase is the greater part of the land where the city of Raleigh now stands. At that time it was covered with primeval forest, and some old oaks are still standing which
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HISTORY OF WAKE COUNTY
must have shaded the surveyors who run off the streets and carved our city squares out of the virgin wilderness.
On Friday March thirtieth, 1792, the final decision was made, and boundaries locat- ed. The price paid to Lane for the whole tract of land was two thousand seven hundred fifty dollars, which does not sound like a fancy price for a selected square mile of land.
William Christmas was the surveyor, and was paid one hundred ten dollars for his work after he had finished laying out substantially the same streets and squares that we tread in our daily walk at this date.
The Capitol Square is the largest, in the center of the city. Four other squares were left open to form parks, and named Caswell, Nash, Burke, after the three Governors of those names, while the fourth was called Moore, after the first Attorney General, who afterwards became Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Streets were named after Stephen Cabarrus, William Le- noir, William R. Davie, and Joel Lane, be- sides the commissioners as named above. The streets which ended at Capitol Square,
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THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
and those bounding it were named after the leading towns of the state at that time -- Hillsborough, Fayetteville, Halifax, New Berne, Salisbury, Edenton, Wilmington, ex- cept Morgan, which is named for what was then a judicial district.
One wonders why there was not a Charlotte Street, according to the plan. Fayetteville Street was at one time afterwards known as LaFayette Street, but the change has not per- sisted.
Raleigh was born a city. No wandering pre-historic cows laid out her streets and marked her thoroughfares, as was the case with older settlements. Her name was ready for her two hundred years before, and was be- stowed at the suggestion of Governor Alex- ander Martin, and her charter had been grant- ed in 1587 when Sir Walter Raleigh attempted a permanent settlement on Roanoke Island. This historic name was inevitably hers. It was the only name that could have been given with propriety to a capital of North Carolina. The infant city stood clothed in forest, with streets blazed among the trees. The four avenues which ended at the Capitol Square,
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"THE OLD MORDECAI PLACE" IN RALEIGH. THE BACK OF THIS HOUSE IS VERY ANCIENT. THE FRONT ELEVATION IS ALSO OLD, BUT NOT EARLIER THAN THE JOEL LANE AND HAYWOOD HOUSES.
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THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
then named Union Square, were much broader than the rest, and the only criticism we can offer to the worthy committee who laid out our town is that they might have made all the streets as wide, seeing that land was cheap and paving unknown. Itis not wonder- ful that no vision of automobile traffic and street railway system visited their minds, but they did show a great foresight in giving us a park system, foresight which their descend- ants have done their best to nullify, for in our great economy we have built up two of these four squares which were left open for us and for our children, and we shall always have to keep repenting our short-sightedness.
After the City of Raleigh was thus laid out and named, lots were sold to pay for the building of a State House. The commission who attended to this were R. Bennehan, John Macon (brother of Nathaniel Macon), Robert Goodloe, Nathaniel Bryan, and Theo- philus of Hunter's Lodge.
The architect of the first Capitol was Rhody Atkins, whose name was not again mentioned. The floor plan was quite similar in form to the present building, but much smaller, plainer,
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and built of rough brick. The brick was burned for the building on lots 138 and 154 of the original survey.
The old Capitol turned its back on Hills- borough street. It faced the east according to the custom of many another public building erected at that epoch. It cost the State of North Carolina twenty thousand dollars when complete, and was enough enclosed in 1794 so that the Legislature met that year for the first time in the "New State House" in the City of Raleigh.
The members of assembly boarded in the neighboring farm houses and at Joel Lane's tavern, and rode in to their work each day on horse-back. Scarcely anyone lived as yet in the limit of the city proper. The State House stood in solitude, surrounded by its mighty oaks for the most part of the first de- cade. Raleigh was like any other town created by legislative act, crude and strug- gling at first.
Washington was the same kind of capital on a far larger scale; but both have long out- grown their awkward age.
CHAPTER III Early Worthies
IFE just after the Revolution was a much simpler manner of exist- ence than it is now, especially as regards worldly possessions. In 1800, there were but ten thous- and people in all Wake County, and many of these were negro slaves, although not so many servants were thought necessary in proportion to the white folk as it was customary to hold in the eastern counties where the lowland climate made agricultural labor difficult for Caucasians.
The names of the most prominent citizens of Wake County in the last days of the eigh- teenth century and the beginning of the nine- teenth were the same surnames which usually occur in the meager records of assemblies and conventions of the early pre-revolutionary time. These fathers as members and as del- egates showed much practical sense and won- derful comprehension of public questions; they were also possessors of many a fertile acre of uncleared forest; their spirit was that of the
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HISTORY OF WAKE COUNTY
eager pioneer whose prospects were fair before him, but whose present possessions did not hamper him enough to become a daily care.
