USA > North Carolina > Guilford County > The History of Guilford County, North Carolina > Part 6
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During the Civil War Guilford County was continually flooded with soldiers. Wheeler's Cavalry, Johnson's Army, Sher- man's, marched through. In 1865 the commissary stores at Mc- Leansville were destroyed for fear the Yankees would appropriate these supplies. A carload of shells was exploded, barrels and barrels of molasses and of whiskey were burst open. Hungry women dipped up molasses from the gutters in buckets. Hopeless men lapped up the liquor like dogs.
Though Guilford's life-blood was freely given to feed the awful fury of war, still her industrial life was not choked alto- gether. Her people did not have the greater portion of their wealth invested in slaves. Of course there were some large slave- holders here; many were content with a dozen or so. One-third of the population was non-slaveholding, the western half of Guil- ford being largely Quaker. In Warren, Halifax and other eastern counties, many slaveholders owned one or two hundred slaves. When the crash came they suffered most.
The remarkable occurrences of nature affect industrial life. On the night of the thirtenth of September, 1833, "the stars fell."
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NORTH CAROLINA.
The shower of meteors began about three o'clock in the morning and lasted until day. Thousands of shooting lights fell to the earth, "just like the snow" coming softly down. The "big snows" came in 1854 and 1857. Ten-rail fences were covered out of sight. The snow in the roads reached the side of a horse. In 1857 it began snowing before Christmas, on Saturday, and for five Saturdays it snowed. August 7, 1869, there was a total eclipse of the sun.
WOOD WORKMANSHIP.
In 1867 a barrel of shuttle-blocks made of persimmon wood, as an experiment, was shipped from Greensboro to Lowell, Massa- chusetts. Prior to this all shuttle-blocks had been made of apple trees, very costly since apple trees must be planted and allowed to grow. To Captain W. H. Snow belongs the honor of the dis- covery that persimmon and dogwood and some other North Caro- lina timber might be used for the manufacture of shuttle-blocks. The discovery meant thousands of dollars to the State as well as to this County, great industrial activity and enterprise and more wholesome living. Captain Snow demonstrated to Guilford people the way to utilize the unbounded but hitherto untouched resources of their forests. In 1872 he went to High Point and touched the corpse of industry and it sprang into life. (See Chapter XII. on the Towns of Guilford.)
NEWSPAPERS.
The newspaper, as invented in London by the scholarly Addi- son, was a factor in literature in which the drama, the theatre and society figured largely. But, according to American sentiment, the newspaper belongs to industrial development.
The Greensboro Patriot through fourscore years has been a factor in the life of Guilford County. 1821 was its birthyear and it has since been continuously published. Its circulation is large; many homes in Piedmont Carolina would feel lost without its weekly visits. The Greensboro Patriot may be found in almost
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GUILFORD COUNTY,
complete file in the library of the Greensboro Female College. This paper was originated by C. N. V. Evans and Clancey, who were succeeded by William Swaim, whose successors were Lyndon Swaim and M. S. Sherwood. Col. James A. Long, of Randolph, was at one time connected with it; also Hon. D. F. Caldwell and A. W. Ingold. About 1867 James W. and Robert H. Albright, who had been publishing the Times on West Market Street, secured control of the Patriot and consolidated the two publications under the name of the Patriot and Times. One year later R. H. Albright sold his interest to J. W. Albright, who took Major P. F. Duffy, now political editor of the Wilmington Star, as an associate. The latter became sole proprietor about 1876 and remained so until 1880, when he was succeeded by R. G. Fulghum, who began a daily in connection with the weekly. The former lasted but six months. Mr. Fulghum died in 1885, but had been succeeded in 1882 by John B. Hussey, then librarian of Congress. In 1890 the paper became the property of Messrs. Bethel, Scales and Cobb. A daily edition was issued from May to November, 1890. Wallace N. Scales, who was one of the publishers, moved to Idaho and became county judge in that State. Mr. Bethel retired from the firm in March, 1890, and the remaining members continued to conduct the publication until 1891, when J. R. Wharton succeeded them. Among others who at some time were connected with the Patriot were Whitehead & Hemby. In 1893 the present owners, W. M. Barber & Co., became proprietors, and under their man- agement the Patriot has fully maintained its honorable record of the past and broadened its field of usefulness. It is a paper of the people, which is read at the hearthstones of Guilford County and goes to other counties and states to tell those who are bound by ties of consanguinuity and social or business connections of the weekly happenings in the County of Guilford. The staff is: W: M. Barber, editor ; Wm. I. Underwood, local editor ; and Wil- liam P. Turner, foreman.
