They passed this way; a personal narrative of Harnett County history
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They Passed This WayA PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF HARNETT COUNTY HISTORYBY MALCOLM FOWLERCOPYRIGHT 1955

vignette CENTENNIAL EDITIONPUBLISHED BY HARNETT COUNTY CENTENNIAL, INC.

All rights reserved by the author.

The author makes acknowledgement to B. G. Thomas for valuable suggestions and his assistance in indexing the book.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ChapterPagePrefacevIOrigin of the Scots1IIIndians in Harnett5IIIThe Legion of Restless Men9IVThe Permanent Settlers16VHarnett County in the Revolution24VIFlora Macdonald and Jennie Bahn McNeill36VIIOld Averasboro44VIIIFormation of Harnett County54IXRed Hills of Buckhorn64XHarnett County in the War Between the States73XIThe Battle of Averasboro95XIIHarnett County Churches101XIIIHarnett County Schools111XIVThe Negro in Harnett County119XVHarnett County Lawyers125XVIHarnett County Doctors135XVIIAuthors, Poets and Papers143XVIIIAgriculture, Industry and Transportation153Bibliography158Appendix159Index160

PREFACE

This is not a definitive history of Harnett County. That remains to be written.

I have tried to make this a readable, narrative story of the men and women who made Harnett County what it is today by PASSING THIS WAY.

Lore and legend, admittedly have been given a rightful place; a wealth of material has been drawn from conversations with the living and with those who since have passed on.

But there is more—a lifetime of love for Harnett County, twenty years of exhaustive search of land grants, deeds, personal papers, graveyards; scrutiny of library collections dealing with people, events or places in this county; countless steps in which I have retraced many of the paths of those who have PASSED THIS WAY.

In its writing, I have had help from a lot of mighty fine folks.

Particularly, do I want to give heart-felt thanks to two lovely ladies of Dunn, Miss Jessie Smith and Miss Flora McQueen. Out of the greatness of their hearts, they took time to instill in a little country boy a love for history that has resulted in this book.

There are some others I would like to thank in person for their help: Albert Johnson, Bryant Allen Morgan, Sandy Colville, to name a few, but they long ago Passed This Way. I would like to offer them my humble apologies for thinking what they told me was 90% fiction, coupled with 10% fact. But they were such wonderfully fascinating stories to a little boy! Actually, the above figures should be reversed in the light of modern research.

Particularly, do I wish to mention others for their help in preparing the manuscript for publication: Mrs. Inez Rutland, Mrs. Gertrude Atkins, Mrs. Allen Shaw, L. M. McDonald, James Spence, Senator Robert Morgan, Lois Byrd, L. M. Chaffin, Mrs. Viola Thornton, Bill Eaton and all the long suffering courthouse officials of Cumberland and Harnett Counties.

In photography, I wish to single out Duane Amburn, official photographer of the Centennial, Melvin Turlington of Lillington, and Alex McArtan of Linden, who traces his roots back to Harnett.

In short, to all the good folks everywhere who helped in any manner in the production of this book, a tip of the hat, a hearty thank you and long may your chimneys smoke.

MALCOLM FOWLER

CHAPTER I

ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS

“A man is never lost on a road if he knows how he got there,” in the words spoken by Gum Swamp Edward Cameron.

Then, let us who trace our ancestry back to Scotland see how we got on this road in the first place.

The story begins some 12,000 years ago in a country some 12,000 miles away, the Ob River area of Central Siberia. Now the Russians can claim another first, the birthplace of the Scottish race. This they can do legitimately.

The dawn light of history reveals in dim outline these pre-Scots.

They were eaters of meat and lived by hunting. Like our own Indians of a later day, they tended to be nomadic, following the game and pasturage. So their hunting areas might not be over-drained of wild life they necessarily had to act in small bodies. Thus was born the clan system.

Their basic strain was Celtic, meaning “a kilt wearer.” The name probably evolved from the time they learned to hang the skins of slain animals over their own hairy hides.

The language they developed was one of the oldest basic types. All the primeval tongues are characterized by tortuous and difficult syntax, utterly lacking in the simple forms of exposition. Theirs was no exception.

Over thousands of years, climatic changes drove these Celts or kilt wearers and their herds southward into India, then westward into Persia. Out of the jungles of India they brought their herds and something else: chickens, whose eggs they had learned to eat. This chicken, or crowing cock, was to become the national symbol of France after the Celts had passed that way.

This stream of Celts poured into Asia Minor and even into Greece. So numerous were they in one part of Asia Minor the Greeks called the land “Galatia,” meaning “The Country of the Strangers,” this name “Stranger” being the Celtic word “Gall”.

“Gall” in turn gave the name “Gael” to these kilt-wearing hunters seeking game and pasturage. Since their shields were brownish in color they became known as the Don Galls or the Brown Strangers. “Donn” was their word for “Brown.”

During the time they were in the area between the Black and Caspian Seas they came in contact with the Semites. Again there was an interchange of language terms. An example was the Hebrew word “ar”, meaning “west”, with the earmarks of Celtic origin in the dim past. We find it in Aral, Aryan, Armenia,

and other geographical words indicating a westward point of some sort. This “ar” prefix was to survive for hundreds of years in the wanderings of these Celts: Armorica, an Atlantic coastal zone of Gaul where even the famed Roman legions dared not enter; Ar-iun (Erin): West Island for Ireland; Arran at the mouth of the Clyde and Aran off the west coast of Ireland.

The contact with the Semites was probably the first introduction to civilization of these ancient Celts. This contact likely accounts for so many traditions in Scotland which have a Biblical background, such as the stories about Noah inviting the head of the McNeill clan to share the Ark with him during the Flood and the one about another clansman marrying Scota, a daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh, thus giving the name Scotland to that country—not to mention the Stone of Scone, said to be the rock Jacob used as a pillow when he had his dream.

In the transition from the Stone Age to the Iron Age these Celts—always savage fighters—were so impressed with their newly developed iron weapons they regarded the metal with a respect akin to reverence.

It was perfectly natural for them to take to eating iron oxide in the belief it would make them stronger and better fighters. It did too. It also provided many of them with something else, red hair. Only recently has it been discovered that red hair pigment is a rare chemical compound of iron and other complex substances. Chromosomes and genes developed among these iron oxide eaters who had a capacity to utilize a quota of iron over that normally required. Thus a typed red-haired group became an hereditary element in the Celtic generations.

