[00:00:39.160] [music] [00:00:36.840] Some ten thousand years ago, [00:00:39.800] Indians hunted, fished, and lived in the present Davie County. [00:00:45.240] Arrowheads, broken pottery, tools, and some [00:00:47.800] skeletal remains have been found, [00:00:50.560] especially along the Yadkin and South Yadkin rivers. [00:00:54.440] They built V shaped rock dams, or fish falls, [00:00:57.200] which can still be seen at low water on the Yadkin River. [00:01:03.880] An opening in the V part of the dam [00:01:05.400] made it easier to catch fish for food. [00:01:08.720] Also, the Indians burned areas [00:01:11.240] of forest so they could drive game, [00:01:14.000] especially deer, into the clearings [00:01:16.880] and kill them for food. [00:01:19.400] When settlers first came they found an [00:01:22.000] abundance of trees for houses and fuel [00:01:25.520] and cleared lands for planting and pasture. [00:01:28.840] The area had a mild climate, was well [00:01:31.400] watered by numerous streams. [00:01:34.000] There was plentiful game for food, including [00:01:37.080] buffalo, deer, bear, and wild turkeys. [00:01:40.440] There are also wolves, panthers, and poisonous snakes. [00:01:46.160] Salt lakes on Dutchman and Elisha Creeks, [00:01:48.280] and several varieties of nut trees, [00:01:51.440] attracted bear and deer. [00:01:54.200] The buffalo found in our area were much smaller [00:01:57.040] than those found on the Great Plains in the West. [00:02:01.960] Rivers and streams had to be crossed where the [00:02:04.520] water was shallow, the stream bed rocky. [00:02:08.320] The Shallow Ford crossing of the Yadkin River between [00:02:11.160] Yadkin and Forsyth counties was [00:02:13.760] near northern Davie County. [00:02:16.400] A main crossing much used by early settlers, [00:02:20.600] it is said to have been eighteen inches deep [00:02:23.240] and a hundred yards wide at normal flow. [00:02:26.680] The riverbed is rocky as the rippling water shows, [00:02:30.680] making it an ideal crossing point. [00:02:34.880] Another [?], the shoals at Cooleemee [00:02:38.000] and [?] further upstream [00:02:40.720] were main crossings of the South Yadkin. [00:02:44.600] A much traveled road, [00:02:46.040] the Georgia Road, cross northwestern [00:02:48.680] Davie County carrying settlers southward [00:02:52.000] from the Shallow Ford. [00:02:54.720] Davie County was the southern part of a large [00:02:57.440] area between the Yadkin and South Yadkin Rivers, [00:03:01.200] known as [00:03:02.080] the Forks of Yadkin, [00:03:04.080] in what was then Rowan County. [00:03:07.960] Among the first settlers in our area were the Bryans [00:03:11.160] who settled the Farmington section [00:03:13.800] and the Boones who had land [00:03:16.360] grants on Elisha, Bear, Dutchman, [00:03:19.280] and Hunting Creeks. [00:03:21.440] Both families came down from Pennsylvania. [00:03:25.600] In 1753 Squire Boone, [00:03:28.360] Daniel Boone's father, [00:03:31.000] received a grant for six hundred and forty acres on [00:03:33.840] Bear Creek near Mocksville [00:03:35.960] and a second grant where Elisha Creek [00:03:39.240] joins Dutchman Creek in southeastern Davie. [00:03:44.080] Many people squatted land, [00:03:46.800] that is, they just lived on it without [00:03:49.480] getting a deed or land grant. [00:03:52.360] Land was plentiful and cheap in the 1700s. [00:03:57.840] At Joppa Cemetary [00:03:59.600] the Squire Boone gravestone, [00:04:00.600] the larger stone dated 1765, [00:04:04.880] is the oldest known grave marker [00:04:07.520] in our county. [00:04:09.120] Sarah Morgan Boone, his wife, [00:04:11.800] was buried at Joppa in 1777. [00:04:16.280] Some other Joppa gravestones are [00:04:18.960] also over two hundred years old. [00:04:23.560] In