USA > North Carolina > Guilford County > Greensboro > The history of the first North Carolina reunion at Greensboro, N. C., October eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth, nineteen hundred and three > Part 11
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But what of all this? The lesson a North Carolinian who has spent the years of his manhood in a proud and successful city would bring to his own people today is this: Let the world know what opportunities North Carolina has for capital and men of character and enterprise. Advertise to the world that here capital can find safe and profitable investment, and men and women homes under fair laws, with fruitful soil, kindly and healthful elimate, and every blessing that cheers the heart of man. You have capital, and you have men. But more men and more capital added to the present population and wealth would make this State the richest and most prosperous, as it is the fairest, in the world.
In my city we talk a great deal about "the Atlanta spirit"-and by this is meant, the hearty co-operation of all her citizens upon any proposition for the moral or material betterment of the city. If it does not already exist let us have the "North Carolina spirit"-the spirit that believes in North Carolina; that realizes her destiny; that will sacrifice personal ends and interests for her good; that will co-operate regardless of party or creed in every work looking to her advancement and glory.
This occasion is inspiring. We congratulate and thank those who have originated this home-coming. It is an inspiration and a lesson for those of us from beyond the State. We drink anew at the fountain of our early and best love, and feel again the loving arms of our mother State. We are proud of her
Dr. Paul Barringer Chairman of Faculty of University of Virginia
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present prosperity, and glory in her future greatness, She is standing in the dawn of an era of unexampled growth and industrial progress. Her flag is raised, and her sons and daughters are following it. It is the same flag that floated at Guilford, at King's Mountain, at Gettysburg, at Cardenas, and at Santiago. There her sons followed and did not falter. It is raised now in the cause of industrial and educational endeavor, and victory shall erown it, for the men who fought beneath it have the brain, the blood, the brawn, and the purpose to carry it on to heights of undreamed splendor.
Address by Dr. Paul Barringer Of the University of Virginia
Your Excellency, the Governor of North Carolina, the members of the Guilford Battle Ground Association, Ladies, and Gentlemen:
Allow me first to express my pleasure at being here, and my obligations to Dr. MeIver for the opportunity he has given to me and other expatriated North Carolinians to meet again on home soil. It is particularly fitting that this old commonwealth should be the first in the South to inaugurate such a home-com- ing, for she is pre-eminently the home State.
You have had such excellent words of hope and good cheer from others who have come to do honor to the State of their birth that I arise with some trepida- tion to bring my message and contribution. As a North Carolinian, one half of whose life has been spent without the borders of the State, I will take as the burden of my discourse today, the essential characteristics which I have found as peculiar to the sons of the Old North State at home and abroad. I believe, however, that I can speak as one who knows; for I have lived in several States besides my own, and I am familiar with North Carolinians in almost every State in the Union and in every walk in life.
There is a common saying: "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world". The same idea is expressed in the saving: "Give me the boy before his teens, and I care not who has him afterwards he is mine to the end". In both of these old sayings we have a tribute to the potency of early influence.
There is, however, an influence which antedates this. The soil from which our forebears sprung, the air they breathed, the peculiar social conditions under which they lived-all made for the evolution of a type before our parents were born. In North Carolina these forces have been at work upon our people for two centuries, and let us see what has been evolved as a race trait. Perhaps I may best explain by analogy.
In a storm-girdled land in the hands of a strong persistent home-loving race (the Dutch), a bird, a simple dove, long known to mankind, has been found to have evolved peculiar instincts. Taken from the towers of Antwerp to any ยท other spot on earth, this bird's home yearning turns him, in swift flight, straight for the loft in which he was born. Young or old, captive to the vicissitudes of fortune in strange lands, he never forgets, but bears ever present in his breast the memory of his home. By the cultivation of the homing instinet, tested by the stern hazard of the flight ordeal. the homing pigeon has been evolved- quiet, brave, enduring, faithful to the end, fit emblem of any State, he stands the mysterious product of a peculiar locality.
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In the same way the Old North State has implanted the homing instinct in every child horn of her soil. You men of Carolina who have not left the old roof-tree, who have not seen your brethren captives of fortune, you do not appreciate the best that is within your own breasts.