Time passed and these Donn Galls or these Brown Strangers were on the prowl again. They flowed around the Black Sea until they came to a great muddy river which they called the “Donnob”, the Brown River. That was hundreds of years before it received the Latin name “Danubis”, our Danube of today.

Up this river they moved in successive waves. But they left behind them evidence of their stay: names of places, and in Greece, the kilt. Even today the finest fighters of Greece are the Evzones, kilt wearers. It was probably during their stay in this region the Celts developed the bag pipe—and there are many people today who fervently wish they had left it there. But regardless of what the average person thinks of bagpipe music, it cannot be denied that under its influence the Highlanders have performed prodigious deeds of valor on many a bloody battle-field.

In their ascent of the Danube—which the historian Michelot says took place about 1800 B. C.—these Celts or Donn Galls became

adept at handling boats. And when they had poured over what is now France and reached the Atlantic, it was a small matter for them to build boats to ferry them over to England and Ireland.

These Brown Galls or Donn Galls sailed their crude ships past Land's End to consolidate themselves in the northwest area of Ireland.

Many, many years later they were followed by another Gallic tide—the Alaisdairs—or followers of Alexander. Their ancestors may have seen forced or voluntary service in the armies of Alexander of Macedon. Anyway, they were better fighters than the Donn Galls for they forced them out of their country and drove them west to the Atlantic shores.

The Alexanders named their conquered territory for themselves, Alaisdair. It is called Ulster now. Over in western Ireland the Donn Galls, busy licking their wounds and plotting for revenge, also named their new country for themselves. Today it is known as Donegal.

About 495 A. D., Fergus Mor, “Big Fergus,” of the Alaisdairs conquered Islay, Jura and great areas of Argyle and Kintyre. Naturally, this drained off much of the population of Ulster in order to settle the newly conquered lands.

Over in Donegal, Angus, the chief of the Brown Galls, saw his opportunity and seized it. About 550 A. D., Angus reconquered Ulster, crossed to Islay and battled the sons of Big Fergus, Big Fergus having died many years before.

He drove them from Islay but turned north to land in Ardnamurchan. In the next five years he conquered great areas of the Highland country which was populated by other Celts and also by a strange race of people who painted their bodies green and called themselves Picts.

Angus brought with him from Donegal a son or brother, Aogha (Hugh) and another son named Culam-Bahn (Blond Colin). It was this Blond Colin who established the holy island or the Culdee Church in Iona.

About the ninth century the Norse Vikings invaded Scotland and battled them for nearly a hundred years off and on. Since they couldn't conquer them, they joined them. Thus there came about an amalgamation of these Norsemen with the Picts, Celts and Gaelic Highlanders, thus developing a race of great hardihood with many fine qualities.

With the consolidation of the clans into one great kingdom under Kenneth McAlphin, coupled with the fact that they had apparenfly come to land's end, it seemed that now the wandering kilt wearers could settle down permanently.

This was not to be. Over in Spain, a footloose crackpot named Christopher Columbus, contended the earth was round. Eventually he proved it by discovering the New World.

And the Highlanders were on the prowl again!

Thus it is not strange to find them swarming over to this New World, even into Harnett County.

And in God's own time when Man shall have conquered the secrets of space travel and the first ship blasts off for the moon, most of its crew will be of Scottish descent!

CHAPTER II

INDIANS IN HARNETT

In the beginning was the land. A land of rolling hills and fertile bottoms covered with forests of long leaf pine for the most part. There were also mighty oaks, tall poplars, massive elms, beeches and walnut trees. White boled sycamores were outlined against the green of the other trees.

Through this great forest ran scores of streams, emptying their waters into a great river which snaked its tawny way from northwest to southeast across the county. It was a beautiful land.

In the shade of the enveloping treetops herds of deer and occasional buffalo grazed. This kept down the undergrowth so that a man riding freely on horseback could see as far as two hundred yards in all directions.

There were other animals. Wolf and beaver predominated but there was plenty of muskrat, raccoon, ’possum, bear, rabbit, squirrel and wildcat.

In the trees, birds of many kinds sang, twittered or remained silent, according to their nature. At certain times the sky would be darkened by migrating clouds of passenger pigeons, ducks and geese.

There were also Indians.

They had made and marked trails through this country—mostly along the routes of grazing animals which they hunted for food and raiment.

They were here when the Legion of Restless Men and the following horde of permanent settlers came along those same paths and up the muddy Cape Fear.

First mention of them occurs in a patent for 320 acres of land issued to Peter Parker, Jr., in 1746. The beginning corner was on the, “southside of a Great Creek at a place where the Indians lately felled a bear tree.”

That must have been a wondrous sight! A frightened bear clinging desperately to the trunk while the Indians hacked enthusiastically at it with their stone axes.

The Great Creek is now Parker's Creek which empties into the Cape Fear just below the Chatham-Harnett line.

Other early land grants in the same area call for corners, “at a pile of stones supposed to be Indian graves.”

As a matter of fact, there were Indians in that vicinity as late as the time of the War Between the States. From what pitiful

little we know about them, we suppose they were members of the Tuscarora nation.

When little John Colvin established his iron furnace there in 1861 or ’62, the Indians named it Ock-noc, a Tuscarora word roughly meaning, “rock pot.” They probably stood around bugeyed when he took the rocks they had previously used in painting hideous designs in red and yellow on their hides and converted them to iron billets.

In 1774, John Ray patented 100 acres, “joining John McLean on Upper Little River known by the name of the Indian Graves land.” Ray and McLean later had considerable litigation over this patent.

These particular graves were once a mound, roughly circular with a diameter of about forty feet and as high as a man's head. Cultivation over a period of 180 years has reduced the mound to a mere rise in the surrounding terrain. It is located near the mouth of Indian Branch some five miles from Lillington. From the size of the mound and the prevalence of Indian artifacts in the area,it was evidently used by the Indians as a town site over a period of many years.

Over in eastern Harnett on the plateau between Juniper Creek and Stewart's Creek another Indian settlement was located. Very little is known about this location, or the Indians for that matter.

On the upper side of Neill's Creek, on property now owned by the Spence family, another Indian village was located. Highway 15A cuts right through the center of its burial mound.