·
The Daily Record was launched on the journalistic sea
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CAPT. W. H. SNOW, HIGH POINT, N. C.
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NORTH CAROLINA.
November 17, 1890, with Messrs. H. J. Elam and J. M. Reece as editors. It is a popular paper, originally five columns, but its size has been increased at various times. At present it is an eight- page, six-column evening daily.
The Evening Telegram was established in July, 1897, by the Telegram Publishing Company, with Mr. C. G. Wright, president. It was a six-column folio at first, but was enlarged in 1898 to a seven-column folio. It is a lively, up-to-date publication, gener- ously supported.
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS IN THE STATE INAUGURATED BY GUILFORD MEN.
"Even as late as· 1833, a committee of an internal improve- ment convention, in their address, say, 'We have nothing that de- serves the name of maufactures. No process for changing the values of the raw materials are in use among us, except those effected by manual labor, or by machinery of the very simplest and commonest construction.' "-Dr. Wiley's North Carolina Reader, page 341 ..
About this time internal improvements was the line of cleav- age in politics ; the Whigs represented the progressive policy, the Democrats were conservative.
Among the names connected with this era in the industrial history of the State that deserve to be remembered are John M. Morehead, John A. Gilmer-both father and son-Calvin Hender- son Wiley and Nereus Mendenhall, all of them sons of Guilford.
That period from 1830 to 1840 was like a great storage bat- tery in the history of Guilford County and North Carolina, not only, but of the world as well. In 1833 slavery in all the English Colonies was abolished. In 1830 the first railroad was run. It went from Liverpool to Manchester. In this decade telegraph lines were first stretched, and the first steamship crossed the Atlan- tic. In this decade Tennyson, the Brownings, Thackeray, Dickens and Ruskin became famous. They were unknown before. Ameri-
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GUILFORD COUNTY,
can literature was born in this period. Before it, Washington Irving had been the only one supreme writer in this country. But in this ten years Bryant, Holmes, Whittier, Longfellow and Lowell came into prominence.
It was in this decade that the "Internal Improvement" and "General Education" policies thrilled the souls of people in North Carolina. Governor Morehead kept in close touch with the indus- trial development and studied English newspapers and English im- provement. About this time there first began to be in North Caro- lina, railroads, the public school system, colleges, asylums for the insane, the deaf and dumb and the blind, the penitentiary, cotton factories, banks, good roads and generosity.
The Legislatures of 1840 and 1848 deserve also to be com- memorated-the first for an act to establish common schools, always indicative of industrial and healthful feeling; and the other for an act for the charters of the North Carolina Railroad, the Fayetteville and Western Plankroad, "The Slackwater Navi- gation of the Cape Fear and Deep Rivers, and prospectively of the Yadkin, with a portage railroad connection with Deep River." In those days the impulse for more effective transportation was so great that the project for making the rivers navigable was entered upon with enthusiasm. The Dan River even was one on which was expended much means and labor without any adequate returns.
Governor John M. Morehead, in his last message to the Legis- laturc of North Carolina, urged upon that body the demands of philanthropy and statesmanship for the establishment of a state asylum for the insane, which had before been housed in jails. John A. Gilmer's speech in the Senate of North Carolina was a most earnest appeal in behalf of these unfortunates. That noble and praiseworthy woman, Miss Dorothea L. Dix, of New York, had by her personal appeals succeeded in inducing the Legislatures of many states to make provision for the insane. It was through her efforts also that the asylums were built. The Home for the Aged
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.
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NORTH CAROLINA.
. and Infirm of Guilford County was planned by no others than Dorothea Dix and Governor Morehead. Dr. Nereus Mendenhall helped in a great measure toward the founding and erection of the Insane Asylum at Morganton, probably the best institution of the kind in the South.
JOHN M. MOREHEAD.
Governor John Motley Morehead was a man of action and of great affairs. State institutions, railroads and factories were intro- duced into North Carolina by his creative hand. Our educational and industrial life received an impulse from this man that can never be lost.