Years ago I met a gentleman from Ohio, a famous newspaper correspondent -a gentleman who honors us with his presence here today. In response to the spirit of kinship created by the knowledge of a common ancestral soil, he told me of his old father, how, leaving Orange County, N. C., when a boy, he went to Ohio, where he reared a family, and lived to be more than eighty years of age. He told me how, despite the new interests, the new associations, the estranging influences of new political needs, the old man still clung in memory to the home of his birth. and sixty-odd years after leaving the State. be still referred to it. a4 " down home".
Wherever you go it is the same; the North Carolinian, even when anchored deep in an adopted State, still feels this yearning and voices it even in his form of speech. In the border cities of Virginia, where the expatriated Carolinians are numbered by the thousand, this local term of fond remembrance is so often heard that it gives a name to a class. The "down-home" crowd of Norfolk or Danville simply attest how universal is their State peculiarity.
There is another way in which this human homing instinct manifests itself. It gives to the North Carolinian, both at home and abroad, a love of State rather than the usual State pride. There is a subtle difference in these forms of attachment. Love of State makes for State love in misfortune as well as in success-an eternal, unfailing loyalty. I have lived in States which had State pride-State pride perhaps in excess; but in no other people have I ever found the same simple love of locality found here.
In a State settled by English, by Scotch, German, Swiss, Huguenot, and Scotch-Irish, which extends over two and one-half degrees of latitude, and rises from tidewater to mountains six thousand feet above the sea, you would expect to find a decided diversity in kind; but we have a singular homogenity in type. The early isolation and the peculiar social conditions of the State have evolved from all these types and tellurie conditions a man as distinctive as the product of any other State on earth-simple, unpretentious, rugged, strong, lasting.
North Carolina is the only State in the Union with a motto that was not ready-made. Most of the States, in a spirit as it were of prophecy, adopted a motto when statehood was assumed; but with you. after more than a century of waiting, you had yours not only made to order, but fitted on. Your motto fitted your history exactly. Despite a wonderful educational and industrial growth, your motto still fits you: and as one who admires the simple life of his native State I would urge that, no matter what vistas of opportunity and success may open for you in the future, you continue to cherish and preserve the ideals embraced in osse quam videri.
Address by Mr. Murat Halstead, of Ohio
Mr. Chairman, Governor Aycock, Ladies, and Gentlemen:
I count this day auspicions in my calendar, for its greeting under the serene skies, and in the pleasant land of the home of my ancestors. We are in the midst of scenes memorable in history. The stars in their courses are all benig-
Mr. Murat Halstead, of Ohio
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nant, and they have shone near and far with the splendors of war. It is not without diffidence and emotion, I find myself met, not as a pilgrim stranger, but of the kindred and neighbors, welcomed as one returning from a long journey to his father's honse. As one of the grandsons of the stalwart State of North Carolina, I do not feel I am unworthy your courteous and kindly consideration. I have not been unmindful of the storied traditions of the old State, and her records of the glories won by heroes on her battlefieldls, searched and stricken by the flame of the rifle, or marked by the furrows of the plow, in the corn- or cotton-fields. The sacred river by which a "stately pleasure dome" was decreed and arose-and this must have been ages ago in Asiatie dreamers' days, yet the like thing has lately happened in this State. A monarch of many mil- lions of golden coin bas accounted for his palace, saying North Carolina furn- ished a painting worth more than the structure reared, that he might display to friends the wonderful picture gallery beheld from windows Westward. It is of the mountains, the river, and the skies. The celestial light that falls is furn- ished freely, and the franchise is forever. The sapphire arch spans the glorious collection of beauties, with which a zone of States from the South Atlantic to the Mississippi is endowed. Profound meaning is attached to the studies of the skies-the constellations and the clouds-and it has seemed to me a problem that might perplex: why my grandfather, John Halstead, held on his way through the magical, delectable mountains; entered Daniel Boone's paradise by way of Cumberland Gap; and beyond, where the pastures of Kentucky-the grass that caught the tint of the Carolina and Tennessee sky-spread like a blue ocean hung on high. But having committed himself to the adventure of leaving North Carolina, he crossed the beautiful river the French loved and lost, and found another goodly land with fruitful forests in the Miami country.