There are other sites of Indian villages in Harnett County. The best known is in western Harnett, four miles beyond Cameron Hill on the road leading to Cameron. It is a burial mound, but it does not mark the location of an Indian village. Rather, it designates the spot where over a hundred Indians from Drowning Creek were slain the Day the Birds Quit Singing.

The massacre probably occurred a few years prior to the coming of the first white settlers for they became familiar with the story of what happened on that day. Down the years has come the interesting tale of the hunting party of Drowning Creek warriors striding along parallel with a huckleberry bog which marked the head of one of the prongs of Cypress Creek.

The Indians who lived along the Cape Fear and its tributaries in Harnett had warned these Drowning Creekers to stay out of that particular area—it was their hunting ground.

Ordinarily, the Indians from Drowning Creek would have heeded the warning. But in this year a drouth had dried up their country. Food was scarce, for the deer had moved away to better grazing grounds. Anyway, the deer meat from the Sandhills had a better flavor. Besides, the squaws found the hides of the

Sandhill deer chewed better when they went to making them up for moccasions and wearing apparel. Too, the hunting party counted over a hundred braves. What enemy would dare attack them?

Nevertheless, there was one warrior in the party who was definitely uneasy. As he walked along the edge of the bog he tried to solve the problem of his fears. Something was wrong, he told the chief, but that worthy merely patted his tomahawk and grunted at him.

As the head of the column neared the tip of the bog, he essayed another warning to the chief. The next time a hunting party went out, the chief told him, he wouldn't be with it. He would be back in the lodges with the women and the old men and boys.

Thus rebuffed again, the uneasy warrior dropped back into line and renewed his watch on the dense undergrowth of the bog. Then the answer to the riddle came to him. The birds in the bog were silent—silent because they were afraid of something in the swamp.

“Birds!” he shouted. “There are no birds singing! Run!”

But his warning came too late. A cloud of arrows hissed from the bog, felling dozens of the hunting party. Then the Cape Fear Indians sprang from their perfect concealment in the bog. Their war whoops sounded and their tomahawks rose and fell as they went about their dreadful butchery.

Only a few of the hunters escaped to carry the tale of the disaster to Drowning Creek. And there was sorrow in the lodges as the women raised their drawn faces to the sky and wailed mournfully for their men whose bodies lay mouldering in a circular mound in the Sandhill country.

Back about 1940, a party from Chapel Hill made a partial excavation at one edge of the mound. Their findings indicated the slain warriors had been dragged from where they fell and dumped in groups. In one section about three cubic feet in area, thirteen skulls were found. One of these had the back end bashed in. Inside was the broken blade of the tomahawk that killed the brave. He was probably running when struck down from behind. That was the only weapon discovered in the small area they explored, the victors probably taking the others as loot.

The red men moved from Harnett as the white men moved in. There is no recorded instance of trouble between the two races in this area. As far as the Indians were concerned the white man brought two powerful allies with him: a whiskey bottle and small pox. He didn't need to use gun or knife when he had these two to work for him.

So the Cape Fear Indians moved or died, save for one small tribe in Buckhorn. They, too, in time left and today Harnett has

no Indians save a small settlement in the lower end of the county around the Black River.

They are members of that mysterious race called the Croatans in Harnett and Robeson, Malungeons in South Carolina and Redbones in Tennessee. Dozens of theories have been proposed as to their origin, none of them satisfactory, save to the author.

Back in the early part of this century, Hannibal L. Godwin, Harnett's only representative to the United States Congress, was engaged in a hot political race to retain his congressional seat. He campaigned among the Croatans and promised to introduce a bill in Congress declaring them members of the Cherokee race if they would vote for him.

Godwin won the election but failed to get his bill through, much to the displeasure of the Croatans. On the other hand it pleased the Cherokees mightily, who wanted no part or parcel of the Croatans going around claiming they were Cherokees.

Today, in Harnett, the Croatan Indians have their own schools and churches. Their Normal College is located at Pembroke in Robeson County.

The mystery of their origin is still as great as ever.

CHAPTER III

THE LEGION OF RESTLESS MEN

Heading the vanguard of the Cape Fear Valley settlers was a band of men whose deeds were as heroic as their spirits were wild. These were the men of Restless Feet, the Forerunners, Seekers, obsessed with unquenchable desire to see what might lie around the curve of the river, might hide beyond the brow of the hill.

These were the trail blazers, the ones who explored the wilderness, tamed the Indians and made the Valley safe for the permanent settlers who were to follow hard on their heels.

They asked no odds, these Restless Men, and claimed no reward for service. Their lonely campfires twinkled in the far reaches of the Piney Barrens; the Tuscaroras of Buckhorn knew them well and the wild country of the Deep River head-waters was an open book before their eyes.

English, they were, and Irish, Welsh and Scotch. There was even a Dutchman, and one lone Son of France, Formyduval, from the Waccamaw Swamp. Even their names had a racy, devil-may-care swing to go with the daring of their owner's deeds: Emperor Wheelor, Windall Storm, Timothy Cleaven, Gunrod Goldman, Felix O'Neil, wild and Irish, who was to die with a laugh on his lips and a chip on his shoulder; Archibald MacDonald, the tall soldier; the tough Dutch Voortrekker Hendrick Gaster; and bow-legged little Archie Buie, whose pipes droned and wailed away many a lonely hour in the far stretching vistas of the wilderness trails.

These ancient names have come down to us in the records. Memorials today are a creek here, a spring there, or some outstanding landmark, such as Patterson's Rock on the Cape Fear above Lillington. Here, Gilbert Patterson lay many days with a broken leg, while wolves howled and battled to get at him. For a hundred years the place was known as Patterson's Rock. In later days it became known to thousands of picnickers as Raven's Rock. Today it is famed for its incomparable beauty when the rhododendron thickets are in bloom.

The most colorful of the Legion of Restless Men was Neill MacNeill, ex-sailor. His six-foot-six frame towered over his fellows like a redwood amid pines. The red of his hair and curly beard was like the color of a western sky at sunset. To his brother Scots he was Niall Ruadh or An Ruadh Mor—the Big Red One. The Indians on Buckhorn and Deep River gazed at the giant with awe, perhaps with reverence. The Tuscaroras

promptly named him Maaskwizzid—the Red Person. What those who ran afoul of his ham-sized fists called him, is not fit to be recorded in any language.

