USA > North Carolina > Catawba County > The Catawba soldier of the Civil war a sketch of every soldier from Catawba county, North Carolina, with the photograph, biographical sketch, and reminiscence of many of them, together with a sketch of Catawba county from 1860 to 1911 > Part 2
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Before the days of the civil war, and for some years after, it was hard to find enough seed sweet potatoes in the spring of the year to plant for next season at one dollar, and a dollar and a half a bushel. Now, and for ten years past, it has been a problem for our Catawba farmers to get their sweet potatoes on the market by the first of May. Some are actually harvesting and housing from twenty-five to thirty- six hundred bushels of sweet potatoes each season. One man in the fall of 1908, told the writer that he had raised on a small plot of ground, over six hundred bushels to the acre.
There has been a marked improvement and wonderful de- velopment along all lines of agriculture in even the last three decades, and for all this we are proud and truly grateful. But our aspirations are for something better still, and for far greater development, and we should never cease while such great possibilities lie within our reach. Look at what has been done through the demonstration work under the super- vision of Dr. S. A. Knapp, of the U. S. department of Agri- culture at Washington and his sub-agents in the south, and catch a vision of a better day for agriculture. As one of those agents, the writer knows, that under the methods of this department the increase over the old methods has been from three hundred to four hundred per cent. It is the writer's conviction that the Piedmont section is just in its in- fancy in agriculture. I believe we have here in Catawba county as good a place to live, enjoy health and be happy as any where in the wide world if, each one will only do his part in making it so.
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Now if I should fail to mention the progress made in methods of transporation from the days before the civil war to the present, I would fall short of the task I have undertaken. When the writer was a boy, there were no cars running near- er this county than Charlotte. I well remember the first train of cars I ever saw. It was a train running into Charlotte when I was a lad twelve years old, and had gone a - trip with a neighbor of my father's.
There were some home made, one horse, two horse, fand three and four horse wagons, of course, on the farms of the best to-do farmers, but the sled with runners made of sour- wood trees well shaped for the purpose was an essential vehicle on many farms. It was used for hauling up the fire wood in winter and the crops in the fall. I knew of one old gentleman who owned a good river farm in Catawba county and kept two good farm horses and often more, whose grand- son relates that the old man never possessed a wagon in his life. You could never have convinced that man that his son's son would be riding in an automobile in less than forty years from his death. Look at our present facilities for travel. Wagons of any size are made to order, and one of the best and largest wagon shops in the United States is located in Hickory, Catawba county, namely, the Piedmont Wagon Works. Also as fine a buggy as is made in this country is made by the Jerome Bolick and Sons Co., Conover, N. C. All farmers have their buggies, surries, spring wagons, and two horse wagons, hauling their products to market, and their families to town or to church.
The difference in communication is striking also. When the writer came from the war, he had to go seven miles to the post office. About once a week was all the time he could spare to go for his mail. With our rural mail delivery, the mail comes daily to his door. Then who of our neighbors or yours would have believed that we could stand in our front halls and talk to our friends miles away?
In no department of our farm life is greater growth seen than in our live stock. In the days before the stock law this was impossible. Wandering stock made out of the question to grade our cattle up to a standard, which was also true of hogs. It is not usual to see pigs under eight months old
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THE CATAWBA SOLDIER
hing over two hundred pounds. Today people.will not buy scrubby stock of hogs to raise from, because it will not pay. Some of the finest hogs in the country are to be found right here in our county. All this is true of cattle as well. The writer remembers how frequently some neighbor would come to my father's house to get him to help prize a milk cow or a yearling out of the mire on the edge of some swamp. The cattle were at large, with the sheep and the goats, and if they chanced to find their way home at night, they would probably find a hamper basket of shucks awaiting them, in the fence corners, if the hogs had not already rooted them around in search of a stray ear of corn. No wonder the cattle were scrubs, and no wonder some had to be prized out of the mud.
What an amazing difference is to be seen in the cattle to- day and that of those days gone by. Exhibited in the fairs at Hickory last year and the year before was as fine cattle as one wants to see. Some of the milk cows are record breakers.