addition to the homesteads of Squire, John, and Daniel Boone, [00:04:29.080] four other Boone families owned land and lived [00:04:31.720] in Davie County. [00:04:33.400] They're identified on a plaque [00:04:36.040] placed at Joppa Cemetery by Howell Boone. [00:04:40.480] As previously noted, the present Davie County [00:04:43.720] was part of old Rowan County, created in 1753. [00:04:48.640] Comprising much of Piedmont and western North Carolina. [00:04:53.520] The Rowan Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions met four times each year. [00:04:59.280] Note Squire Boone's name as [00:05:01.800] a justice or member of that court. [00:05:04.960] This court was the government for Rowan County [00:05:07.520] and also tried criminal [00:05:10.120] and civil cases as a court of law. [00:05:13.480] Daniel Boone was about nineteen years old [00:05:16.240] when he came to what is today Davie County [00:05:19.000] with his parents, Squire and Sarah Boone. [00:05:22.360] In 1756, at age twenty-two, [00:05:25.640] he married Rebecca Bryan, age seventeen. [00:05:29.680] They lived for some six years on Sugar Creek [00:05:32.720] in northeastern Davie County. [00:05:36.280] The cabin is believed to have stood [00:05:38.800] near this present clump of trees. [00:05:41.920] Rocks from the foundation and chimney base [00:05:45.280] are said to have been used to wall this well. [00:05:49.480] Their first two sons, James and Israel, [00:05:52.360] were born here. [00:05:54.120] Both were killed by Indians in Kentucky [00:05:57.080] and Tennessee. [00:05:59.080] About 1764, [00:06:00.920] Daniel and Rebecca moved to Wilkes County [00:06:03.800] for several years before moving [00:06:06.520] to Kentucky and Missouri. [00:06:09.960] This is Daniel Boone in later life as hunter and frontiersmen. [00:06:14.680] It was in Davie County that the young man Daniel Boone [00:06:17.960] learned about the frontier [00:06:20.360] and was later able to become the great hunter, [00:06:23.600] explorer, and leader of settlers [00:06:26.320] to the Ohio Valley West. [00:06:29.200] John Boone, Squire Boone's nephew, [00:06:32.160] built this log house at Center Methodist Church [00:06:35.560] probably in the 1750s. [00:06:38.520] It stood until about 1935. [00:06:41.960] His home and six hundred and thirty acre land grant [00:06:44.680] grant were on Hunting Creek [00:06:47.360] near the Squire Boone home site. [00:06:49.920] John Boone was known for his great physical strength [00:06:52.680] and is said to have once killed, [00:06:55.680] with a stick of wood, [00:06:57.360] a panther which was attacking a pig. [00:07:01.320] The Bryan families were among the earliest settlers [00:07:04.320] in Davie County and northeastern Davie [00:07:06.840] was known as the Bryan settlement. [00:07:09.800] Morgan Bryan was seventy-seven [00:07:12.320] when he, his wife Martha, [00:07:14.880] and their nine children and their families came. [00:07:19.040] Morgan Bryan's granddaughter, Rebecca Bryan, [00:07:22.000] became the wife of Daniel Boone. [00:07:25.080] This is the Martha Bryan grave marker [00:07:28.520] with a date 1762, [00:07:31.480] which was found near Advance. [00:07:35.600] These are the gateposts at Heidelberg Cemetery. [00:07:39.280] The Heidelberg settlement was along [00:07:41.840] Dutchman and Elisha Creeks [00:07:44.360] near the present Bethel Church and Hickory Hill area. [00:07:48.760] These settlers were German Lutherans [00:07:51.600] who first came down from Pennsylvania in the 1750s. [00:07:56.680] Names of these settlers are well known [00:07:59.400] in our county today. [00:08:01.520] They include Click, [00:08:04.040] Nail, Boo, Call, [00:08:07.480] Sane, Fry, [00:08:10.040] Beck, and Bailey. [00:08:13.480] The Heidelberg Church weather