USA > North Carolina > Wake County > History of Wake County, North Carolina, with sketches of those who have most influenced its development > Part 9
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ments combined to give everyone a forward- looking cheerful expectation.
The Mexican War, resulting as it did in complete victory, gave the self-confidence of success to our soldiers. The pioneer spirit which in America had so long driven its child- ren further west to find the "Something hid behind the ranges" let only the Pacific Ocean arrest its onward career. Gold was discover- ed in California, and the mad rush to the West went across the plains in '49. How romantic it all was! Life was a joyous adventure to be met with enthusiasm, to be followed with eager delight.
When reading of the political campaign of 1839-40 in which the Whigs elected Harrison President, it seems a performance boyish and boisterous beyond any that has been carried on before or since. The songs, set to familiar tunes; the log-cabins mounted on wheels and drawn about to represent the home of "Old Tippecanoe" as they called General Harrison; the barrels of hard cider kept continually on tap for his supporters, said to be his favorite drink; the ships in honor of Van Buren (no especial drink specified); the slang-whanging
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by all newspapers; the processioning and the yelling; it all sounds like a prolonged college celebration. The Raleigh Whigs built a log cabin for campaign headquarters, which was twenty-five by forty feet in dimensions. The young Whigs cut the logs in the woods, hauled them in, and built it in one day. Here was the place for the Whig speakings. The Marks Creek Whigs, and others from that side of the county, came in in procession, bringing bar- rels of hard cider with them. They joined in a whole day's rally, finished up with a big bar- becue. The whole State went wild. A log cabin came rolling through the country all the way from Salisbury to Raleigh, with doings every step of the way. It was a merry time, but although all this boisterous party spirit was afoot, yet there were many other things more permanently worth while to be considered.
An interest in education, as mentioned before, had sprung up with renewed prosper- ity. Almost at the very beginning the far- sighted fathers had established a State Univer- sity, but there were as yet no public schools as we now have them. These were days of the Academy and the private school. There were many of these all over the State, both for boys
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and girls, and also we had had a good many more or less successful and permanent in Wake County. Saint Mary's school in Raleigh was at first a boys' school. It was opened in 1834 but was soon changed to what it has remain- ed. Pleasant Grove Academy at Wake Forest was another girls' school of this county. Wake Forest College was founded by the Baptist denomination, and located on the plantation of Dr. Calvin Jones in the year 1833. The first president was that consecrat- ed man, Dr. Waitt.
This was the first denominational college in North Carolina, and has been of untold benefit to the whole State. It was founded under the idea that it should be an industrial school, and this idea was also used at the be- ginning of Davidson College a few years later. Trinity College also was founded in these next few years, but to Wake Forest belongs the honor of being the first in the field. The industrial idea was soon abandoned.
In the year 1840 was enacted the act which made available the scant school funds of the State which had been accumulating for years, and those counties which were willing to sup-
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A PLANTATION HOUSE OF THE LARGER TYPE, OF THE FIRST YEARS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THIS HOUSE IS QUITE SOLID TODAY
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plement their quota of State money could establish free schools. Wake was one of these counties, although not many free schools were opened as yet, and those taught only the most elementary branchesofreading and writing and a little arithmetic. Nevertheless, every child of Raleigh should be taught why one of our school buildings is called the "Murphy" and one the "Wiley" school.
Other ideas of reform were abroad in Raleigh. There was begun at that time the first temperance society, and though this died out afterwards, the idea lived on to later fruition.
In the year 1841 the population of Wake County was eighteen thousand, and by the year 1860 it had increased to thirty thousand.
After the railroads were completed, Raleigh might seem to settle to quiet growth because the new era had begun in earnest with the coming of the railroad, and all sorts of new comforts and luxuries hitherto uncommon had come in with transportation. To read the grocers' advertisements, comparing them with a few years before, you may notice how they change from a simple list of heavy groceries
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and no more, to long columns advertising dainties such as candies, raisins, figs, cordials and syrups, dried fruits, teas and coffees, enough to make the mouth water.