Red Neill MacNeill once had been a sailor. He left his ship at Brunswick to join the vanguard of the Scotch invasion which began to roll up the Valley in 1739. In September of that year the first shipload of three hundred Scots arrived in the Cape Fear roadstead. They were led by Dugald, Hector and Black Neill MacNeill, Duncan Campbell, Alexander McAllister, Alexander Clark and several others who had already explored the river in 1736 just after Gabriel Johnston, another Scotchman, became Governor of the Province of North Carolina.

It has been possible to keep up with the big flame-thatched one's wanderings from his land grants. Reid Neill had an eye for choice soil, but it isn't on record that he ever stayed on any site longer than was necessary to file a claim. He was too busy rambling over the Valley and “Civilizin’ this howlin’ wilderness.”

Wherever he went he entered acreages of land, then disposed of them in a few months to newly arrived settlers. When the river fronts became exhausted, Red Neill moved up the tributaries. He patented so many tracts on one stream it was called “Red Neill MacNeill's Creek.”

Passing generations have forgotten the origin of the name so that today the stream is known simply as Neill's Creek. It flows into the Cape Fear just above Lillington.

Red MacNeill gave Barbecue Creek its name as well. Mists rising from it reminded him of his sailor days and barbecue fires smoking in the West Indies. In a fit of culinary nostalgia he named the stream Barbecue, and thus it became a named landmark on the early land grants. Barbecue is derived from two French words: “Barb”, meaning beard and “que”, tail. Thus when you barbecue a hog, you cook him from whiskers to tail.

Incidentally, Red Neill gets the credit for introducing barbecued meat to the Valley. The tale is told of how he would walk up to a beef and render it senseless with one blow of his mighty fist. Entire sections or even the whole animal would then be barbecued to his taste. During his later years these barbecues became outstanding events in the lives of his fellow wanderers.

It came about that in 1753 Red Neill actually bought a piece of land: 60 acres lying on the east bank of the Cape Fear near Smilie's Falls, a couple of miles above the settlement that would one day be called Averasboro. He made this his headquarters. Every now and then the word would go out for the Restless Men to gather; Red Neill was giving a barbecue. From all directions the trailbreakers would head towards the focal point. A thirty-gallon

Where Harnett Tories met their Waterloo.

Moore's Creek Battleground.

Spring Hill

Methodist

Church,

Founded 1867

Pleasant Plains

Christian Church

Founded 1863

Advent

Christian

Church,

Dunn, N. C.

The 23rd Psalm from an old Gaelic Bible.

Upper left—Neill's Creek Church, Founded 1780; upper right—Antioch Church, Found

1833; bottom—Cumberland Union, 1820.

Friendship

Baptist Church,

Founded 1833

Gospel

Tabernacle,

Dunn

St. Stephen's

Episcopal

Church,

Erwin

Left, Cameron Hill Fire Tower, oldest in State. Right, Cameron Hill Presbyterian Church

Cokesbury

Methodist

Church

Prospect

Baptist

Church

Union

Primitive

Baptist

Early Presbyterian Strongholds. Upper left: Barbecue Church 1751; upper right: Leaflet

Church; lower left: Cypress; lower right: Mt. Pisgah.

Top—Erwin School for Negroes; Center—Boone Trail High School;

Bottom—Lillington High School.

Evolution of Harnett County School—Top, Buckhorn; Center, Buckhorn Graded School

Bottom, LaFayette High School.

Parson Neill McKay, a pillar of

the Presbyterian Church.

Where the Dreams of An Empire Ended, Ruins of Buckhorn Blast Furnace.

$10,000,000

a year

passes to

Harnett

farmers

through

these

business

houses.

Harnett Industry

Top—A Gravel Plant near Lillingon.

Center—Radio Station WCKB at Dunn.

Bottom—Garment Company of Lillingon.

Early Officials Erwin

Cotton Mills

Left to right:

Fred McKay, Charlie

Thompson, K. P. Lewis,

T. H. Webb, R. S. Kelly,

A. Y. Kelly, Edwin Gant,

Roger Gant.

Photo of churchOld Erwin Bridge

before 1908

Bridges of Long Ago. Top, Covered Bridge. Bottom left, Screw Press. Bottom Right, Well Sweep.

What the

Carolina Power

and Light

is doing for

Harnett

County

Top,

Substation

at Erwin.

Bottom

Line Crew

at Work.

keg of apple brandy set on a platform at the spring below his cabin.

Abraham Carter, Red Neill's West Indian mulatto shadow, would prepare the barbecue, but Red Neill would join his companions in the more serious business of drinking one another's health—or anybody's health, for that matter.

Little bow-legged Archie Buie would be there and his pipes would moan and drone the wild melodies of the Highland hills. The irrepressible Irishman, Felix O'Neal, would perform his famous bottle trick: converting a quart of brandy to a pint without taking the bottle from his lips. The tall soldier, Archibald MacDonald, would tell still taller tales of military might on many a bloody battlefield.

By late afternoon the barbecue meat would be ready. All would gather ’round the long outdoor table of split poplar logs to enjoy the incomparable succulence of charcoal-broiled whole beef, and cornbread made from water-ground meal, with pewter mugs of ale to wash it down. By midnight's cock-crow the party would end with the lusty singing of old ballads. At daybreak the more hardy would be scattering again down their lonely trails. Others less resilient would be slightly indisposed but could always be cured by a hair of the dog that bit them.

As the years went by, fewer and fewer of this Legion of Restless Men showed up. Gentle, kindly Timothy Cleaven died in 1758. Johnny Brisco had been bitten by a polecat and died. Duncan Campbell was back in Scotland. Aaron Burleson, who had taken time to get married (a descendant of whom would one day be Postmaster General of the United States)—already was headed up the Yadkin Trail later to meet death at the hands of Indians in what is now Mitchell County. The Welshmen, Jonathan Llewellyn and Gideon Gilbert and many more, for whom the Valley had already gotten too crowded and too civilized, were long away, in the Pee Dee country, and beyond, to tame another wilderness.

In 1759, the big Red Samson threw his last party. For in that year there came creeping out of the river mists a fever such as these men had never seen. It gripped strong men and turned them into pitiful weaklings—burning with fever one moment and shaking with tooth rattling, bone breaking agues the next. As the disease progressed the victims began vomiting blood in terrible retching spasms, until death came.

