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    Randolph County
    Randolph County
    Randolph County
    Ebook198 pages1 hour

    Randolph County

    By L. McKay Whatley

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    About this ebook

    The geographic heart of North Carolina, Randolph County has been at the crossroads of history since the 17th century, when explorers first arrived along the Great Indian Trading Path. Every variety of religion, creed, and color could be found in the county from its creation in 1779, with combinations that often proved volatile. From the Uwharrie Mountains in the west to the Deep River Valley on the east, Randolph County has been home to powerful opposing forces. It is a county where potters are more common than doctors. It is home to five of North Carolina's first textile mills, yet it remains one of the state's leading agricultural producers. Its residents refused to secede from the Union but sent six companies into Confederate service. Although settled by pacifist Quakers, bitter guerrilla warfare pitted neighbor against neighbor in both the American Revolution and the Civil War. A dry county that permits no sales of alcoholic beverages, it fostered the racing spirit of NASCA R by running moonshine along its back roads. It is a county with a history, politics, and people of vision, depth, and complexity.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439641576
    Randolph County
    Author

    L. McKay Whatley

    Author L. McKay Whatley is a Randolph County native and lifelong resident. Born in Asheboro in 1955, he graduated from Asheboro High School and Harvard University. Whatley is the author of The Architectural History of Randolph County, published in 1985. He is a lawyer in private practice and has been mayor of the town of Franklinville for 20 years.

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      Book preview

      Randolph County - L. McKay Whatley

      Hill.)

      One

      A PLACE TO CALL HOME

      In 2008, it was estimated that some 60,000 homes stand in Randolph County, with about 77 percent of them owned, not rented. But the place now called Randolph was home to homo sapiens long before colonists traveled the Indian Trading Path and the Great Wagon Road from Virginia and Pennsylvania. The county was home to thousands of years of aboriginal life, and the stone artifacts of those people still turn up in the wake of bulldozers to remind people of their prior claim on the land. And there were more peoples than John Lawson’s oft-cited Keyauwees (though that name survives in anglicized form in our familiar Caraway mountains, creek, and racetrack): the Totero, or Tutelo, lived on the Uwharrie, and other relatives of the Catawba or Siouan tribes, with names now lost, roamed the county.

      Once pioneer settlers began arriving in the 1740s, the trickle became a flood and has not stopped yet. A Colonial home might start out as a cellar or hillside dugout, evolve into a log cabin, expand into a frame house with timbers pegged together, and be replaced after 100 years by some elaborate Victorian concoction out of a catalog. What is seen of the history of Randolph County today is a small fraction of what was once here, and what survives is usually cloaked today in modern dress. Always, though, the appearance reflected the values and tastes of the individual and should tell a lot about the places they called home.

      This is the log cabin home of Enos Blair (1750–1834), built around 1770. The V-notched log structure is now hidden behind later additions, but it is one of the oldest houses illustrated in T. T. Waterman’s classic book The Early Architecture of North Carolina. One room and a loft, with a massive stone fireplace built inside the pen of logs, the Blair house still stands near Archdale-Trinity Middle School and may be the oldest remaining home in Randolph County.

      The William Cox Old House is a full-dovetail-notch oak log cabin built in 1761. It stood 2.5 miles south of Ramseur on what became Oakland Farm, the demonstration farm of Hugh Parks of Franklinville. Parks was the first farm owner in the region to keep purebred stock such as Aberdeen-Angus cattle, Berkshire hogs, and White Leghorn poultry. At the time of this picture, around 1900, it was used as a tenant house. (MW.)

      Jobe Allen (1816–1900) was a grandson of Pennsylvania emigrant John Allen, whose sister married Herman Husbands. His father was Nathan Allen and his mother Martha Cox. The overshot coverlet used as a backdrop serves as a reminder that the Quakers of the Holly Spring area were well known for their hand-weaving skills.

      Jobe Allen built this home after moving to the Holly Spring community in 1830. His daughter Dinah Susannah (1851–1934) and wife Welmet Kemp (1819–1888) stand to the right; the woman seated on the woodpile is unidentified. The original Allen log cabin is the section to the left; it is almost identical to the Blair house. A second cabin was built to the right and connected by a covered passage (now covered with clapboards) that is today called the Dog Trot or Possum Trot type of cabin plan.

      These are silhouette portraits of Jeduthan Harper (1736–1819) and his wife, Gizeal Parke Harper (1755–1845). Harper was a lieutenant colonel of the Chatham County militia, where in 1776 he served as sheriff. He moved to Randolph County in 1781, where he served as register of deeds and then in 1787 was elected to be the county’s second clerk of court. Harper’s son Jesse (1787–1851) also served as clerk of court, daughter Ann Elizabeth married future governor John Motley Morehead of Greensboro, and daughter Sara married Alexander Gray, a merchant who became the county’s wealthiest man and largest slave owner. Jeduthan Harper’s will emancipated his own slaves and provided them with land, horses, and cash. (Courtesy of Blandwood

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