John M. Morehead was born the fourth of July, 1796, the birthyear of the University of North Carolina, from which, in 1817, he was graduated, with John Y. Mason and James K. Polk. For one year he was tutor and later a trustee of his Alma Mater. Far more than is usual in this State, he was familiar with belle lettres, history, arts and science. In practical surveying he was an expert. On mechanics and architecture he was well informed. With Archibald D. Murphy he studied law and in 1819 he was licensed to practice. His contemporaries were Murphy, Ruffin, Settle and Yancey, an array of intellect sure to bring out the best in man, and soon, in the face of competition, he had built up a fine practice, with his brother, the Honorable James T. Morehead. In 1821, John M. Morehead was elected to the House of Commons from Rockingham County. In 1827 he represented Guilford in the Legislature. In 1840 he was the Whig candidate for governor of North Carolina, in competition with General R. M. Saunders, Democrat. They made the first canvass of the State for that office. In 1842 Governor Morehead was elected to a second term of office as Governor of North Carolina, this time in opposition to Hon. L. D. Henry.
In 1848 John M. Morehead was president of the convention which nominated General Taylor for President of the United
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GUILFORD COUNTY,
States. In those days the South had great men in the public life of the nation. Henry Clay was a personal friend of Governor Morehead. In the General Assembly of North Carolina of 1858- 59, Governor Morehead fought the fight for the railroad system of this State, a fight of giants about a real subject. In the Peace Congress which met in Washington City in February, 1861, Gov- ernor Morehead, together with Judge Ruffin, Governor Reid, George Davis and Daniel M. Barringer, represented North Caro- lina. Governor Morehead went opposed to separation of the States, but he returned in favor of it, taking the cause of his native land.
At a meeting of the stockholders of the North Carolina Rail- road, held in 1855, in Greensboro, Governor Morehead said, in his farewell address as president of the company: "Living, I have spent five years of the best portion of my life in the service of the North Carolina Railroad; dying, my sincerest prayers will be offered up for its prosperity and its success; dead, I wish to be buried alongside of it in the bosom of my own beloved Carolina."
After the War, broken in spirits and with fortune impaired, Governor Morehead died, twenty-seventh of August, 1866, a man who had lived a hundred years ahead of his time. He was buried in Greensboro, where a beautiful monument should be erected to his memory.
"When Spring with icy fingers cold Returns to deck her hallowed mould, She there shall press a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod."
The Piedmont Railroad Company, at a meeting of its Board of Directors held in 1866 in Richmond, Virginia, adopted the following resolutions : "RESOLVED, That as a testimonial of our appreciation of the exalted talents and eminent services of the Honorable John M. Morehead, of North Carolina, in the con- struction of many of the most important railroads in his own state, but specially for the liberal views and unceasing efforts for the
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NORTH CAROLINA.
past fifteen years to obtain the charter from the Legislature of his native state for the construction of this Road, the depot nearest Greensboro, North Carolina, and known as Sepinan, shall here- after be known and designated by the Company as 'Morehead Depot.'"
Governor Morehead was the friend of education. His earnest support was given to the efforts made for the public school sys- tem. Out of his own means he built Edgeworth Seminary for young ladies and gave it his personal attention. This was a school much in advance of the time in scholarship. In his young man- hood he, with his brother, James T. Morehead, gave to his father- less brothers and sisters a liberal education.
With John M. Morehead's advent into the gubernatorial chair, the idea of internal improvements reached its high-water mark in North Carolina. The public school system was set upon its feet through the personal efforts of Dr. C. H. Wiley. Asylums were built for the insane and for the deaf and bumb and blind. Governor Morehead, John A. Gilmer, Miss Dorothea Dix and others combined their zeal for a Hospital for the Insane of the state, who had up to this time lain in jails without medical atten- tion, without care. The speeches of Governor Morehead and John A. Gilmer, two sons of Guilford, before the Legislature, are classic, equal to Cicero.
Governor Morehead was a man of action and business capacity. "The City of Jackson," in Rockingham County, showed his efforts at city-building. This would have been a great success had nature, too, done her part.
In 1842 people were discussing whether or not North Caro- lina should have a penitentiary. In his message Governor More- head directed the attention of the General Assembly to this sub- ject. John M. Morehead was the great industrial magnet of the state.
Ah! this man was a man with a head, heart, hand-
One of the simple, great ones gone
Forever and ever by.
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GUILFORD COUNTY,
He owned cotton mills, had many slaves, which was a paying business ; was a large farmer, great lawyer ; but his great work for the state was better transportation, good roads, railroads. The work of building the railroad, beginning at Raleigh and Charlotte and working toward a common centre, met in January, 1856, near Greensboro. It was a gala day in the little city when the first train came in. The young ladies from Edgeworth Seminary had special privileges to go down and ride in on the first train. The people came from far and near to see carriages without horses. Prior to this the mail arrangements were as follows: Eastern, daily ; southwestern, daily ; western, three times a week ;, Danville mail, three times a week. When the railroad was completed to Raleigh in 1840, the news was brought to Greensboro by a stage- coach driver. Fifty years ago it was thought dangerous to ride faster than ten miles an hour. Today Greensboro is probably the most accessible city of the state. The North Carolina Railroad, the Northwestern North Carolina Railroad, the main line of the Southern Railway, and the Atlantic and Yadkin Valley Railway meet at Greensboro. Forty or more trains come daily.
