USA > North Carolina > Wake County > History of Wake County, North Carolina, with sketches of those who have most influenced its development > Part 5
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It was a charming bit of extravagance, and not like the strange freaks of spending that attack stingy folk once in a lifetime, but the result of pure idealism,-the fact of a heroic figure impressing the imagination of a whole people, so that they were intent upon pouring out the precious ointment of their hearts to his memory.
The motion for obtaining this statue was first made in the House by Thomas Spencer of Hyde County. His descendants, if there are any, should be proud of their ancestor for this deed.
Governor Miller, the then executive, con- sulted Senator Turner and Senator Macon in Washington, and they in turn consulted Thomas Jefferson in his retirement at Monti- cello. It was decided that only the best was
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worthy of the greatest American and of the State of North Carolina, and so the Ambassa- dor to Italy from the Federal Government was commissioned to bespeak a portrait statue of Washington from Canova. Canova was the greatest sculptor then alive, unless Thorvald- sen of Sweden be named as his equal.
When asked to undertake the commission from the State of North Carolina, he put aside many orders to accept it, on account, he said, of his extreme admiration for the genius of the great Washington, and for his noble deeds. The statue was executed in Carrara marble, white as snow. The figure was larger than life. When finished, it was brought to Boston on a United States war vessel com- manded by Captain Bainbridge, a hero of the Pirates' War. From Boston it was trans- shipped to Wilmington on a coastwise vessel, and it arrived there in 1821. From Wilming- ton to Fayetteville, it was floated up the Cape Fear River.
William Nichols, father of Captain John Nichols, who lived at that time in Raleigh and was in charge of the improvement of the Capi- tol and of other building for the State at the
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University, was put in charge also of this task. It was for him to contrive means of transporting those heavy marbles over the long rough miles between Fayetteville and Raleigh. That he did so successfully is an- other tribute to his practical ability. On the ninth of November, 1821, word came that the wagons bearing the precious blocks of marble were near, the entire population of Raleigh, Governor, State officials, and many citizens of other parts of the State as well, went out in procession along the Fayetteville road to meet the train of wagons, and bring them into the city with a band and speeches and rejoicings.
Colonel William Polk pronounced the ora- tion. He was living in Raleigh as president of the First State Bank. He was a Revolu- tionary veteran, and had been a friend of Washington, and personally associated with Lafayette. He was father of Leonidas K. Polk, afterwards the "fighting bishop," and was cousin to President Polk.
His speech on this occasion was solemn and stately, and he rhetorically declared that it was but meet and fitting that the degenerate
apart
THE OLD GOVERNOR'S PALACE AT FOOT OF FAYETTEVILLE STREET. BUILT ABOUT 1813, AND LAST USED BY GOVERNOR VANCE. TORN DOWN AND REPLACED BY A SCHOOL BUILDING. (FROM A PRINT)
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Italian nation should add the refinement of art to the rough but vigorous patriotism of the American Republic, now far more than Italy the inheritor of the spirit of ancient Rome. This is but the impression of a long past perusal and not a direct quotation.
The statue, when unpacked and set in posi- tion in the rotunda of the old State House by Mr. Nichols seemed, to the critical eyes of many who had seen Washington in the flesh, a good likeness as regarded the countenance. Our good people, not aware of artistic license, were, however, quite struck dumb by the fact that the Father of His Country was dressed in a Roman Consul's costume, with toga, bare legs, and sandaled feet. This made them wonder and stare.
Washington was represented seated, with a tablet on one knee, on which he was writing his farewell address with a stylus. The atti- tude was balanced and graceful, the face calm and grave. The figure sat upon a Roman curule chair, and this rested upon a pedestal, which was sculptured on all four sides with bas-reliefs, showing notable scenes in the public service of Washington.