Milliners, too, began to advertise styles straight from Paris, and trimmed bonnets from New York, these last of the coal-scuttle variety, huge and deep, to be worn with dresses which spread and frilled at the bottom like a two-yard-wide morning-glory blossom. The ladies wore tight bodices and large leg-o- mutton sleeves made to stand out by means of cushions at the shoulders.
To match such ladies' dresses, the beaux wore tight blue tailcoats with brass buttons and high velvet collars, nankeen trousers with straps under the foot to hold them down (these were tan colored, lighter than khaki) and high bell-crowned beavers, light colored, and made with wide curly brims. Their cravats were like young tablecloths, winding twice round the neck, holding up the sharp points of their white collars against their ears. Ladies' hoop skirts grew wide or grew narrow according to the fashion, the men's trousers grew more open or narrowed at the foot, year
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by year, but all through the period I am de- scribing, clothing was exaggerated and extrav- agant, and many yards of material went to the making of a single costume.
Soon after the coming of the railroad, we see a soda fountain advertised, and soon again, a circus with a menagerie. More amusements were demanded, more luxuries obtainable.
The telegraph was not a common conven- ience until about 1855, and was not used to run trains by, at first. You did not know what had become of your family after the train had carried them away until at least a week after when they wrote you their adventures. You simply had to sit patiently and wait for the train you expected to take, until it finally rolled in around the curve, to the sta- tion.
But indefinite though the schedules were, goods and people could be moved from place to place as never before. A farmer could dis- pose of his produce to better advantage, could sell his cotton and tobacco at the sea- board. Agriculture, which had become less efficient rather than more so during the first third of the nineteenth century, picked up in
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interest as its rewards became greater. The articles in the papers treated of good methods, and the first agricultural fair was held in Raleigh in 1833. News items about large crop yields were common, and in 1841 the amount of one hundred ninety bushels of corn to the acre is given as the best record of the two Carolinas.
That other kind of cultivation which is spelled Culture with a big C, and which must be neglected for awhile until a new country has time for it, began in this era to be more sought after. Good books are advertised for sale in each issue of the Raleigh papers. A Richmond gentleman, visiting Raleigh for the railroad celebration, describes his morning spent in the North Carolina book store, and tells of the interesting literature he found there. About this time, sandwiched in among law, religion, text books and almanacs, we find ad- vertised, De Tocqueville's Travels in America, Scott's Novels, and Jane Austen's "Emma", besides much other good literature.
The Southern Literary Messenger was start- ed in Richmond as early as 1831, and was one of the very first American periodicals devoted
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to pure literature. On the list of original sub- scribers which made its publication possible occur the names of several Raleigh people.
After 1843, Edgar Allan Poe, according to many good critics our greatest American poet, was the editor of this magazine, and to it he contributed some of his loveliest lyrics. Books and magazines of the best were plentiful as you see in old Raleigh, and all the means of self-culture were available here which were to be found anywhere in the United States.
But all through these times of expanding horizon and days of dawning culture, there was an undercurrent of discord, a voice of coming storm. It could be heard, so to ex- press it, only when silence fell; like the sound of surf, inland on a still night.
The North and South had been for thirty years like members of a family whose individ- uals have had a terrible disagreement on fun- damentals, but which has decided, for reasons of policy and property, to hold together in outward semblance long after all true fellow- ship and mutual love have departed. The subjects which divided them, slavery and states rights, were past being discussed as a general theme of common interest.
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"MIDWAY PLANTATION," ACROSS NEUSE RIVER, A FINE EXAMPLE OF THE PLANTATION HOME OF THE MIDDLE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
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Feeling on both sides had run so high in Congress that full statement of opinion either way was difficult to tolerate. Compromise after compromise had been arranged by first one and then the other party, each side had been soothed in turn; but by the latter years of the decades we are describing, further ar-
rangement of differences in this way had be- come a stench in the nostrils of either side. One thing only had been accomplished by this continual compromising, namely, time had been given so that the nation had learned more about workable self-government.