CORPORATIONS IN GUILFORD COUNTY.
Capital Stock.
American Lumber Co.
.$ 20,000
Brooks Manufacturing Co.
5,000
Central Carolina Fair Association.
3,500
Cape Fear Manufacturing Co.
10,700
Chisholm, Stroud, Crawford, Rees
15,000
Carolina Mfg Co. 6,000
Cone Export and Commission Co.
tax 400
Eagle Furniture Co.
35,000
Greensboro Lumber Co.
15,000
Gate City Furniture Co.
6,850
Greensboro Ice and Coal Co.
10,000
Greensboro Furniture Mfg. Co.
20,000
Gibsonville Store Co.
3,500
Globe Furniture Co.
40,000
Goose Grease Liniment Co. IO
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Guilford Lumber Mfg. Co.
27,400
Hucomuga Mills
7,500
Hunter Mfg. Co. 50,000
Harry-Belk Brothers
10,000
Hague-McCorkle Dry Goods Co.
20,000
High Point Milling Co.
2,000
High Point Hardware Co.
6,000
High Point Coffin and Casket Co.
16,000
High Point Mantel and Table Co.
15,000
High Point Clothing Co. 7,500
4,100
High Point Trunk and Excelsior Mfg. Co.
10,000
High Point Metallic Bed Co.
10,000
Home Furniture Co.
45,000
High Point Chair Co.
10,000
Johnson Bros. & Co.
4,000
Julian Milling Co.
5,300
Lindsay Chair Co.
24,000
Van Lindley Nursery Co.
40,000
Merchants' Grocery Co.
18,000
Mount Pleasant Mfg. Co.
37.200
Mineola Mfg Co.
40,000
North State Bobbin Co. 3,050
Odell Hardware Co.
49,500
Oakdale Cotton Mills 50,000
Piedmont Cotton Co. 5.000
25,000
Proximity Mfg. Co.
150,000
Piedmont Shuttle Works
5,000
Piedmont Table Co.
12,400
Revolution Cotton Mills
300,000
L. Richardson Drug Co.
22,000
Summerfield Gun Club
300
J W Scott Co.
30,000
Sherwood Bobbin Mfg. Co.
6,000
Simpson-Shields Shoe Co.
18,000
Snow Lumber Co.
75,000
Snow Basket Co.
3,500
Southern Chair Co.
20,000
Tucker & Irwin.
2,000
Tate Furniture Co.
48,000
High Point Shirt Mfg. Co.
Pomona Terra Cotta Co.
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GUILFORD COUNTY, .
Tomlinson Chair Co.
9,000
Vanstory Clothing Co. 18,000
Victor Chair Co.
1,250
West End Land Co.
2,400
Ward Shoe Co.
3,000
Wakefield Hardware Co.
12,100
Welch Furniture Co.
15,000
GUILFORD COLLEGE
GUILFORD COLLEGE.
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NORTH CAROLINA.
CHAPTER X.
HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN GUILFORD COUNTY.
Prior to the Revolutionary War the classical school of Dr. David Caldwell was the centre of educational work in the state and in the south. The early settlers brought with them love of culture. The education of the orphan children was cared for by law and manual training given them.
The old Minute Books of Pleas and Quarter Sessions have many in- stances of children being bound out to a master, who would give them a certain number of months at school and "to learn them the art and mystery of weaving," or farming, or coopering, etc., and give them freedom dues, a set of tools and a suit of clothes. The masters agreed "to find them suf- ficient dyet and lodging and give them learning as the law directs." One record shows the boy should get "one suit on and off when free" and "learn the art and mystery of a tanner."
In the Minute Book of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions of 1784, page 82, in the office of the clerk at Greensboro, N. C., is shown. that Mary Carnaham, aged ten years, was bound to Andrew Carnaham until she arrive at the age of eighteen years. Her guardian promised then to give her a cow and calf and spinning wheel, also he promised to give her a year's schooling as soon as possible.
In November, 1784, it is ordered that William Millon, orphan, aged thirteen years the fifteenth of February next, be bound to John McBride until he arrive at the age of twenty-one years, to learn the art of a cooper, and the said John McBride doth here agree to learn or caused to be learned the said apprentice, Wm. Millon, to read, write and cipher as far as the rule of three, before he is free, and at the time of his freedom to give him one good suit of clothes and a set of tools."