As a splendid adjunct to the dairy business, we have the creamery located in Hickory. It is doing a fine business and is well equipped in every way. The Live Stock Association in the county also means great things for cattle. The scrub will be bound to disappear.
With all these lines of progress as have been indicated in this sketch, before us, it is well asked, What shall the future be? Certainly it mean still further development. Now, to the rising generation, who are to take the places of their pro- gressive fathers, the veterans who had the energy, the busi- ness tact, to bring about this day of advancement, let me say, you are highly favored. Compare the conditions now with those that confronted your fathers when they came out of the civil war, the blank, impoverished lands, grown up with brush or washed way, scarcely a good horse or mule to be found, no cattle or hogs except scrubs. These, men start- ing from the stump have done well, you say. And they have indeed done well. You, their sons, cannot afford to let things lag, or take a backward step. Your fathers, now resting from their labors, look upon you in the heritage they left you. They will not be disappointed, for they believe you to be worthy sons of their sires. But the question is now What are you going to do?
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COMMUNICATION
In 1861, there was scattered over Catawba County, a post office here and there, at the most prominent cross roads in the County, perhaps as many as a dozen, to which mails were brought once a week from the four points on the Western North Carolina railroad --- Newton, Hickory, Catawba, and Conover. Many citizens had to go eight or ten miles for their weekly mail. As the years went by, more and more offices were established by the Post Office Department, but more offices did not facilitate nor make more frequent the rural mails. At the railroad offices, how- ever, daily mails were given to the towns and stations for a number of years. In recent years, the Government has established Rural free delivery, and thus the country dis- tricts are supplied with daily mails. There is still yet star routes to be found in sparely settled and remote communities.
Recently, the Government has established City Delivery in towns with a population of five thousand; hence, Catawba County has one town, or city, (Hickory), which has mail delivered twice daily. We can now write a letter early in the morning and reach almost every family in the County on the same day by means of R. F. D .; but in recent years, by means of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell's Telephone inven- tion, we can communicate to parts of the County where lines have been established by progressive citizens, in a few moments. as though we were under the same roof. In a few more years, the citizens of Catawba will be practically brought together by means of this grand invention. A mighty change from 1861 to 1911 in reference to exchange of thought.
Another recent discovery is what is called "Wireless Telegraphy." In a few more years, this will supplant, in a measure, all other means of communication.
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THE CATAWBA SOLDIER
TRANSPORTATION
Equally startling, is the change made in transportation as was made in communication. The slide, the trucks, the wagons, -drawn by the ox, horse or mule. - seldom did you find in 1861, a carriage or buggy; and perchance you did at some great gathering, it was owned by the more wealthy of the community as wealth was regarded in 1861.
The marketing of the surplus of produce of that day was taken to Charleston, Columbia, Chester. or Yorkville, S. C., and, sometimes to Eastern North Carolina towns, - Charlotte and Fayetteville. We regarded it a treat to be permitted as boys to go on these trips. The wagons were generally loaded with flour, brandy and whiskey, bacon, and corn. These articles were exchanged for salt, coffee, sugar, molasses and seldom shoes and clothing.
Not until 1859 or 1860, did a railroad enter our county- the Western North Carolina railroad- leading now from Salisbury to Asheville. Never will the old soldier forget the depot, still yet standing, in the town of Newton, where they took their departure for the field of carnage. Thus the steam method has supplanted the wagon in the main. Now, we have, in 1911, two well-equipped railroads running through the county-the Western North Carolina Division of the Southern, running East and West; the other the Carolina and Northwestern, running North and South- a county now very fortunate in her transportation facilities.
Seldom do you find, now, wagons transporting anything to any other place save the nearest railroad station; and un- til our citizenship wake up to the necessity of better roads, graded and macademized, they will have to make four loads instead of one, and impoverish their stock to the amount of parts of their load, time and energy sacrificed for fear of a little tax to construct better roads. Fifty years ago, when we made our trips through the country to South Carolina in wagons, we were generally on the road three weeks. Note the great change that the railway has made possible ! We can jump on the train and in less than four hours we have made our trip to almost any point in South Carolina. Who
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would want to go faster ? In contrast to 1861, go to any gathering in the rural district, town or city, and in lieu of cart or wagon to convey the family there, you will find bug- gies of the most improved kind, surreys, phaetons, bicycles and the automobile-it being the greatest fad for travelling.