Now the time of silent ignoring of the topics which everyone was passionately thinking about in their hearts was nearly past. The calling of things peaceful when all inner con- viction was a bitter partizanship had to find a definite end.
North Carolina had been a somewhat back- ward state, she had been subject to certain conditions which had made her so. Her in- tense independent individualism had made it hard for her to unite her sons in any cause, and the Union had not been so much a matter of course to her as a lesson to be learned, a course to be thoughtfully adopted.
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In Raleigh, as the fifties died, thoughtful men sat and watched all their commonwealth building toward a great Union, crumble day by day. While no one would admit that it was in any danger, all were aware of the fact in their secret hearts, and knew that any moment might set the whole country adrift as in the swift water above Niagara, and that the falls were near.
Young heads might wish a change, might wish to cast the die, to pass the Rubicon; they might tell of what they did not wish to be forced to advocate; but although North Caro- lina had been late in entering the Union, yet she felt bitterly sorry to leave it.
Meanwhile the young men found the cau- tious counsels of their elders very slow and cool. Their blood was up. They had no ex- perience of war; but neither had they any doubt of their own valor.
Our good Governor Ellis, truly honest, much tried, and earnestly trying to avert trouble, and those wise heads which stood with him, held back against the current with all their influence, but the young men had got the taste of that exultation which coming
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storm gives to their leaping pulses. Speech- making might satisfy the elder folk, but they were for launching out. Issues grew ever more tense. Different opinions became al- ways more irreconcilable.
In the spring of 1861, the plot of ground where the Tucker Building now stands on Fayetteville Street was the place where the rival factions rioted. Sumpter had been fired upon, but still there were those who hoped that peace would be restored. Red cockades were mounted by those anxious for secession, and a flag representing that idea was raised, but Union men fired upon it and tore it down. One of the younger Haywoods (Dun- can) and Basil Manly, returned the fire of those who would remove it, and as the riot went on Governor Ellis came to quell the ex- citement. At that very moment, it is said, the telegram was handed him announcing Lincoln's call for troops from North Carolina. Then it was that North Carolina seceded.
Like all calamities, the War of 1861 came suddenly, and was greeted with painful dis- may by those who had been fondly hoping against all hope for the preservation of the Union.
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Some of the people of this old town were very sorry, some were quite exultant and gay, but all knew where they must stand. The hot secession boys and the men who had hoped and held to the Union all enlisted together; together they drilled and trained, and together they fought, and side by side some of them died, on Tennessee hills, and in Virginia Valleys.
There is nothing that changes the air, that finishes an era, that closes a partition, like a war. Thus ended the times of youthful exu- berance, and the tender grace of that vanished day is a fast fading memory to a few old people, survivors of a time which the young must reconstruct to their minds painfully by means of documents and histories.
Many years ago, an old friend of the writer lay dying of a lingering disease. She said to me, then a very young girl, "I shall be glad to go; I have seen so much trouble, I am so tired of life." I wondered at her feeling; I knew her husband, a good man; she had many loving children, and I said so to her. She only look- ed at me with that pitying expression which the older folk use when some young person philosophizes about the life which is just fairly
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beginning for them. "Yes, Honey, all that, but you must remember that I lived through the War, and you young folk have no idea what that means."
Those who know by full experience are now very few. It is now that the histories are being written. Careful minds are at work on many a painstaking, earnest book, by which those who came after may reconstruct the long causes and the swift developments of that time of civil conflict.
From Raleigh there went away, with the Boys in Grey, that old, happy, care-free time, and though many good times have come since, that especial "before the war" breezy atmos- phere is past and gone.
Reading the newspapers of the time, one is impressed by the lack of hysteria, the clear ac- ceptance of consequences, after the plunge had taken place. When, after the first enthusi- asm was over, the grim realities of war were more and more felt, and strong feeling had to be constantly controlled, it was wonderful how cheerfully, to outward seeming, the people could go about their daily tasks.
Before the war was over, heroic exultation had to give place to something distressfully
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calm and stoic. Bereavement and economic privation were two things bravely endured, but the painful story of them is almost too sad to recall even today.