That was a dreary year in the Valley. Settlers died so fast that scarcely enough were left to attend to the wants of those still alive. Even the cattle caught a distemper that left them dying in droves, with blackened tongues and swollen bellies.

One of the busiest men in the Valley that year was Red Neill—burying the bodies of the fever victims. The settlers caught it and died. Only Reverend James Campbell, grey-bearded now, and borne down by a great sadness at the devastation wrought among his flock, could offer them spiritual help. There was no medical assistance, for their lone doctor, Andrew Crawford, who lived near the present site of Campbell College, had been one of the first victims.

Red Neill went about his sombre tasks with thoughts on that unexplored wilderness to the West. His kind was finished in the Upper Valley, their jobs completed. Already the place was too crowded. Why, in that year of 1759, High Sheriff Duncan McNeill had listed over 600 taxables in Cumberland County!

Red Neill's band had opened the Valley, made it safe for settlement. Now another class of men arrived, fellows like John Brown, the millwright, who could no more pass a likely stream than a drunk could pass a saloon. Wherever he went, grist and sawmills sprang up, and frame houses began replacing the rude log cabins of the first settlers.

It was the time of new things. John Graham, the schoolmaster, was wandering now over the Valley, and schoolhouses were sprouting in his wake: at Averyville, Cross Creek, the Head of Rockfish, Gibson's store and lately at Longstreet.

John Willcox, recently arrived from Pennsylvania, was talking of erecting a furnace on Deep River for making iron.

Rev. James Campbell arrived in 1757 from the same state, bringing religion to the Valley; and Order came in the person of Sheriff Duncan McNeill. Law, in the stern-faced justices on their platform in the log courthouse at Choeffenington, had come to stay.

Yes, it was time for Red Neill and his like to be moving on. But even wilderness lovers just don't go wandering off, leaving people dying in a welter of their own blood.

Because of the epidemic, Red Neill stayed on, even though his desire must have been for that Western wilderness beyond the Yadkin. Inevitably, too, he caught the fever. Because he was bigger and stronger than the others, he died slower and harder.

Little Archie Buie heard of his illness and came down the river; once more Red Neill's cabin at Smilie's Falls resounded to the wild skirling of the pipes. But now the wild strains had a plaintive undertone. And Red Neill, listening, caught their import.

Then it was that he got Archie to cut for him a huge gum log ten feet long and saw it lengthwise down the middle. Between spells of fever Red would sit before the split halves and hammer away with mallet and chisel while Archie droned doleful laments on his pipes.

Red Neill was making his own coffin! Presently, when he had it done to suit him, he lay in it to see that it fitted. Then he bored holes so the two sections would be pegged together with lightwood pegs.

Preacher Campbell came by to speak words of cheer and Biblical counsel to the giant.

“Ye are welcome as a friend, dominie,” the stricken Goliath told him, “But I want none o’ yer pulin’ prayers or yer religious cantin’. I ha'e ne'er called on Him when I was strong, an’ I'll be dom'd if I go whimperin’ like a coward to Him now.”

The man of God, who knew and understood the giant, nodded his head gravely, and uttered a mental prayer in Gaelic, and for good measure added another in English, asking mercy on the soul of one who was dying, because he had stayed to help others—but would call for no spiritual help for himself. “Greater love hath no man than this—”

Day by day the big one weakened. One evening he called Archie to him. “Bury me across the river,” he told the little piper, “and on the brow o’ Smilie's Hill where it faces west. When ye ha'e buried me, speed me on my way wi’ a skirlin’ o’ the pipes.” The blood bubbled from his cracked lips and Red Neill MacNeill was dead.

But little Archie Buie couldn't do all he was asked. The river had risen and it was impossible to get the coffin across it. So he and Abraham Carter scooped out a grave near the cabin and put the giant decently away. And when Archie had finished heaping up the mound of dirt he stood at its head and his pipes wailed the doleful notes of the MacNeill lament.

After the river finally returned to its banks the fever had gone from the Valley—and so was Archibald Buie, the piper. Out into that western wilderness he had gone where the Legion of Restless Men were still needed. Surely, he would come back some day to carry out the dead giant's last wish.

But time went by and Red Neill MacNeill still slept in his grave on the east side of the river. Presently a new tale began to be told in the valley—a tale of a giant ghost with red hair and curly red beard which stood on a rock overlooking Smilie's Falls and pointed westward.

It did no good when Quaminy, a slave Col. Alexander McAllister had bought from Peter McLaurin, told his tale.

Colonel McAllister's son, Coll, lived on the King's Highway just above where the present town of Buie's Creek stands. It was the Colonel's habit to send Quaminy on errands to his son's place, and on one of these trips Quaminy fell for the slumberous glances of a young slave girl belonging to Coll. Thereafter, slavery being what it was, Quaminy took to slipping up to Coll's after

nightfall for clandestine meetings with his girl friend.

Returning from one of these nocturnal visits, Quaminy saw the red-headed ghost standing on his lonely rock with extended arm pointing westward. Quaminy took another horrified look; his bare feet splattered the dust of the King's Highway in a frenzied dash of ten miles to the Colonel's place at Troy. Thus was blasted Quaminy's beautiful romance with the slave girl, for never again did he travel that road after nightfall.

Though the years went by and Archibald Buie, the piper, was dead, the red-headed ghost still haunted his lonely rock. The Revolution had been fought and the young republic was having growing pains.

More years went by. The War Between the States burst in all its fury and raged on to its bitter end. Up from the South in the Spring of 1865 surged Sherman's legions. They looted, burned and destroyed. On through Anson, Richmond and Scotland Counties they stormed. Judson Kilpatrick's blue raiders fought it out with Joe Wheeler's hard bitten cavalry at Monroe's Farm. Hardee's ragged rearguard gave grudging ground over roads and fields turned into quagmires by incessant rains.

Sherman's forces crossed the Cape Fear at Fayetteville and the Battle of Averasboro was fought in a driving rain. The muddy river rose higher and presently burst its bounds to flood the entire Valley; Sherman's Fresh, it was called. Old timers point to its marks on still standing trees.

When the waters went down after Sherman's Fresh, an old gum log was found on the western side of the river near Smilie's Falls. The log had burst apart and inside the scooped out halves was the huge skeleton of a red-headed, red-bearded man!