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The sculpture exhibited Canova at his best, in which the stone was made to take a finish that seemed almost as smooth to the touch as it appeared soft to the eye, so perfect was the working, so delicate the surface. The great Lafayette, when he came to Raleigh in 1825, vouched for the correctness of the like- ness as he surveyed it. The statue was the pride of the people of North Carolina. Judge Gaston said of them, "Limited in their means, plain in their habits, economical in their ex- penditures, on this subject they indulged in generous munificence." It was suggested by some practical soul, that a statue so valuable being now placed in a building not fireproof, should be mounted on low wheels to permit of its being moved in case of fire, but this sugges- tion was laughed to scorn. It is hard to guess now, in this age of wheels, why it was thought to be so undignified, so very funny to mount the statue in this way, for the sake of its safety. Had this been done, we might well possess it today, for it might have been easily saved from destruction.
Only for about ten years did the State own this art treasure, for all of that period easily
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the finest example of high art in all America. The mother of the writer saw this statue in in 1830, and though but a child at the time, she ever remembered it with a vivid impression and has described it minutely to her children. Mrs. A. B. Andrews had a most exact picture of it, from an Italian source, entirely authentic. Also there is an engraving with Lafayette and Miss Haywood standing looking at it. In the year 1910 owing to the indefatigable effort of the Hall of History, a cast had been made from the model, and sent as a gift from the King of Italy. The lost treasure in its beauty is a vivid personal regret. The poor muti- lated fragments of the trunk and pedestal which occupy one corner of the Hall of History speak eloquently of its fate but tell little of its glory.
Canova the great Italian sculptor, was at the height of his fame and reputation when he made the statue. He was called the true in- heritor of the classical tradition. He always used the mannerisms of the antique statues he studied, as well as followed the real beauty of their conception. He is now somewhat superseded in artistic esteem being consid-
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ered too artificial, too smooth, although many lovely works of his are still cherished.
The old Raleigh Community revelled in processions as well as banquets. Fourth of July was always a fair chance to enjoy a parade. Hear the account of a celebration of the ever-glorious Fourth which took place in the year 1809. "At twelve o'clock, a pro- cession of citizens and strangers, with Captain Calvin Jones' troop of cavalry, formed at the State House during the ringing of the State House, Court House, and Town bells, and the firing of the cannon. Being seated in the Commons Chamber, an ode in honor of this day, composed for the occasion, was sung by a choir of seventy voices. Reverend Mr. Turner (the principal of the Academy) de- livered an oration. At three o'clock the com- pany sat down to an excellent dinner prepared by Mr. Casso (keeper of the Hotel), which was served in the State House. Colonel Polk and Mr. Potter presided and toasts were drunk to the Governor, Mr. Nash, to the Su- preme Court of North Carolina, to Literature, Science and Art, to the University of North North Carolina, to the Constitution of North Carolina, and to 'The social circles of life.' "
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It was the custom of Doctor William Mc- Pheeters a few years later to hold a sunrise service on the Fourth of July, and to preach a patriotic sermon, which was always well attend- ed, and very impressive. Reverend Drury Lacy kept up this custom of the town after- ward. Following this came an oration by some good speaker, the reading of the Dec- laration of Independence, a procession of all the Sunday School children down Fayette- ville Street to the "Palatial Residence" and then half way back again to the sound of the bells of the town. Dispersing there, everybody attended a picnic and barbecue in Parrish's Grove, at the corner of Davie and Blount Streets, and opportunity was given for all the courting and matchmaking that the daylight would hold. At nightfall, the streets being unlighted, and the ways long, the population called it a day and went home.
In calling up pictures of the town that then was, I have failed to mention the beginnings of the various religious denominations, al- though by the time the State House was burned there were three churches in Raleigh. The Presbyterians had a congregation organ-
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ized in 1806, but as Dr. McPheeters was the only regular pastor in town for a long time, services were held in the State House, and they did not build until 1817. The early Method- ists led the way, and built a little church where Edenton Street Church now stands, and by the next year the Baptists also had a small church building finished.
In 1820 the Episcopal Church was organ- ised, and by 1826 they had begun a church on the present site of Christ Church. Later we find Duncan Cameron chairman of the build- ing committee which made Christ Church of today, one of our really lovely buildings.
There had also been in Raleigh for some time a sort of crazy parson, a Mr. Clenden- ning, who had a pet heresy and preached it on Sundays. On weekdays he sold goods over his counter, and had plenty of ability and com- mon sense to make money in his mercantile business. He seems to have been a sort of town joke.