vain, [00:08:15.760] said to have been sent from Germany, [00:08:18.480] is in the Rowan Museum in Salisbury. [00:08:21.760] The church ceased to function [00:08:24.640] in the early 1800s. [00:08:27.800] This map, drawn to scale by Andrew Lagel [00:08:30.840] and based on some fifteen hundred land [00:08:33.640] deeds and grants, [00:08:35.800] shows the location and acreage of about four hundred and fifty [00:08:39.880] of the earliest land owners in the county. [00:08:42.160] Miss Flossie Martin and Mrs. Pete Tatum [00:08:46.680] did the deed research for the map. [00:08:51.560] About 1760, [00:08:53.320] during the French and Indian War, [00:08:56.240] the French paid the Indians to attack English settlements. [00:09:00.920] Cherokee Indian raids nearby [00:09:03.800] in Forsyth and Iredell counties [00:09:07.320] led to the building of a fort, or fort house, [00:09:11.200] at this [?] road site on Elisha Creek [00:09:14.600] near the Heidelberg settlement. [00:09:17.400] This small barn stands at the fort site. [00:09:21.400] While there are no records of Indian attacks in [00:09:23.960] Davie County, [00:09:25.520] the Moravian records state that in 1760, [00:09:29.600] perhaps one half the settlers had fled our area [00:09:35.400] and moved to the Moravian settlement at Bethabara [00:09:37.640] and the Fort Dobb's area near Statesville. [00:09:41.080] Daniel Boone took his family to Virginia. [00:09:46.520] The Revolutionary War began in 1776. [00:09:51.040] It is thought that in the thirteen colonies [00:09:54.400] about one third of the people wanted independence, [00:09:57.720] one third were loyal to Britain, [00:10:00.160] and one third didn't care. [00:10:03.000] Pro-British artillery sympathy [00:10:05.880] was stronger along [00:10:07.600] the Yadkin River and part of the Bryan settlement. [00:10:13.080] In 1776, the present [00:10:15.640] Liberty Methodist Church Cemetery in southern Davie [00:10:18.920] was Veach's Muster Ground, [00:10:22.160] a place where citizens met for militia drills. [00:10:26.680] Here, the Tory captain, Samuel Bryan, [00:10:30.640] fought a fist fight [00:10:32.480] with the Patriot Lieutenant Richmond Pearson [00:10:36.040] to decide whether the Forks of Yadkin militia troops [00:10:38.720] would be Patriot or Tory. [00:10:43.280] Each man later raised armies [00:10:45.800] and fought for his side. [00:10:49.040] The Revolutionary War and the conflict between [00:10:51.840] Patriots and Tories was a bitter [00:10:54.360] six year struggle. [00:10:56.520] The war touched Davie County. [00:10:59.400] On a rainy day in February 1781, [00:11:04.760] General Cornwallis' British army, [00:11:07.600] trying to overtake American General Nathanael Greene [00:11:10.640] and force a battle, [00:11:14.680] followed this approximate [00:11:16.280] route across the county [00:11:18.280] to the Shallow Ford crossing of the Yadkin. [00:11:21.920] The British army of some twenty-five hundred men [00:11:25.240] with baggage wagons, cavalry horses, and artillery [00:11:30.440] traveled some twenty miles across Davie County in one day [00:11:35.160] and crossed the South Yadkin River and five rain swollen creeks. [00:11:41.640] They did little damage to people or property. [00:11:46.920] We cannot [?] a picture of the suffering endured [00:11:50.200] during the Revolutionary War years. [00:11:53.560] Life was hard. [00:11:55.120] Food, clothes, and shoes [00:11:57.840] were scarce. [00:11:59.520] And inflation was so severe [00:12:02.320] that by January of 1782 [00:12:06.280] it took eight hundred North Carolina paper dollars [00:12:10.480] to buy one silver dollars worth of goods. [00:12:15.040] Our forefathers paid a high price [00:12:18.640] for independence and freedom. [00:12:23.000] Following the Revolutionary