The story of the red-headed skeleton flew up and down the Upper Valley. Down the river road from his home near McNeill's Ferry came galloping old Mr. Sandy Buie with his coon hound Beaureguard leading the way.

The Valley old timer reached back into the recesses of his memory and recalled the legend his father had told him of a bow legged piper and a red-headed giant who wanted to be buried on the western side of the river—but wasn't.

Then and there, did the assembled listeners take shovels. On the western brow of Smilie's Hill they dug a grave. They decently repegged the red-headed skeleton in the gum log coffin, and buried him under four feet of gravelly, red earth.

No more thereafter did the rufous ghost haunt his lonely rock at Smilie's Falls. But sometimes, it is said, there are nights when the North Wind blows down from the flatwoods, over the

up-jutting rocks of the falls, through the whispering reeds of Smilie's Island, and then listeners can hear faint queer sounds. And they know they are listening to the ghostly pipes of bowlegged little Archie Buie moaning and droning mournful laments to the other ghosts of the Legion of Restless Men, who wait about their cosmic campfires in Spirit Land.

CHAPTER IV

THE PERMANENT SETTLERS

Hard on the heels of the Legion of Restless Men came another legion of men with more stable feet.

These were people who were tired of wandering. They were looking for a permanent roosting place, and in Harnett they found it.

For the most part they were Scotsmen, for the English influx from Albemarle and Virginia had not yet begun.

Why these early Scots chose North Carolina for their new home is a simple matter.

In 1734, Gabriel Johnston, a Scot and a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, became Governor of the Province of North Carolina.

He established his residence (and the seat of government) on the Cape Fear River—over the anguished protests of the Albemarle planters.

At once he set about writing his friends back in Scotland about the wonderful opportunities awaiting them in North Carolina.

He told them about the richness of the soil, which would grow two crops yearly and which would produce green trees that would burn like paper. Naturally, none of his correspondents knew anything about pine trees that had been boxed for turpentine.

He also offered other inducements such as remission of poll taxes for ten years, plus grants of money.

His glowing letters were effective. In 1736, Alexander McAllister, Neill and Hector McNeill, John and Alexander Clark, Duncan Campbell and several other Scots arrived at Brunswick to give this Garden of Eden a look-see.

They found the country around Wilmington and lower Bladen already well settled.

In Bladen they discovered a number of settlers who wore queerly shaped hats and called themselves Quakers. The Quakers wanted to sell them land on which they could grow a strange new plant called cotton which would make finer cloth than wool or flax.

The Quakers had earlier been victims of this cotton story. The New Englanders who sold them on it neglected to tell the gullible Friends the cost of separating the seed from the lint made it impossible to use cotton in making cloth.

But these men from Scotland were not farm hands. They were hunters, warriors from the Highlands. The country was too flat.

They disdainfully shook Bladen's black soil from their boots and continued upriver looking for the hills they knew they would find.

And when they had reached the country just above where Fayetteville now stands, they found the hills and the brawling streams between them. This then was the place for them to raise their ridge poles.

Some of them remained to select homesites. The others returned to Scotland to spread the tidings of this brave new world where they would be far removed from England's galling yoke even though they would be still living under its laws.

In September 1739, the first shipload of these emigrants arrived at Wilmington and headed up the Cape Fear for their new homes. They brought the tools they would need in this new land. One skeptic even brought some oak staves for making axe handles! One wonders what his thoughts were when he first glimpsed the great oaks and hickorys along the river!

The land grant office at Raleigh gives us a very good list of these first settlers and it is true that the earliest grants in Harnett are not to these Highlanders.

In 1735, a couple of land traders named Richard French and William Grey grabbed off 640 acres on the west side of the Cape Fear just above the mouth of Lower Little River.

On the opposite side of the river a Welshman, Geoffrey Dawson by name, got his nose under the wire in 1737. So did John Davis in the same year, joining French and Grey.

From there on up the river on both sides, the list reads like a gathering of the clans. Here and there an outsider got a toe hold; like the German, John Martinlear, who dug in opposite Averasboro; and the Englishmen—who may have been brothers—Hugh and Miles Ward, just below Averasboro.

To us of today, the manner of acquiring land over 200 years ago seems ridiculously simple.

All the newly come settler had to do was find a piece of unclaimed land.

He then listed it with the entry taker of which there was one or more in every county. With the claim he filed a description of the amount of land desired and its location.

The claim would then be passed on by the Governor's Council. If it were approved, a deputy-surveyor would in time show up with a warrant signed by the Governor ordering him, “to admeafure and lay out, until Neill McNeill a plantation, containing 200 acres of land, located in Cumberland County near the King's Road and known by the name of Neill's Meadow.”

The settler then had 18 months in which to take out a patent

for the said land. If he failed to do so, the land became free to be taken up by another person.

If the settler perfected his patent he was issued a grant to the land and thereafter could dispose of it as he saw fit. However, he was required to pay a yearly quit-rent on the land which amounted to about $1.00 per 100 acres. This amount of quit rent varied from time to time. He also had to pay the surveyor's fees.

The final condition was that he should clear and cultivate 3 acres per 100 acres in 3 years and fence it with a fence that was horse high, pig tight and bull strong. Naturally he was required to put a house on the land.

As is to be expected, there was a bit of skullduggery connected with these grants.

A man would patent a hundred acres and pay quit rents for that amount. However, he might lay claim to several hundred acres around him. As the story goes, he wasn't greedy. He just wanted the land that joined his.

It might seem simple enough for a newcomer to ask an old settler to show his grant. Yet the settler would quickly tell him that if he wanted to see it he could jolly well go to Wilmington or wherever the seat of government might be located at that moment and look to his heart's content. Before the newcomer would backtrack a hundred miles or more, he would move on until he did find vacant land.

Settlers were known to hold land by this method for as long as 20 years or more.

However, when vacant land became less plentiful, a class of people appeared who would take up a grant of say 30,000 acres, excepting any acreage to which a settler could produce a deed.

This caused consternation among the easy riders or free loaders and there was a concerted rush on the land grant office as they hurried to take out patents for the land they had been illegally holding.

In the 1790's two men, Allison and Blount, took up hundreds of thousands of acres by this means. One of their grants was in Western Harnett covering land now owned by the Rockefellers.

Another stunt that was used by some of the river settlers was to begin their claim at a point where the river would begin to curve away from the location of the land.