We believe the quickest and safest way is now being perfected-the aeroplane. We believe that some school boy of Catawba county, who shall have lived out the next half century, and who shall write Volume II of the series started of Catawba County history, will give credit to the aeroplane and aerocar as being the then safest, cheapest and quickest mode of travel. Catawba will have this method soon as she keeps always abreast of the times.
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THE CATAWBA SOLDIER
THE CATAWBA VETERAN AS A CHURCHMAN.
War does not stimulate religious activity. However true this may be in general, the Catawba veteran has shown a devotion to the cause of religion as great as that mani- fested in the cause of the Southern Confederacy. Before joining the army, many of them united with the church and became soldiers of the Lord and marched away from home with musket on the shoulder and the Bible in the pocket.
Returning from the field of battle, or some Federal prison, the Catawba veteran found the cause of religion lan- guishing and the fires upon the altar of devotion burning feebly. Like Nehemiah, he went to work to rebuild the waste places of Zion. The religious conditions as found in Catawba county in 1865 and as found in the same county in 1911, show a wonderful progress, and in almost every case the moving force was an "old soldier."
The religious forces in this county are Protestant, and not Catholic. Among the Protestant denominations are found the Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist, Baptist, Presby- terian and Episcopalian, with a few Seventh Day Adventists. The population being of German extraction, the Lutheran and Reformed churches are the oldest congregations in the county, and the older churches were "Union churches," be- ing used by both these denominations.
Efforts have been made to secure the statistics of each denomination in the county, showing the strength of each denomination in 1865 and the gain since that time, but these efforts have proven futile, and being unable to give all it is thought best, to serve the purposes of this book, to give none.
The Lutheran denomination, as might be expected, has made wonderful progress in this county in the years follow- ing the Civil war. In 1865 there was no school of that de- nomination, but now there are two: Concordia at Conover, and Lenoir at Hickory. Old churches have been rebuilt, new congregations have been organized and parsonages have been established in almost every community in this county. Who have been most active in bringing about this changed condition ? The veterans-the Smyres, Rabbs, Arndts, Smiths, Anthonies, Lohrs, Yoders, Seitzs, Hahns and many
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others who could be named.
The same can be said of the Reformed church. It has been the veterans who have carried forward the work of the Master in this church. Prominent are the Ramsaurs, Wil- fongs, Shufords, Rowes, McCorkles, Reinhardts, Dellingers, Bollingers, Mahaffeys, Coulters, Whiteners, Setzers, Car- penters: and thus it is that the bravest of Lee's followers become the truest soldiers in the army of the Lord.
The Baptist denomination has a fine constituency in Catawba county. In addition to the many churches estab- lished in almost every part of the county, a denominational school has been established, and the South Fork Institute at Maiden is doing excellent work. The gain of this denomin- ation has not been secured.
The zeal of Methodism in Catawba has equaled the zeal of that church in other counties, and the Catawba veteran who adhered to that denomination has been active in plant- ing a church in almost every community in the county, and the following statistics show the wonderful hold Methodism has in the county: Six pastoral charges with a membership of 3,416; 27 Sunday Schools with 2,037 Sunday School pupils. These congregations made an annual contribution of $11,678, and the value of their church property is $57,775.
The Presbyterian denomination has three congregations in the county, and the progress of the church has been com- mendable.
Although the Episcopal church has but one congregation in the county, and this one not very large, it is doubtless as closely identified with the veterans of the county as any other denomination in the county by reason of the fact that the Rev. James A. Weston, rector of the church for so many years, was a soldier and a Confederate soldier brave and true. He was chaplain of the veterans and his prayers and addresses at the reunions of the veterans are remembered still.