Having tried in the foregoing chapters to bring back the idea of the old times as they really were, we must next try to recall some of the great men, and draw their characters, some of those who moved about the streets
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of our old capital, and made impression on our institutions. Many were not natives of Raleigh, and yet were nevertheless a part of its life, and a boast, to be pointed out to strangers sojourning in our gates as they mov- ed on our common ways. We must revive the shock of the burning of the State House. We must learn something of the struggle and final successful anchoring of the State capital here in Raleigh, for when the State House was burned, of course the other claimants revived their claims.
Beside this we must bring out those old tales which make former days alive, and re- store to us the atmosphere so long dispersed, together with the likeness of those who were a part of the passing panorama.
We must go down the roaring forties, and make ourselves by all means catch the feel- ing that pervaded the world before the War of '61, and thereby moulded history; not for- getting that very often feeling is far stronger than policy.
The history of a people is the history of the the minds in it, as worked upon by the soul- currents of the age, which pass no one knows how, like the wind that bloweth where it listeth.
CHAPTER V Early Life and Thought
E must now forget the path we have traveled to our present day conception of things, throw away all those beliefs and ideas which have crystallized in our lifetimes, and think away modern conveniences and conditions and a collection of uncertain- ties and questions that exist no more. If there is "no new thing under the sun," yet old ideas are seen in very novel combinations as time goes on.
Look at the politics of those elder folk, and by politics I mean the prevailing conceptions of right and expediency in governmental poli- cies, rather than party or partizanship; what real correspondences do they show to the political questions of today?
Look at their economics. With the whole continent beyond him to choose a residence from, what need was there for the old North Carolina farmer to intensify, to economize, or to farm constructively?
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He need not suffer in an environment that did not suit him, he could go west, he could take up new land to replace the fields he had cleared and exhausted. Nothing hindered the restlessness of the frontiersman.
Fiscal and money problems were not well understood even in Europe of this time. The question of the best way to guard the money capital needed for all this expansion, had been settled neither in theory nor experience by any financier. While the time of the formation of the constitutions of the United States and of the several States had revealed a farsighted statesmanship which it would he hard to match today, yet all was a great experiment. No one knew how well it was going to work, and only time could reveal its flaws. We dis- agree honestly today on many matters, but we have settled most of the questions which exercised our grandfathers.
A caustic wit has called Democracy "the rule of the planless man," but it was not plans which were lacking in that seething time when remnants of old English monarchical conser- vatism and the newest and wildest of French Revolutionary theories were striving to com- bine into something different from either.
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"The broadening of human thought is ever a slow and a complex process." Our old time Federalist did not correspond to any of the political partizanships of today and his party passed away with the echoes of the War of 1812. In his time he represented the conser- vative element, but no special privilege save that of education, and the able leadership it gave.
The leaders of the Jeffersonian popular party distrusted the educated few, because as they said, they were "too far from the people to understand their ways." The old Feder- alists had for their successors the Whigs, while the Jeffersonian, afterwards called the Re- publican, and lastly the Democratic party, represented the ideals of liberty as advocated in the French Revolution.
England of just after the Revolution was a very conservative, hard England, but in America no such degeneration of the demo- cratic gospel took place; the rise of the plain people, the opportunity of the common man to become uncommon, was the opportunity of all in America.
Andrew Jackson, "Old Hickory" as he was called, born in North Carolina, called to office
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from Tennessee, well expressed his party as President and as popular hero.
In politics North Carolina was naturally democratic, but the majority of her leading intellects happened to be Whigs, and many of her best prophets were without honor in their own country.
The money organization of the United States was the field of many experiments. Jackson was of the opinion that money matters were best left to each sovereign state, and so he abolished the Bank of the United States, distributing its surplus pro rata among the states. This institution was doubtless a very imperfect one, but had afforded a central stable valuation of credit. Now there were as many values and measures as there were states, all the way from the "wild cat" banks of the west, to the conservative institutions of New England. Following the changeless law of finance, all the better money was hoard- ed and the worse put in circulation. Each state had a State Bank which bore the same relation to its finances as did the United States bank to the United States funds, and there came to be a strange mixture of money,
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with so many banks issuing notes which were more or less good at a shorter or longer distance from the banks of their origin.