The importance of the cotton crop was not yet apparent. Whitney's cotton gin was not yet invented, and the four or five pounds of cotton which one person could laboriously seed in a day, would not afford so much lint as was needed for home consumption. Those were the days of the small cotton patch planted to supply the spinning wheel and loom, and each child and every servant of the home must seed his shoe full of cotton, each winter even- ing before going to bed, as his regular task.
Tobacco was the crop which brought in money or exchange. It exhausted the new land very quickly, and was hard to transport over the rough roads of the settlements, but it was nevertheless an all-important means of paying for any imported goods, and a regular medium of exchange in North Carolina as for- merly also in Virginia. Much of what we read in that time before railroads, about the prime importance of locating the towns upon rivers, was considered true, because it was an easy means of readily transporting tobacco to a good market.
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Wheat was raised in sufficiency and corn in great abundance. The response of the virgin soil was wonderful and the climate was as fine then as now. The farmer whose family did not live in plenty was a man who would not take the trouble to raise the food he could easily cultivate. Great herds of pigs roamed the woods and lived on acorns and nuts, half wild, only coming at intervals to be fed a little corn when they heard the shrill halloo of the slave whose duty it was to look after them. Cattle, too, roamed the woods and were only a little more tame, coming up to be milked as they chose.
All the house work halted when the bell- cow's jangling bell was heard in the clearing, and the women quickly went to milk the herd, whatever the hour of day.
Houses were small and simple, log-cabins well or ill-built, single or double, and all chairs and small furnishings were home-made. Only now and then was there some prized chest or high-boy which had been brought from the last station of the pioneer family, or even from old England direct.
Vehicles were confined to wagons and gigs, and a family carriage was as much of a rarity
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HISTORY OF WAKE COUNTY
in the early years of the nineteenth century as an automobile was in the latest ones. Ladies rode pillion, behind their men or their servants, or singly if attended. Everyone expected to ride horseback as well for a long journey as for a short one.
Hunting and fishing were the chief sports, but racing was universal in a country so de- pendent as this upon good and spirited horses; but there seems to have been no regular race- track in Wake County at this early date. Shooting matches for beef were held and con- ducted much like the famous match described in "Georgia Scenes." Cock-fighting was a common sport, the taste for which came from England with the Colonists. Wherever a few people could gather from the thinly settled neighborhoods, they enjoyed dancing and fiddling, and such amusements were partici- pated in by young and old alike.
As to the look of the country, we know that the forest and the old field bore such a great proportion to the cultivated cleared land that farms were far apart. Only here and there did a home stand out against a wooded slope, here and there a slim spiral of smoke betray a
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EARLY WORTHIES
human habitation behind the trees, or a clear- ed field show the work of the settler. Roads wound for miles through unbroken woodland, and the cultivated fields seemed but patches.
This life was not a poor one, although it was extremely simple. It was independent, it was self-respecting. It was full of rude plenty and wholesome work, of hope and expectation. A poor man could make a start and be sure of getting a living while paying for his land. He would raise a little stock and a pair of colts. His log-cabin cost him little beside the time he took to build it, and he need never go without his simple food and clothing and his necessities provided that he was a good shot, and that he and his wife were industrious. Slavery light- ened the tasks of those who could get far enough ahead of the world to afford the pur- chase of a servant or two. With all its faults it was a life which had an upward slope to it, and a hopefulness for the future which kept it stimulating.
There were practically no schools in Wake County for the first years of its existence, and after the Capitol stood lonely on its hill in the midst of the new City of Raleigh. At various
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HISTORY OF WAKE COUNTY
cross-roads were taverns where men met. Court week called them to Raleigh sometimes, and occasionally a preacher passed through and services were held; but the children were mostly left to home instruction and to the educating influence of practical experience and the many absorbing interests of their back- woods homes and their free life in the open.
The leading spirits were not satisfied with this state of things, however. There were a few men of education and refinement in Wake County from the first, and all these were prom- inent in the State history and politics of their day.
The first name that appears in the Colonial Records showing active service and prominence in the new county of Wake was John Hinton, who lived on Neuse River near Milburnie. He owned enormous tracts of land along the Neuse under grant from Lord Carteret, and when in course of time Wake County was divided from Johnston County, his residence fell within its boundaries. His residence was called Clay-Hill-on-the-Neuse.
He had moved from Chowan (the part now Gates County), about the middle of the eigh-
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EARLY WORTHIES
teenth century, and his father's name before him was John Hinton. He married Grizelle Kimbrough, and had eight or nine children who reached maturity. John Hinton was Major in the provincial troops of Johnston County, and was thus called to aid Governor Tryon in the expedition against the Regula- tors. He was made Colonel of the Wake County troops in 1771, and was in command of his men at the Battle of Alamance. Gov- ernor Caswell mentions that he was an eye- witness of Colonel Hinton's gallant behavior on this occasion.