There are three Miami Rivers in Ohio-the Great aud the Little, and the Miami of the Lakes. Miami is Wyandotte for mother-the word uearest the divine.
When we speak of the war of the States and sections in our country, it should he in terms that tell the truth fully and exactly, with regard for all and hostility for none, and that are instinct with household intimacy and affec- tion. Let us call it-Our American Home War. Under the terms of the treaty made by Grant and Lee, and the war was over, a Southern member of the National House of Representatives was interrupted, in a way that challenged his standing, when he had the floor. One word -- Appomattox-contains the full significance of the war and the peace, and the moral honor of Robert E. Lee, the potentiality of his character, made guerilla warfare impossible; and he should be always remembered and honored for it. There was glory enough to go around, and praise forever for all brave and humane men. The peace was peace with honor-all the heroes of the war were Americans. The sky that had been red with flame was fair with the white light of the glad tidings that the sword was not "to devour forever". The Southern Representative, stung by a taunt, was equal to the time and place. He said, in a tone and with a gesture that gave a general thrill of satisfaction and congraulation: "We are here in our father's house, and come to stay!" There was instant recognition that the solemn, ringing utterance was true, lofty, and timely. The representative man of the hour dlid uot say a superfluous word-not even "again". He was equal with all others of the children of the common household-not a captive, but a citizen. His declaration was not boastful-it was vibrant with veracity. There was in it the melody of the "Old Kentucky Home", and the pathos of the Suwanee River.
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We are all in our father's house now to stay. There are many States, and mansions-rooms for all. We have been educated into better acquaintance with each other-North and South, East and West -- in four years of war, than we could have gathered in a generation or a century of peace. Our country has been fused and welded into a world power. The war was a combat of giants; but all the elements of progress evolve great nations. Our destiny decreed is the primacy. Our constellation of stars is a system of suns, each with inherent light and fire, indissoluble, inviolable, in majestic unity.
I am told the only grandson of North Carolina, among the guests of the State at the Reunion, is myself. It seems a requirement of sensitive propriety that I should speak in this presence, in a representative character, of my people: and place before you my credentials. It was along the road that led to this battlefield my grandfather moved his family West a century ago: and my granddaughter is with me, studying the past, representing the future. It is due to hospitality, that those who honor me and mine, should be introduced to my "down-home" kindred. I am myself a " down-homer", if I understand, and I distinctly do, the Carolinian vernacular. I could live here without complaining that the air had not oxygen enough in it. I suppose the air is almost as viviry- ing as in Old Currituck, called the "Honk Corner"', out of admiration for the music of the waterfowl, and the winds from the stormy sea.
There is generally, when an interest is taken in tracing ancestral immigra- tions, a tale that "Three Brothers" sailed together and landed at an incredible time on an invisible shore. That tripartite story has been recited of the Halsteads; but I don't believe the usual fancy applies to our case. There was a presumption that we came from Halstead, a town in Essex, thirty miles from London; and I thought that might be so, until I ascertained by examining the books, kept in a steel vault in the cathedral, and questioning the safe guardians. that there had not been a Halstead. a citizen of Halstead. for three hundred years! That seemed to settle it. However, a professional antiquarian offered to find out all about the Halsteads for a millennium of time. if I would give him the job, and pay him for the labor of investigating; but I declined. It was said a mystical badge, possibly a coat of arms, which was produced in red wax. existed in the mythical age of man; and also a cap or cape ( I forget which), that had a weird embroidery of a figure that did not tell anybody anything: and whatever this was, quaint or strange, passed away in the sudden and swift burning of a wooden house, of the sort that are the crematories of history. The little information I have of the English home of our Halsteads is that they lived in the village of Chiselhurst and neighborhood, on the way from London to Canterbury. My grandfather told me that he was the fifth John Halstead in as many generations, all born in America; and so they must have been old settlers. I have copied the inscriptions on the tombs of my grandfather and grandmother, and my father, and I have transcribed the Bible record of births and deaths, and give this because there is a certainty and official responsibility about the dates that are fixed points of fact: and realizing the wear and tear and waste of authenticity the surprise is not that there is so little testimony presented, but so much.