The habit of mind about money is a great part of the mental furniture of a man, because it disposes him to honest dealing and honest success, or disposes him to the taking of too heavy risks.
The early years of the nineteenth century were far too much given to the sporting con- ception of things, and loose ideas about money have given more trouble to our people than has any fallacy which has survived into the present.
When, after the unlucky Democratic admin- istration of Van Buren, the scale tipped to- ward the Whigs, every one but the inside bosses thought of Henry Clay as the Whig choice for President.
It is not clear just how his nomination was defeated, but defeated it was, and Harrison won it, Tyler, who succeeded him, being Vice- President, after Harrison had only been a few weeks in office, and had died. Tyler proved not to be a Whig at all, but merely an admirer of the man Clay.
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So far as we can see, he was nominated Vice- President because of his gift of ready tears over the defeat of his friend. Next term, 1844, Clay lost the election to the Democratic candidate, this time by his "Raleigh Letter." This historic letter was sent to a friend of Clay's in Alabama, and published by him, and tradition says it was penned under a great white oak in what was lately the yard of Col- onel A. B. Andrews on Blount Street. In this letter he advocated the admission of Texas to the Union in due time, and thus set all Aboli- tion New England against his candidacy. He opposed admitting it at once, and thus set his Southern friends against him.
Tradition says that he showed this letter to Judge Badger before he sent it, and that Bad- ger said, "That letter will lose you your can- didacy," to which he replied in the often quoted words, "I would rather be right than be president."
In ideals Clay was broadly national, and he was noted as a compromiser, and a soother of men's passions. Personally he was the very ideal man in the imagination of the spirit- ed youth of his day, ideal in faults as well as in virtues.
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CHRIST CHURCH RECTORY, ONCE THE STATE BANK, WHOSE FIRST PRESIDENT WAS COLONEL W. POLK. IT WAS ONE OF THE FIRST THREE BRICK BUILDINGS IN RALEIGH
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Old men have told me that since the War they had felt homeless as regarded political affiliation, that they were and had always been "Henry Clay Whigs" and nothing else. Of his great body of adherents it might be said, "His name was all the politics they knew."
Education in the South in those days as ob- tained by the richer classes was thorough, but there were no standardized secondary schools and scarcely any conception of what they might mean.
The average country citizen of those days was likely to hold the view of Huckleberry Finn's father: "Your father and your mother couldn't read nor write, and you think you are better than your father because you can. I'll take it out of you!" Planters might employ governesses and tutors, and send their children to pay schools, but common people living in rural isolation had no advantages at all in schooling.
Bartlett Yancey is authority for the state- ment that in Caswell County in 1800 one half the adult white population could not read and write, and that this great proportion grew greater rather than less. In Wake County
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things must have been better, but how much better we do not know how to discover.
Judge Gaston, in a Fourth of July toast in 1826, speaks of North Carolina as sadly prone in matters educational "to stumble and floun- der on at a lazy and lagging pace," and again in 1827, the "Legislature habitually looked with indifference upon education."
A belief among the leaders that this was poor policy was growing each year, and many tentative debates discussing possibilities of es- tablishing common schools were beginning to be held; small appropriations were being laid aside to accumulate looking toward the es- tablishing of an adequate fund for future use; but the fact remained that there was little or no general demand for any sort of free school education up to the year 1840 or '41.
The population of Wake County outside of the city of Raleigh gradually lessened, and be- came more scattered than formerly through the rural districts. The filling up of the west, which had begun with the century and shortly before, drew thousands of North Carolina people over the turnpikes to Alabama and Tennessee and far away to Missouri and the
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"New Purchase" as it was called. At the close of the Revolution the population of North Carolina approximated the same num- ber as did that of New York State, but from the war of 1812 until well into the forties, the population of North Carolina was at a com- parative standstill.