When we look over the sea, and remember the things which have been endured, and are still to endure so long after the actual fighting has come to an end and the killing has stopped, we may see plainly how many ills are harder to pass through than sudden death.
A little book, written while the pain of those times was fresh, Mrs. Spencer's Last Ninety Days of the War, is a most vivid picture of the mind that suffered in those days. It is a nar- rative, not a special pleading. To read the book at a sitting is to feel the swell and throb of the personal anxiety, pity and sorrow rise and fall, to sense the privation, suspense, heartbreak and disconsolate apathy, which arise out of too much anguish. It hurts a heart which loves the land and the people too much to be easy reading even so long after all is over.
Perhaps this is the reason that it has been complained of the City of Raleigh, that doing as much as she did do for her soldiers in this
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last great Armageddon, yet she never could accomplish the feat of cheering her boys as they marched away. We stood stonily and tried to smile, but we never cheered; we knew, for our fathers had told us.
The Capitol has looked on many scenes of joy and grave import. The sky has arched over the tender shadings of its walls for many an April. The young leaves were as fresh and fair in the spring of sixty-five as they were last year. After the last junior recruit had march- ed away, there came a calm ominous time when the spring sunshine fell on a hushed town. People were uneasy, and stayed at home. Old men and boys were the only ones at home with the women. Streets were de- serted, homes neglected, and the stores on Fayetteville Street were closed.
A suspense brooded on the city, for some- thing strange and sinister must be about to happen. Johnston's army had gone west, leaving the city undefended. Over the Fay- etteville road they said Sherman was coming. Straining ears of the watching ones listened for the first beat of martial music. Let us quote Governor Swain for the rest:
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"It was my lot, on the morning of April 13th, 1865, as a friend and representative of Gover- nor Vance, to find on approaching the south front of the Capitol, the doors and windows closed, and a deeper, more dreadful silence shrouding the city than during the sad catas- trophe (the burning of the old State House) to to which I have referred.
"I met at the south front of the Capitol, however, a negro servant who waited on the Executive Department, the only human being who had dared to venture beyond his doors. He delivered me the keys, and assisted me in opening the doors and windows of the Execu- tive Office, and I took my station at the en- trance with a safe conduct from General Sher- man in my mind, prepared to surrender the Capital at the demand of his approaching forces. At that moment, a band of inarauders, stragglers from Wheeler's retiring cavalry, dis- mounted at the head of Fayetteville Street, and began to sack the stores directly contig- uous to, and south of Dr. Haywood's residence.
I apprised them immediately that Sherman's army was just at hand, that any show of re- sistance might result in the destruction of the
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city, and urged them to follow their retreating comrades.
"A citizen, the first I had seen beyond his threshold that morning, came up at the mo- ment and added his remonstrances to mine, but all in vain, until I perceived and an- nounced that the head of Kilpatrick's column was in sight. In a moment, every member of the band with the exception of their chivalric leader, was in the saddle, and had his horse spurred to the utmost speed. He drew his bridle rein, halted in the center of the street, and discharged his revolver until his stock of ammunition was expended, in the direction, but not within carrying distance of his foe; when he too fled, but attempted to run the gauntlet in vain. His life was forfeited in a very brief interval.
"The remains of this bold man rest in the cemetery, covered with garlands and bewept by beautiful maidens, little aware how nearly the city may have been on the verge of devasta- tion, and how narrowly the fairest of their num- ber may have escaped insult and death from the rash act of lawless warfare. . . About three o'clock in the afternoon, in company with
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Governor Graham, who had risked life and reputation in behalf of this community to an extent of which those who derived the advan- tage are little aware, I delivered the keys of the State House to General Sherman at the guber- natorial mansion, then his headquarters, and received his assurance that the Capitol and city should be respected and the rights of property duly regarded."