It was common practice in those days to run only two lines. The grant as filed would read something like this: “Beginning at a marked oak on the river bank, the west side thereof, thence a line west 80 rods to a pine, thence north 80 rods to a hickory, thence East 80 rods to the river, thence downriver to the beginning, containing 640 acres.”

At the point of beginning, the river may have begun a bend to the right, and the third line (which had never been run) might be 150 rods instead of 80.

Part of the land on which Fayetteville is located was surveyed for 600 acres. Twenty years later a re-survey showed it contained 965 acres!

The following are the men who took up land in Harnett in 1740:

Archibald BuieJames McDougaldDaniel BuieHugh McLachlanDuncan CampbellJames McLachlanJames CampbellHugh McCraineyAlexander ClarkMurdock McCraineyArchibald ClarkSamuel McGaw or McGrawJohn ClarkJohn MartinlearDaniel McNeillGilbert PattersonHector McNeillDugald StewartMalcolm McNeillMatthew SmylieNeill McNeillNathaniel SmylieJohn McAllisterWilliam StephensAlexander McKayHugh WardArchibald McKayMiles Ward

Others took up land in what is now Lee and Chatham Counties. But in 1746 when the Granville line was run it crossed the Cape Fear where the present counties of Chatham, Harnett and Lee intersect.

All the land lying north of this line belonged to one of the Lords Proprietors, the Earl of Granville, while the country south of it continued to be King's land.

Those Scotsmen who had taken up land north of the Granville line immediately disposed of it and came scampering back down into Harnett and other counties below the line.

They did not trust a title from a mere earl. What the Lord giveth, the Lord can take away, was the way they considered the matter.

Why King George could wake up some morning with a bellyache or a hangover and with one sweep of his pen dispossess every one of them!

Besides—and a very important point with these Highlanders—the Earl of Granville charged them higher fees for his land than did the King.

By 1754 the area now comprising Cumberland, Harnett, Hoke, Lee and Moore was so populous it was cut off from Bladen and formed into a new county called Cumberland, thus honoring the

man who was responsible for the butchery of thousands of Scotsmen following the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

The name of the new county was forced on the inhabitants and it must have been a bitter pill for them to swallow.

In 1784 when Moore County was cut off from Cumberland, an attempt was made to change the name of the remainder of Cumberland to Fayette County, but the plan failed.

The county seat of this new County of Cumberland was located at a place called Choeffenington on the south side of Lower Little River, about a mile east of the present town of Linden.

So many settlers had come into the Harnett area by then that it might be interesting to list their names as entered on the Cumberland County tax list for 1755. Here they are:

Joseph AdamsBen GoodrichJacob BlockerJohn GrahamArchibald BuieJames GilliamHugh McDougaldJohn HarvillArchibald BuieRobert HowardJohn ClarkJames HowardDuncan BuieWilliam HallGilbert BuieSamuel HowardDaniel BuieFrancis JonesRichard BrownCharles JonesJohn BrownHamilton JonesRichard CrosbyJohn KneeArchibald ClarkEdward LarrimoreDuncan ClarkRobert LoveAlexander Clark_____ ConnorWilliam ClarkEdward LarimorAlexander ClarkArchibald McNeillJohn ClarkNeill McNeillArchibald ClarkHector McNeillDaniel ClarkHugh McLeanLuzarus CreelJohn McLeanGilbert ClarkJohn MartinlearJohn CampbellJohn PhillipsKenneth ClarkHugh McCranieArchibald ClarkDuncan PattersonNeill ClarkArchibald PattersonJohn ClarkJohn PhillipsJohn DobbinsJohn RayMichael ConolyGabriel ReaganJohn CopelandJames StewartGeorge FulphRichard Britt

John StewartJames ThorntonThomas SeemoreRichard ThornDushee ShawJohn ThomasDuncan ShawDavid TranthamDavid SmithMartin Trantham, Sr.Hugh SmithMartin Trantham, Jr.Robert SmithJohn SmithSampson WilliamsJames SmithChristopher YowRolling SmithThomas York

In this list the names in parenthesis indicate they lived in the same house. It does not necessarily mean they were all members of the same family.

For instance: Hugh McLean happened to be the father of John McLean but he could have been a cousin, or no relation at all for that matter.

If the reader, puzzled by the numerous Archibald Clarks, etc., gets the idea the tax lister was just idly repeating names in order to pad his list, he will be wrong.

The old Scottish custom of naming the eldest son after the child's paternal grandfather is responsible for this.

If a man signed his name Neill Clark, Jr., it does not necessarily mean Neill Junior's father was named Neill. It does mean there was another Neill Clark in the same neighborhood who was older than Neill Jr. They had other ways of differentiating themselves.

At one time there were five Daniel Shaws in the same community. One signed himself Poplar Foot Daniel Shaw. During the Revolution he was shot in the foot by a band of Tories, resulting in its later amputation. Daniel whittled a foot from a limb of a poplar tree. Thereafter, he became Poplar Foot Daniel to identify him from Maiden Daniel Shaw, who never married, and Block Wheel Daniel Shaw, who drove a cart having wheels sawn from a huge tree. Then there was Daniel Sr. and Daniel Jr., who happened to be cousins.

Thomas Jones, Clerk of the Cumberland County Court, listed for that first year of the county's existence: 302 white taxables, 11 mulattoes and 63 slaves. Indians, being considered savages, were not counted.

When he submitted his list to the Court, Jones made the bland statement that, “In my opinion there are at least 30 who did not give in.”

Tommy was ultra conservative. Probably that many or more lived in the Harnett area itself, let alone the rest of Cumberland. However, they eventually got on the tax list. Some of them and

the first recorded date of their settlement in Harnett are herewith listed.

A great many of these show a recorded date of 1755. As a matter of fact, many had been in the area for several years prior to 1755. With a tax lister after them they knew it was time to register their land. It is notable that not many had Scottish names.

John Anderson1748Torquill McNeill1753Thomas Briggs1755Archibald McDonald1753Malcolm Clark1755John McDougald1755Timothy Cleaven1754Dugald McPhail1755Arthur Donnely1752Angus McPhail1754John Eppinger1755Angus McAllister1755Stephen Gardner1755Miles Parker1748William Grant1755Stephen Phillips1755John Hill1755John Robeson1755Bartholomew Hodges1753Edward Robeson1753Wallis Johnston1753Joshua Shaddock1746Andrew Joyner1755Thomas Stewart1753Andrew Kennedy1755Richard Treadway1755David Kennedy1755Thomas Ward1755Samuel Kennedy1755John Wright1755John May1745

It might be proper at this time to take a look at these early Harnett Citizens and observe their manner of living.