FROM THE RECORDS IN THE FAMILY BIBLE
John Halstead was born January 6, 1773. Ruth Richardson was born July 24, 1775.
Dr. B. F. Dixon Auditor of North Carolina
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BIRTHS OF THE CHILDREN OF JOHN AND RUTH HALSTEAD
Rebecca Halstead was born Jannary 16, 1794. Ivy Halstead was born January 11, 1797. Patsy Halstead was born March 28, 1800. Griffin Halstead was born June 11, 1802. John Halstead was born November 8. 1804. Sarah Halstead was born December 21, 1809. Ruth Halstead was born May 24, 1814.
BIRTHS OF THE CHILDREN OF GRIFFIN AND CLARISSA HALSTEAD
Carolina Halstead was born September 1, 1828. Murat Halstead was born September 2, 1829. Helen Halstead was born November 11, 1831. Benton Halstead was born March 11, 1834.
FROM THE TOMBSTONES In Memory of JOHN HALSTEAD NATIVE OF NORTH CAROLINA who departed this life February 16, 1$55. Aged eighty-four years and one month,
In Memory of RUTH CONSORT OF JOHN HALSTEAD who departed this life September 30, 1841, Aged sixty-six years, three months, and seven days. Native of Pasquotank County, N. C., and a member of the Methodist Church for fifty-one years.
The dynasty of the John Halsteads of Currituck lasted four generations, and then it ceased to be a line of oldest sons. The John Halstead, my grand- father, was not the senior son. His name was Mathias; and the John of the generation named his younger son for himself. He lived at Monte- znma, Ind., on the Wabash, and was killed in a steamboat accident. He named his only son John; and he was serving in an Illinois regiment, and was severely wounded in the battle of Stone River, and perished of the wound. My oldest son was named John, and died when aged three months; and my oldest grandson, the last-named John, passed away in infancy. The Halsteads of the "Honk Corner" of North Carolina-Currituck- were farmers, skilled in building their own houses and furnishing them with
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their workmanship. They were expert carpenters, and there was nothing in wood work they could not lo expertly. This talent promoted the fable that their first appearance on the sounds of North Carolina was as ship builders, "three brothers" of course. but never discovered. There was a tragedy in which three Halstead brotsers disappeared. They were on Albemarle Sound in a schooner, when in a squall the gib flew around and killed the youngest, knock- ing him overboard and he was seen no more. The survivors landed, secured provisions from the colored people, and put to sea, saying they were going to Cuba. They did not dare face their father, and after many years there was a story that they had made their home in Cuba; but they never wrote a letter, and disappeared.
The basic business of the Halsteads of Curritnek was farming, but the soil did not beguile them with opulent variety, and so they highly appreciated their unlimited rights to the wild geese ( hence the "Honk Corner") and to the per- petual harvest of fish-the realsnapper and the sheepshead. The fish at least remain, and there is still sport and even spoil on the waters-fish of the rarest flavor, displaying the prodigality of nature, world without end, food galore. As for the canvasbaek ducks and diamond-backed terrapin, they were held, before the Halstead immigration from the tidal country, as rather too cheap for white folks to eat. Perhaps the colored cooks of those days were deceptive in dealing with the masterful whites, and knew what was good well and wisely for their own good. William Cullen Bryant was the first man who addressed "Lines to a Waterfowl". As for realing matter, the Bible was held to be good enough for anybody, and sufficient for all. It was read every day, and newspapers were almost unknown. My grandfather was brought up almost exelusively on the Scriptures, to which was added the Methodist Discipline; and he never saw a newspaper uutil he was eighteen years old. The latest news was confined to pamphlets and the prophets. The relations of separated families were main- tained through letters. When my grandfather was in his ninth year he was seut to Elizabeth City for epistles; heard a dreadful sound and felt a shocking shake -bursts of thundering, and the soft earth shivered and quaked. The inference was a hideous tempest was raking the Capes of Virginia. It was the sea fight in which the French fleet from the West Indies repulsed the British from New York, and made sure the surrender of Cornwallis. The people of the town were out in the streets-that is the women and children were, for the men had "goue to the war". There was terror when the broadsides of the battleships literally. as Tennyson put it, "volleyed and thundered". and the distant jarring and roaring seemed ominous of endless woe. The people cared more in those days than they do now about the end of the world-for the news they eared most for was many centuries, at least, old, and the sound of battle seemed a sign that the earth might collapse.