Colonel Hinton lived near the home where his descendants still live. He was a promi- nent man in the Revolutionary struggle, of- fering himself at once to the American cause. He served in the first Provincial Congress at New Berne, was appointed Colonel of North Carolina troops, was present at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, was a member of the Council of Safety for Wake County, and acted always the part of the brave patriotic gentle- man he was.
He died in 1784, leaving several minor children, and besides his own personal service
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HISTORY OF WAKE COUNTY
two of his sons were in the Revolutionary Army. John Hinton the third, his eldest, was commissioned as Major, and James Hin- ton was Colonel of a troop of horse.
James Hinton above, married Delilah Hunt- er, daughter of Theophilus Hunter of Hunter's Lodge. Two of the daughters of Colonel Hinton successively became wives of Joel Lane, one dying quite young. Thus the Hinton family was connected with those few other families which seem to have shared with them the first possession of the broad acres of pristine Wake County wilderness, and the moulding of the little community by their service and examples.
The descendants of these people are here with us today, and their blood runs in the veins of many who never have traced out their pedigree sufficiently to be proud as they justly may be of their fine old Revolutionary ancestry.
Hinton James, the first student that regis- tered at the newly opened University of North Carolina, and another Hinton who graduated with him in the first class, were both grand- sons of Colonel John Hinton of Wake. Judge
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EARLY WORTHIES
Henry Seawell married a daughter of John Hinton, son of Colonel John Hinton, Second, the first of the name to settle in Wake.
Theophilus Hunter of Hunter's Lodge ap- pears first as the host of Governor Tryon, and his plantation was the headquarters of the expedition of 1771 during its halt of several days in Wake County. It was at his planta- tion that the recruiting was done for Tyron's Army, which is recorded as having been so slow and so unsatisfactory, the smaller farmers holding sympathy with the Regulators.
Theophilus Hunter the elder was the pre- siding justice of the first county court ever held in Wake County, and when the first court house was moved from Joel Lane's tavern, Wake Cross Roads, or Bloomsbury, by which- ever name one chooses to call the place, to its present site on Fayetteville street, Theophilus Hunter and James Bloodworth each conveyed half an acre adjoining to the then justices of Wake County and their successors in office forever, for the nominal sum of five shillings; and upon this piece of ground the new court house was then built, and successive buildings have occupied the same lot.
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This property has become so extremely val- uable, that some time since there was an idea of its being sold, and some land purchased which might not be quite so valuable, although quite as convenient for the purpose. Upon looking into the old deeds it was found that to use this ground for any other purpose be- side the designated one of locating a court house upon it, would forfeit it to the heirs of the givers.
Besides giving a lot for the court house, Theophilus Hunter also gave a lot for a masonic lodge. This lies on Morgan and Dawson streets, Raleigh.
Theophilus Hunter, besides being a justice and a Mason, was a Major in Colonel John Hin- ton's Wake County Regiment during the Rev- olution, afterwards Lieutenant Colonel, Coun- ty Surveyor, and a member of Assembly sev- eral times. He left a family of sons and daughters who married into the Hinton and the Lane families and thus drew closer the family kinship and solidarity of the first fami- lies of Wake County. He lived at Spring Hill, south-west of where the State Hospital for the insane now is. The old mansion still
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remains on the eminence near this old site, re- built into part of the State Hospital, the out- door colonies for epileptics being located near the spot. His son, Theophilus, Jr., inherited Spring Hill and rebuilt it. The landed possessions of these men were extensive, their land reaching almost to Cary in a south- westerly direction. Isaac Hunter, brother of Theophilus, Sr., owned that plantation within ten miles of which Raleigh should be located, and his place was to the north of the city. Descendants of both these men are among our citizens today, notably the brother last men- tioned has many although none of his own name, the inheritance of blood having gone through the female lines.
Theophilus Hunter Hill, a poet, and one of our few singers, was a grandson of the Hunt- ers of Spring Hill. At the very beginning of the war of 1861, he published a slender volume of lyrics and sonnets, and after the war another volume.
He had genuine feeling and power of ex- pressing it, and several sonnets of his are ex- quisite, but for the most part his poetry seems an echo of what had pleased him in his
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wide reading of other men's writings. It is not racy of the soil, and his images are acade- mic, but he shows nevertheless a vein of real poetic inspiration which time and the times did not develop in the least, the stress and strain of the war extinguishing poetic fancy, and leisure and stimulation both being lack- ing to the perfecting of his gift.
Joel Lane with his two brothers, Joseph and Jesse, who were not so well known as himself, also had a great deal to do with the early shaping of Wake County.
O. W. Holmes, in a humorous poem, de- scribing the portrait of his great-grandmother when a young girl, plays with the idea of what might have been the result if that dainty maiden had chosen a different suitor, when she answered 'Yes' to her life-mate, and thus had thrown the stream of inheritance into a different channel. He quaintly asks,
"Should I be I, or would it be
One tenth another and nine tenths me?"
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