CHAPTER X Our Benefactors
AKE COUNTY has owned enough righteous men to have saved many a Sodom. Beginning to count those who have lived their lives worthily before all, the list is a very long one. Singling out from their number those whose gifts have been material, as well as examples in the fine art of living well, we find five citizens whose hearts have been very generous to their fellow men. A society which has brought forth so many hearts bent on service is a society which is fulfilling its best objects, a thing of prime value.
In this summary only those whose benefits were first and especially to the people at large are given. Many donations to causes de- nominational and causes educational have been made by different ones among us, but we must here notice the more general response to the needs of our city.
Besides these men, there is a woman, and she not a native or resident, who must have
[228]
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her meed of praise for the good work she began here.
John Rex, the tanner, belongs to the very earliest period of Raleigh's existence. He came here from Pennsylvania, about the time of the first sale of lots, a quiet sort of man, simple in his dress and plain in his ways. He is said to have resembled John Quincy Adams remarkably in face. He lived to a good old age here, was never married, and left all his money to found a hospital in the city of Raleigh.
By his will his negroes were freed, and his property allowed to increase until there should be sufficient money to build a hospital large enough for city and county. Besides this he bought a large number of city lots at the second sale in 1814 or'15, which he directed not to be sold until the estate should be set- tled, and the hospital building provided. He hoped and intended that the value of these would suffice to produce a maintenance fund. The securities which made up the estate proper were much diminished or practically wiped out by the War, and only the lots re- mained, but Mr. Rex's speculation in these did
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not fulfil his desire. The part of the city where the smaller, poorer homes were being built ex- tended that way, and this did not permit of the good prices he hoped to realize. The Rex Hospital, therefore, has not equalled the inten- tion of its founder, in that instead of being a well supported institution from the first, it has been struggling constantly for adequate funds. If intentions, however, count for any- thing, those which gave us the hospital were as broad and as generous and as full of con- structive philanthropy as anything which has been done. We have a hospital, and it bears the name of John Rex. His bequest was the nucleus. In 1840, that wonderful year, the committee to administer the Rex estate was duly named, thus beginning another good work, and Judge Battle appropriately enough was made head of the enterprise which was so aided and fostered by his son, Richard Battle, in its later working out.
William Peace, the merchant, left a large bequest toward the education of women, and Peace Institute today bears the name of its founder.
At the time of the War the building was in- complete, and was used in its unfinished state
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for a military hospital. Since the War it has been an excellent school, maintained by the Presbyterians, and many a fine woman has had her educational opportunities there. Not so old as Saint Mary's, it is somewhat a sister institution, a school, not a college. The funds which were to have made it independent were lost in the war-time depreciation of values. As in the case of Rex Hospital, it is the thought that remains.
A woman's name is associated with the State Hospital for the insane. This stands on a hill to the south-west of Raleigh, which is always spoken of as Dix Hill, although I think the name is a popular, and not a formal tribute, to the good woman who procured the building of the asylum.
Dorothea Dix was a Massachusetts woman, one of those maiden ladies who feel the callto mother the world. Her name stands beside and not at all beneath the names of Florence Night- ingale, Clara Barton and Elizabeth Fry. She was mistress of a small independent fortune, and had no ties to hold her in one place, so she could follow her desire of a traveling life in the interest of her chosen cause.
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She began investigating the condition of the insane in all parts of the United States, later in Canada, and finally all over Europe.
First it was her custom to make a tour of the State she wished to influence, taking volumin- Ous notes of every poorhouse or prison where insane or paupers were kept. This she did quietly and unobtrusively in the guise of a private person. She made her long journeys alone and fearlessly, and records that she never met with any incivility in her whole work. In the year 1847 she traveled all over North Carolina, and the facts she gathered there she wrote into a memorial to the Legis- lative Assembly of 1848, presenting it in per- son, making a stay in Raleigh for the purpose. She was told by those to whom she applied that nothing whatever was to be done. It was pleaded that the people would never per- mit the necessary taxes to be levied. The Democrats, then in power, had been overcome by such a spasm of economy that they even voted to leave unlighted the lamps which hung in the portico of the Capitol while the Legisla- ture was in session.
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