War and throughout [00:12:25.520] the early 1800s, [00:12:27.560] many people left the county, [00:12:29.840] leaving land to be reclaimed and resettled. [00:12:35.040] This entry taker's book, 1837 to 1910 [00:12:42.040] records claims for some twenty-one thousand acres [00:12:45.800] of abandoned land in the county. [00:12:50.040] The earliest settlers simply moved westward [00:12:54.120] and left one out of every eight acres in the county unclaimed. [00:13:00.120] This entry shows Israel Beck [00:13:03.280] claiming three hundred acres on Hunting Creek in 1837. [00:13:10.640] Many of the settlers in the Farmington area [00:13:13.400] had gone west with the Boones and Bryans [00:13:16.720] in the late 1700s. [00:13:20.000] The Farmington section was resettled [00:13:22.640] in the early 1800s [00:13:25.320] by people from Currituck County [00:13:28.320] in eastern North Carolina. [00:13:30.680] And for many years the section was known [00:13:33.480] as Little Currituck. [00:13:36.040] Hurricane damage and the need [00:13:38.800] for additional land [00:13:41.200] may have influenced the Currituck families [00:13:44.080] to come to Davie County. [00:13:47.040] Those who came included [00:13:49.600] family names Brock, [00:13:52.720] Ferebee, Taylor, [00:13:55.240] Jarvis, and Lee. [00:13:59.440] In 1823 a mysterious man, Peter Stuart Ney, [00:14:03.440] came to Davie County to teach school. [00:14:06.760] This is his signature, top left, [00:14:10.680] and his handwriting in and old school book. [00:14:14.400] He claimed to be Napoleon's [00:14:17.000] famous general and martial [00:14:19.600] of French armies. [00:14:21.320] And there is evidence that he was. [00:14:24.200] There is also evidence that he was an [00:14:26.720] imposter, a Scotsman. [00:14:29.960] Much research by well-known scholars [00:14:33.400] has failed to solve the mystery. [00:14:38.040] As this Revolutionary War pension application shows, [00:14:43.440] Mock's Old Field [00:14:44.280] was a village at the time of the American Revolution. [00:14:48.800] A post office was established at Mork's Old Field at 1810. [00:14:54.520] The name was changed to Mocksville about 1825. [00:15:01.400] In the 1800s, poorly maintained [00:15:04.480] dirt roads made it very difficult to [00:15:07.040] carry crops and produce to markets for sale. [00:15:12.920] At 1817, [00:15:14.840] an effort was made to make the [00:15:17.440] Yadkin River navigable for small boats [00:15:20.920] from Wilkesboro [00:15:22.800] through the Yadkin and the Pee Dee Rivers [00:15:26.200] to the Atlantic Ocean at Georgetown, South Carolina. [00:15:30.560] This rock canal wall in Yadkin County [00:15:34.440] shows one attempt [00:15:36.160] to bypass the rocky riverbed shoals. [00:15:40.880] This wall is about sixteen feet high and one fourth mile long. [00:15:46.360] That project was a total failure. [00:15:50.000] Benjamin Latrobe, architect of our national capital, [00:15:54.200] considered coming to direct the work [00:15:57.560] and wrote extensively about how it should be done. [00:16:02.120] In anticipation of success [00:16:04.800] two towns, Clinton and Fulton, [00:16:07.360] were laid out on the Yadkin in Davie County. [00:16:11.560] Building lots were sold, but no building was done. [00:16:17.320] In 1850, trade and travel was still so difficult [00:16:21.920] that Peter Wilson Harston [00:16:24.240] wrote his brother [00:16:25.920] that it was almost a misfortune to produce anything to sale. [00:16:31.200] Harston was sending wagons and driving [00:16:33.960] hogs as far as Lynchburg [00:16:36.960] and Petersburg, Virginia. [00:16:40.000] About 1850, a plank road [00:16:43.040] a hundred and twenty-nine miles long [00:16:46.000] was built from Fayetteville on the Cape Fear River [00:16:49.280] through High Point [00:16:51.840] and on to Winston-Salem [00:16:53.040] but it was of little use to our area. [00:16:55.960] Plank roads soon wore out [00:16:58.480] and rotted away. [00:17:01.200] In December 1836, by a 25 to 24 vote, [00:17:06.520] the North Carolina [00:17:07.600] legislature created the county of Davie. [00:17:11.280] The last of twenty-six Piedmont [00:17:14.240] and western counties [00:17:16.280] created out of old Rowan County. [00:17:20.400] William R. Davie, outstanding Revolutionary War leader and governor [00:17:25.480] for whom Davie County was named, [00:17:28.280] was from eastern North Carolina. [00:17:31.800] His name drew support of [00:17:34.480] eastern legislators [00:17:37.000] to create Davie County. [00:17:39.680] In order to keep control of the legislature [00:17:43.640] the eastern legislators were very reluctant [00:17:46.760] to form new Piedmont and western counties. [00:17:52.040] Mocksville was designated as the county seat [00:17:54.520] of the newly created county in 1836. [00:17:59.120] This is a plat, or map of the town, [00:18:01.960] showing the courthouse in the center of the town square [00:18:07.200] with thirty-two business lots surrounding it. [00:18:10.520] These lots were sold at public auction [00:18:13.760] and the $11,000 from the [00:18:16.000] sale of these lots financed the building [00:18:19.520] of the first courthouse and jail. [00:18:23.240] The Mocksville town charter [00:18:26.200] records the creating of the town by the [00:18:29.200] North Carolina General Assembly January 8, 1839. [00:18:36.440] The first court house completed in 1839 [00:18:39.680] was an imposing structure [00:18:42.600] with columns at each end [00:18:44.120] and a cupola spire [00:18:45.800] at the south front entrance. [00:18:49.000] It stood in the center of the town square. [00:18:52.400] The brick in the building, [00:18:54.240] the granite sills, and wood trim [00:18:57.320] almost certainly were the same as the first jail built at the same time [00:19:03.080] and still standing on South Main Street. [00:19:06.840] The first floor of the courthouse [00:19:09.080] housed county offices. [00:19:11.520] The second floor was the courtroom. [00:19:14.680] This courthouse was used until 1909. [00:19:19.040] It became a community building [00:19:20.960] until it was pulled down in 1922 [00:19:24.520] when Highway 158 [00:19:28.240] from Winston-Salem was paved. [00:19:30.440] The 1839 Davie County jail [00:19:33.280] functioned as a jail until 1909. [00:19:37.400] With authentically restored exterior and first floor, [00:19:41.760] it is now a private residence. [00:19:44.760] It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. [00:19:49.120] The lower exterior walls are about [00:19:51.960] two feet thick. [00:19:53.960] The first floor contained two large rooms [00:19:57.000] with a fireplace in each for the jailers quarters. [00:20:01.880] The cell block on the second floor [00:20:04.480] was said to have been a gruesome looking place. [00:20:08.320] It was also heated by a fireplace. [00:20:11.520] There was a debtors' room for those imprisoned for nonpayment of debts. [00:20:17.440] The north wall clearly shows the place where, [00:20:20.160] according to the 1873 court minutes, [00:20:23.920] prisoners escaped [00:20:25.720] through a chiseled out hole. [00:20:28.480] Tradition says that one prisoner played [00:20:31.360] a harmonica during the removing [00:20:34.200] of the brick. [00:20:36.800] Thomas McNeilly built a cotton factory in Mocksville in 1837. [00:20:41.800] It employed twenty persons, [00:20:44.000] most were women. [00:20:46.240] It was one of twelve such factories in [00:20:48.800] North Carolina at that time. [00:20:51.680] A steam powered yarn