This emigration, the following of families after their pathfinders, the talk of the golden west and all that, made a great appeal to the imagination of those who stayed behind.
Another great subject for discussion which grew more and more heated was the question of slavery, and attack and defence of this "Institution" was mooted from one end of the United States to the 'other.
If the cotton gin had lain in the womb of time for another fifty years, slavery in the South might have well become what the doctors call a self-limiting disease and might have followed the course of gradual extinction it had begun in the northern States.
Because of the obvious path of profit, slavery grew from more to more, especially as the south-west was opened up.
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New England, always didactic, began to al- lude first with too much truth to Southern illiteracy, then as time went on to express her conscientious scruples as to the sufferance of slavery in any part of the Union.
Nothing in the general life and thought of the New England states had impressed the South with admiration, the two conceptions of life being at variance. Nothing made our people imagine that moral excellence was greater there than here, and these reproaches were felt undeserved and fell upon ears irritat- ed with constant clash of warring sentiments and opinions. It was as though the sister who lived at home and needed only walk paved streets, should count for a sin the drag- gled skirts of her whose way had lain through briars and muddy ways.
That New England was the nearest right if not most righteous, was never acknowledged at the South, and in New England the fact of conditions and not deliberate choice was carefully ignored.
Much ink was spilt, and hard sayings on each side grew harder, and anger bred pre- judice, and aspersions against slavery made
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New England's educational example odious. Justice in this world can never be perfect, but perfect justice is somehow what every man claims for his own. Raleigh, the center of North Carolina's political life, heard many a speech about this bitter controversy, many an echo of the ever growing dispute.
Another subject of prime interest then, as now, was the building of roads, and added to that the projecting of canals. It scarcely seems possible, but the idea was at one time entertained that the City of Raleigh must be connected with the sea by means of the small creeks that run to Neuse River and a system of canals and locks, in connection with that stream, in order to have a commercial outlet.
The State of New York had recently com- pleted the Erie Canal, and the fashion thus set was admired,-this before the days of railroads.
A Scotch engineer engaged for the State by Mr. Peter Brown made calculations on this sort of a plan, on a salary of several times the pay of the Governor. In the early twenties one trip is said to have been made to New Berne and back, with many difficulties. Boat, a scow; captain, James Murray.
THE STAGE COACH THAT BROUGHT MAIL TO RALEIGH VIA LOUISBURG. (STUDIED FROM VARIOUS OLD PRINTS AND ADVERTISEMENTS)
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It was calculated that a canal was practical from Hunter's Mill on Walnut Creek, the pre- cise spot of the Waterworks pumping station down to Neuse River, the fall being sufficient, but that a better port would be at the spot near Bloomsbury Park where Lassiter's Mill stands now, and a better canal down Crabtree Creek to the river, though it might have to be longer.
These wild schemes had to be discussed be- cause prices, owing to wagon transportation, were enormous. The salary mark was far, far lower than it is today, and yet calico brought one dollar per yard, broadcloth was worth from seven to ten dollars, and sugar was at the figure of forty-five cents a pound. Nails came by the dozen. Truly it was not the choice of frugality for its elevating charm which influenced our ancestors toward plain living, but necessity, and that of the sternest.
No wonder they listened to fairy tales about easy transportation down Neuse River, where, as today, at some seasons, a terrapin could carry flour on his back all the way from Raleigh to New Berne without wetting his load.
One romantic thing, as we call it now, was part of daily lives then, and we should be glad
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to experience the thrill ourselves. The stage from the North came in over the Louisburg Road, and went southward to Fayetteville, stopping at Casso's tavern on Fayetteville Street. Three times a week at first it came, then daily. The sweet, flourishing notes of the coach horns could be heard as the lumber- ing vehicle came into town, and rolled up near the Capitol. This was the link with the world outside. The mail came in, the north- ern papers with their European news, slowly brought to them in ships, and already more than a month old; letters at fifty and twenty- five cents apiece, according to distance and weight. Strangers would dismount for a moment to stretch their cramped legs a bit, while the fresh horses were put to; or would dismount and spend the night at the tavern.
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