Perhaps the town of Hickory has made the most remark- able progress religiously of any part of the county. This town has 17 churches for white people, and five of these are fine structures, modern in every respect, having large pipe organs; with all modern improvements; and in bringing about this condition of affairs the Catawba veteran has been most prominent.
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THE CATAWBA SOLDIER
EDUCATION IN CATAWBA COUNTY.
At the outbreak of the war, there were in Catawba county about forty-five school districts as compared with ninety-five today. In that day, only one teacher could be found in a school, while today as many as three may be found in some of the public schools of the county, with as high as ten in some of the graded schools. At that time the children were required to walk long distances to school in a log hut containing only one room and heated by a large fire- place fed with large logs. Today the child has a school within a reasonable distance in a modern building containing from two to eight rooms, and in some instances, heated by steam. The windows in the school buildings of those days were made by cutting away a portion of two logs and insert- ing therein panes of glass. The light from these windows were insufficient, and on cloudy days, the eyes of the pupils were strained to study. To-day the school building is well lighted by large modern windows and the children are able to study in comfort. The building of war times contained but one door through which all the children entered and left in a disorderly manner like bees from a hive. To-day the building contains a number of doors through which the child- ren enter and pass out in ease and military order. The children then were given but one recess during the day- one hour at twelve o'clock. The children were called together at eight in the morning and were held until twelve when they were given the noon intermission. Call bells were un- known then and the children were called to "books" by beating on the house with a stick. Study was resumed again at one o'clock and continued until four. Now the tediousness of study is tempered with three recesses and a shorter day. The seating accomodations of the old-time school-house con- sisted of slabs from some near-by saw mill with four sticks for supports, the ends of which some times extended two or three inches above the flat side. Not so to-day. We have the latest model patent desk in many of our school rooms which enable the children to study in comfort.
Usually about four lessons were recited daily, the text books consisting of Webster's Old Blue Back for a speller and
-
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OF THE CIVIL WAR
the Testament for a reader. Soon, however, the Saunder's, McDuffy's, and others readers were introduced. The Pike's and Fowler's arithmetics were used, being replaced, however, by Davie's and Saunder's. Grammars or geographies were rarely found in the schools, but Bullion's, Murray's and other grammars were soon introduced. Mitchell's, and other old- time geographies, soon came into use and answered the pu - pose in those days. Nowadays the student goes to the school room literally loaded down with text books. Reader, spell-
GRACE ACADEMY, JACOBS FORK TOWNSHIP
ing book, arithmetic, grammar, geography, history, civics, physiology, agriculture, botany, algebra, latin, etc., are to be found among the present day school boy's belongings.
The amusements of those days were simpler, and perhaps more varied, than those of today. Then bull-pen, town-ball, holy-roly, cat-ball, and marbles furnished sufficient entertain- ment for the boys and girls at play-time. Today it is base- ball, foot-ball and other more strenuous games.
Locking the teacher out was a common pastime in those days. The children would go to the school house ahead of the teachers a day or two before Christmas and would secure-
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THE CATAWBA SOLDIER
ly bind the door against the teacher and keep him on the outside until he promised a treat with apples crcardy. Iile stubbornly refused, the larger boys would carry him to the nearest pool and duck him repeatedly until the desired treat was promised. Sometime, however, the teacher would anti- cipate a "pen-out" and would go prepared with a quantity of red pepper. On finding the door closed against him, he would climb to the chimney top and drop the pepper down
ABERNETHY SCHOOL HOUSE, FIVE MILES SOUTH OF HICKORY
into the fire and place something over the chimney top and await results. He would not have long to wait, as the smoke from the pepper was too much for the boys. The door would fly open and the boys would rush out for fresh air when the teacher would enter and all would settle down to a hard day's work. Spelling aloud was the method of study then and the students could often be heard for a quarter of a mile distance. Things are changed now, and absolute quiet reigns in the school room during study hours.
But from the day of small things, we have advanced to an age of activity in public school work. The Catawba Soldier and his descendants have implanted the seeds of progress,
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and they are springing up and bringing forth an hundred fold. This is another evidence of the fact that the Confede- rate Soldier has displayed as much zeal and patriotism in time of peace as in time of war. And in fact, these noble sons of the South have won their greatest victories since the close of that unhappy period which deluged this nation in - blood. Returning home after the war, he found his country desolate and his habitation destroyed.