factory, [00:20:55.160] it stood near the present railroad overpass [00:20:58.360] on Highway 64 East. [00:21:01.360] People took the yarn thread from this factory [00:21:04.320] to their homes and wove it into [00:21:06.880] cloth on hand looms. [00:21:12.320] The factory closed in the 1840s. [00:21:15.200] In the late 1700s [00:21:17.720] our forebears lived in log houses [00:21:21.280] similar to the John Boone house previously shown [00:21:25.640] and the Frost House shown here and [00:21:28.200] still standing near Mocksville. [00:21:31.760] Note the stone chimney base for the fireplace. [00:21:35.600] The upper part of the chimney would have been sticks [00:21:38.920] and mud plaster. [00:21:41.640] The early to mid-1800s [00:21:44.240] witnessed the building of larger and [00:21:46.880] more elegant houses, [00:21:49.680] some of brick construction. [00:21:52.360] This is the Benjamin and [?] House [00:21:55.120] on Cedar Creek Road in the Farmington area. [00:21:58.880] Built about 1808, [00:22:01.360] this house was weatherboarded over logs, [00:22:04.360] but the logs were never [?]. [00:22:07.040] It had glass windows, plank floors, [00:22:10.640] and a well finished, beautifully paneled interior. [00:22:14.840] Note the handmade door latch and bolt fastener [00:22:18.480] above the present door lock, [00:22:21.280] the long hinge on the plank door, [00:22:24.280] and the Georgian mantle. [00:22:26.560] This house was much finer [00:22:29.160] than the average house of the 1800s. [00:22:33.560] This two story log house was built [00:22:36.160] by Garlan Anderson at Calahan about 1830. [00:22:41.360] Most log houses would have been similar [00:22:44.480] to this restored log house in Mocksville. [00:22:50.200] This house in Mocksville, built by Jesse A. Clement about 1828, [00:22:56.080] represents the federal style architecture. [00:22:59.720] Authentically restored, [00:23:01.680] it is a private residence. [00:23:04.240] It is in the National Register of Historic Places. [00:23:07.920] Note the pleasing lines of the federal [00:23:10.600] style mantle in the sitting room. [00:23:15.160] The first Davie County jail, 1839, [00:23:18.320] is another fine example of the federal [00:23:21.160] architecture of the period. [00:23:23.960] This is the original George Wesley Johnson House [00:23:27.240] built in Farmington in 1855 [00:23:30.440] in the Greek revival style. [00:23:33.320] Note the interior mantle and baseboards [00:23:36.960] painted by skilled workmen [00:23:38.960] to look like marble. [00:23:41.200] The house is a private residence [00:23:43.720] and was extensively altered in 1985. [00:23:49.440] The Cooleemee Plantation House, built by Peter W. Harston, [00:23:53.560] 1853 to 1855, [00:23:57.160] is by far the finest antebellum [00:24:00.160] house in our county or nearby area. [00:24:04.040] It is a private residence still occupied [00:24:06.960] by the Harston family. [00:24:09.200] It is in the National Register [00:24:11.720] and has been designated a national historic landmark. [00:24:16.640] The house required some three hundred thousand bricks [00:24:20.960] made by hand on the site. [00:24:24.800] This is a partial view of the elegant circular [00:24:27.920] stairway in the Cooleemee Plantation House. [00:24:31.800] The woodwork in the house was made in Philadelphia [00:24:35.480] and the elaborately decorated plaster ceilings [00:24:39.360] were done by Italian workmen. [00:24:43.160] A traditional large Christmas [00:24:45.680] tree with candles that could be lighted [00:24:49.160] stood each year in the central hall. [00:24:52.720] Years ago at Christmas [00:24:55.160] children in the Sunday school, [00:24:57.280] conducted at the plantation, [00:24:59.800] received gifts and treats from under the tree.