Minute book of Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, May, 1799: "Ordered that Abigal Perry, aged eight years, an orphan, be bound to Capt. Patrick Shaw until she arrive at the age of maturity agreeable to law, at and before which time he is to learn her to read the Bible and also the different arts of a spinster and to give her a full suit of clothes, when free, exclusive of her common apparel and also a new flax wheel."
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GUILFORD COUNTY,
Minute Book, August, 1804, page 300: "Ordered that a child of color, aged six years, named Hannah, free born, be bound to James Dicks until she arrives at the full age of eighteen years. He is to teach her to read and to give her freedom dues."
From Colonial days Guilford County has been foremost in educational work in North Carolina. Presbyterian and Quaker have been alike zealous in the cause. Soon after building homes in the pioneer country, churches and schools were erected. As in the Old Country, Church and State had been united, so in this New Country Religion and Education were at first closely allied. The preacher was most often teacher as well. In 1766 or '67 Dr. David Caldwell established his classical school in Guilford County, at that time the northeastern part of Rowan County, about three miles from the present site of Greensboro. . This became the. most noted school of the South. For many years "his log cabin college served for North Carolina as an academy, a college, and a theological seminary." An able Presbyterian divine, the Rev. E. B. Currie, says that "Dr. Caldwell, as a teacher, was probably more useful to the church than any one man in the United States."*
"Five of his scholars became governors of different states ; many more became members of Congress; and a much greater number became lawyers, judges, physicians and ministers of the gospel. It would have been a credit to any man to have been the instructor of such men as Judge Murphy, Judge McCoy, John M. Morehead and others."
The most illustrious names in the educational history of North Carolina are the names of David Caldwell, from 1766 to 1824; Dr. Calvin Henderson Wiley, from 1840; and Dr. Charles D. McIver in later years, upon whom the sacred mantle has descended.
DR. DAVID CALDWELL.
David Caldwell, the son of a Scotch-Irish farmer, was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, March the twenty-second,
* See the Hist. of Education in N. C., by Charles Lee Smith, page 27.
.
.
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NORTH CAROLINA.
1725. After receiving the rudiments of an education, he began life as a carpenter, working at this trade until his twenty-sixth year. Deciding to become a minister, his first steps were to obtain a classical education. For some time he studied in eastern Penn- sylvania at the school of Rev. Robert Smith, the father of John. B. Smith, president of Hampden-Sydney College, and of Rev. Samuel Stanhope Smith, D. D., at one time president of Princeton College. Before entering college David Caldwell taught school one or more years.
At the time he entered Princeton, "candidates for admission into the lowest class must be capable of composing grammatical Latin, translating Virgil, Cicero's Orations, and the four Evan- gelists in Greek."
His biographer, Dr. Caruthers, relates that : "An elderly gentleman of good standing in one of Dr. Caldwell's congregations stated to me *
* that when a young man Dr. Caldwell was spending a night at his father's one summer about harvest, and while they were all sitting out in the open air after supper *
* * Dr. Caldwell observed that, so far as his own experience had gone, there was nothing unwholesome in the night air; for while he was in college, he usually studied in it and slept in it, during the. warm weather, as it was his practice to study at a table by the window, with the sash raised, until a late hour, then cross his arms on the table, lay his head down and sleep there until morning. This was not very far behind the most inveterate students of the seventeenth century, * * * and a man who had strength of constitution to pursue such a course of application, though of moderate abilities, could hardly fail to become a scholar." See Caruther's Caldwell, page 20.
In 1761 he graduated at Princeton. For a year he taught at Cape May, then took a graduate course and acted as tutor in languages as well at Princeton.
At a meeting of the Presbytery held at Princeton, 1762, David Cald- well was received as a candidate for the ministry. In 1763 he was licensed to preach; in 1764 he labored as a missionary in North Carolina, returning to New Jersey in 1765, being ordained to the full work of the ministry, he immediately returned to North Carolina, where he labored as missionary, until March 3, 1768, he was installed as pastor of the Buffalo and Alamance congregations, of Guilford County.
Dr. Caldwell was one of the first Presbyterian ministers to
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GUILFORD COUNTY,
make the state his permanent home. His history is identified with the religious and educational history of the state more than is that of any other one man of the eighteenth century.
Dr. Caldwell was one of the first Presbyterian ministers to make the ` State his permanent home. His history is identified with the religious and educational history of the State more than is that of any other one man of the eighteenth century.
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