Nothing daunted, he set his face to the task of bringing
SWEET WATER SCHOOL HOUSE, TWO MILES EAST OF HICKORY
order out of chaos and making the waste places blossom as the rose. How well he succeeded may be determined by noting the present prosperous conditions of his native land. The following report of our present county Superintendant of Public Instruction will enable us to see the progress of the cause of education in Catawba county:
"There are in this county today ninty-six districts, twenty- four of which have voted local tax. The total length of school term in the local tax districts is 110 days; the average length in other districts being 86 days. There are in the county 33 libraries, containing nearly 1900 volumes; there
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THE CATAWBA SOLDIER
are 111 teachers with a total enrollment of 4,828 students, and an average attendance of 3,425. The county has school property to the total value of $35,150, and an available school fund of $30,499, or a per capita fund of $1.73."
We herewith give an idea of our progress in the way of buildings for school purposes. The Abernethy School house here presented with its sketch, is south of Hickory 5 miles. The Sweet water school is just below Hickory, and is the third building since the war; the Lohr, or Grace School, is southwest of Newton and is the fourth building since the war. The Monbo School is southeast of Catawba 8 miles and is a model neighborhood enterprise. These are scattered samples of the Catawba spirit to educate the masses. Thus hath the masses, the old soldier ever to the front, wrought wonderfully in the development of education in the county. These ninety odd buildings scattered in every community to- gether with our four chartered institutions leaves no excuse for any boy or girl to grow up untutored.
The old soldier has always recognized the lawmakers dis- crimination against the people's schools, by giving what is left, after making ample provisions for her three favorites, University, A. & M., and Normal & Industrial College. Let the cry increase unjust, unjust, unjust "till the battlements fall, and then, and not till then, will the masses get what is justly due them educationly."
The soldier pities the lawmakers who have not learned this one patent fact, that as you educate the masses, the wealth producers, you increase his productive capacity, and thus fill the coffers of other occupations :- The merchant has a larger trade; the bankers greater deposits; the manufacturers greater trade; the doctor more practice; the preacher and teacher a living salary-in fact, every thing takes on new life by infusing into our schools the spirit of this strenuous age. Let the watch-word be just and equal apportionment of the school fund to the peoples' schools and to the class schools.
Of the schools of the county the remaining soldiers are proud, feeling as they do that these are the products of their sacrifice. "He hath done what he could," in every depart- ment of life.
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THE HOMES AND HOME LIFE OF CATAWBA COUNTY 1865-1911.
The great change and development that has swept the Southern States in the few decades since the War has not been manifested more strikingly in any department of life than in the homes and the home life of the people of the South. The strides and bounds with which every phase and line of business, trade and manufacture has gone forward in that short time cannot command more amazement than the complete revolution that the Southern home and home life has undergone. This change which touched North Carolina no less than other States, can be pointed out in vivid manner here in this very section-in the homes of the people of Ca- tawba County. These Western North Carolinians have un- doubtedly seen the years sweep away so much of the old regime and manner of life that to our young people of today such depicting of the life around here of forty-odd years ago seems more a "Tale of long ago" than so short a space back in time that the older people of this country can easily recall such events and scenes. Small wonder that the younger generation is surprised when in drawing a picture of life in the old homesteads we show the contrast between the home to which the Confederate Soldier returned and those which the good people of Catawba County now occupy.
The period after the war was a period characterized by hard poverty in every walk of life, but especially in the home. The Confederate Soldier returned to labor and to work. The mothers, wives, and daughters, servantless and poor, took upon their shoulders uncomplainingly the drudgery of the household tasks. Truly it may be said of them that by the "Sweat of the brow did they eat bread." The daily round of household duties was varied and never-ending, a thousand tasks arose to be completed with every sun. Whatever of clothing, light and food they obtained, whatever of comfort and cheer surrounding them in their homes, was only pro- duced by labor, thrift and saving care.
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