When the War of the Revolution and Independence was over, the West was the land of promise for the people on the Atlantic slope. George Washington knew more and eared more about the West than any other man born between tidal waves. Ohio received immigrants from all the original States. The people of my mother were from the "Susquehanna's side"; and while the Hal- steads traveled the length of North Carolina, and the Willits, my mother's family, moved on the line of the National Road, their meeting was on the Great Miami. This was the union of the North and South; and so it is simple heredity I was born to revere Andrew Jackson and believe in Daniel Webster. It was with hopeful dreams of better lands that the tide of immigration poured from Atlantic tidewater to the Ohio Valley-and the Halsteads found mulberry.
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persimmon, sugar maple, black and white walnut, oak. ash, and hickory trees, and springs of bright waters-where the floods of rivers did not inolest or make afraid-and built in 1810 houses and barns of slippery-eim logs; bred horses. cattle, sheep, and hogs; and from year to year enlarged the cornfiekis, and pros- pered. Other North Carolinians came and assisted in making Butler County the Gibraltar of the Ohio Democracy. The only political contention between my father and grandfather was as to bestowing the higher faith and utterly bound- less devotion npon Andrew Jackson. I was saved from condemnation in cast- ing my only Presidential vote before my grandfather's death for Frank. Pierce -but there was a strong breeze that shook the white sycamores around onr honse, when I held out on the proposition that Daniel Webster-was a greater statesman than John C. Calhoun, and preferred any other newspaper to the "Charleston Merenry". However, I had the saving grace to agree with my father and grandfather that Andrew Jackson was right when he influenced the "'re-annexation of Texas", and applauded the good women of Cincinnati, who raised the money to buy and presented the two brass six-pounders that spoke out in meeting for Sam Houston, with Santa Anna at San Jacinto. There was another saving point in politeal life in that I knew as well as the rest of the family that Andrew Jackson was born in North Carolina. There was still another help when I left home "'to go to college". It was my fate to fall into the hands of a Scotch professor who taught political economy on the free-trade plan, and it took me several years to outgrow it.
In simple justice to them I must say here my father and grandfather lived many years after leaving North Carolina; but they remained obstinately, even aggressively, Carolinians to the last. My father had a severe trial when John Morgan rode through the Miami country, positively crossed Paddy's Run, and took the liberty of riding off the horses of life-long Democrats. Father thought that was wrong, and later was disturbed when his younger son, named for "Tom" Benton, of Missouri, not only " marched through Georgia", but North Carolina also, with Sherman; and was even a Captain and a combatant in the battle, named of all things ". Bentonville". It was the fortune of war, however; and as the young man was reported to be a steady, hard fighter, the fact that he was incidentally on the wrong side, aud yet was not killed, was forgiven.
The old-style Halsteads were so proud of North Carolina, they did not care to say much about the fact that they were born close to the Virginia line. How- ever, they were in a second degree proud of Virginia, too. There is something in the superstition that Virginians can not bear that, but it has been exag- gerated.
The first child of my parents was a daughter named Carolina. My father called her for the State, and her recorded name is not as her father gave it- but she died in her early infancy. My grandfather wrote a pamphlet, rolled the bundles into his big fireplace, and it was speedily "out of print ". The author burned the whole edition, except three copies stolen, on account of faulty proof- reading. There have appeared several signs of traces of literary proclivities in our folks, and we have narrowly escaped " dramatic ability". Rev. William Riley Halstead* is a grandson of Reuben Halstead, a younger brother of my
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