The old time picture of planters riding over their cotton fields, calculating the profits the crop would bring in the fall, can be discarded at once.

Harnett never was a county of great plantations. True, in later years, some planters along the river did accumulate sizeable holdings of land and slaves.

But for the most part, Harnett was settled by the “hundred acre” boys, men who went into the forests and hewed trees to build their homes.

Next they cleared a small acreage of land on which to raise corn, wheat, garden produce and flax for cloth making. They used a butt-headed steer to pull the plow.

That was before mules had been introduced to the colonies. Nearly every settler raised cattle, hogs, sheep and poultry.

Their wearing apparel was home made of wool, flax and the skins of animals.

Cooking was done in the fireplace. Stoves were an unknown luxury.

If a man needed a bucket, a barrel, a bed, a table, or almost any household item, he made it—or had it made, trading his services in payment, money being an item which most of them

didn't have. They even paid their taxes with produce—to the great disgust of the tax gatherers.

Imagine walking today into Tax Collector Duncan Ray's office with a squealing shoat and a bucket of eggs in payment of your taxes!

What money they did obtain came from the products of the friendly forests and the sale of cattle.

Those were the days of tar, tun timber and turpentine. For better than a hundred years the great pine forests of Harnett provided its citizens with a means of livelihood.

In clearing the land the early settlers would burn the pines for tar. The boxed pines furnished turpentine, which was distilled and sold in Fayetteville and Wilmington. There was always a ready market in those places for naval stores.

When the trees were drained of their productivity, they were cut, assembled into rafts and floated down the Cape Fear to Wilmington. An average raft would sell for upwards of 500 dollars in that town.

At first the rafters would walk back from Wilmington or pole a loaded flat boat up the river.

In 1818 though, steamers appeared on the Cape Fear and the rafters would ride back to Fayetteville on these.

The coming of the plank roads doomed our forests. They were systematically obliterated in an age that saw people emerge from log cabins, move into frame houses and enter on a higher standard of living.

Maybe at some future time the pine tree will be given its rightful credit for the part it played in the lives of our forefathers.

CHAPTER V

HARNETT COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTION

Through the years when war came to the area now comprising Harnett County its citizens responded pretty much like those of other counties. Some went willingly, even eagerly, fired with noble resolves and high ideals. Most of these came back—if they did come back—bitter, disillusioned, the fire gone from their eyes. For at its best, war is a dirty, savage business; a seething mixture of hate and madness, of mutilated bodies and minds, of blood and death.

Others went because of a sense of duty, a determination to fight for what they believed was right and to uphold their way of living.

There were others who served because the conscript officers or the draft boards seized them by the scruffs of their necks, so to speak, and pitched them squalling and protesting into the nearest army camp. Quite often these men made the best soldiers.

Then there was another class: men who believed in peace at any price—even if it meant “hiding out” in swamps, woods and old fields. It wasn't that they were cowards or more afraid than others. They had their reasons and they sincerely believed in them.

And like all soldiers in all wars, once they were in it, Harnett men grumbled and bellyached, which is a soldier's traditional privilege.

Beyond doubt the nastiest war to hit Harnett was the Revolution—the war for freedom from English rule. Sure, the county had a rough time during another war for independence, The War Between the States. And down at Averasboro over a thousand men in blue and grey were killed or wounded that rain-swept day in March of 1865. But that was a professional battle fought by soldiers who perhaps were not professionals, but who fought like them.

In the mad days of the Revolution, Harnett, though it would not be a county for another 75 or more years, was a land divided, not only geographically but politically.

Physically, the Cape Fear River divided the area. On the east side of the river most of the people were Whigs—Patriots, if you please. This section had been settled largely by people from the eastern part of the state or by others coming down the old trail from Virginia, which went by the name of Green's Path to the Pee Dee. It ran through eastern Harnett.

Not so on the western side. Save for a narrow strip along the river, settled by Scots who came over prior to 1746, and a small area around Barbecue Church, the western side was settled by Scottish Highlanders with a thin sprinkling of other nationalities.

These Highlanders came to America after that fatal day in April 1746 on Culloden moor when:

“The hoof of the horse and the foot of the proudHad trod on the plumes of the bonnets of Blue.”

On that terrible day, Bonnie Prince Charles and his clansmen risked everything in a battle to smash the English army and gain the throne of England. They lost. And the Duke of Cumberland, second son of England's barrel-bellied monarch, George the second, set about his brutal, senseless campaign of beheading, butchery and banishment. For upwards of twenty years it was worth a Highlander's life to be caught bearing arms or wearing any part of Highland dress. It is not strange that they chose banishment “to the plantations beyond the seas” and signed with their own blood an oath that ran about as follows:

“I, Donald McDonald, do swear and as I shall answer to God at the great day of judgment, I have not, nor shall I have in my possession any gun, pistol or arm whatsoever, and will never use plaid, tartan or any part of Highland garb. That I will defend His Majesty the King and support him in any measure he may take. And should I break this, my solemn oath, may I be cursed in all my undertakings, family and property; may I never see my wife, children, father, mother or other relations; may I be killed in battle as a coward and lie without Christian burial in a strange land, far from the graves of my forefathers and kindred. May all this come across me if I break my oath.”

Saddled with such a vow, it is no wonder that when the red days of the Revolution came, the Harnett Highlanders faithfully answered Royal Governor Martin's summons and marched to another Culloden at the Widow Moore's Creek Bridge on February 27, 1776.

Unfortunately, there is no known list of Harnett men, Whig or Tory, who fought at Moore's Creek. But the Harnett men who escaped capture there, because they knew the country, recrossed the Cape Fear at Smith's Ferry at the mouth of Lower Little River and returned to their homes sullenly to lick their smarting wounds.

Under act of the legislature of 1776, Cumberland County—which at that time included all of Harnett and Moore along with most of Hoke and Lee Counties—was divided into militia districts.

In the area east of the river from Buie's Creek to the Chatham and Wake lines, Captain Robert Cobb, who lived near Cokesbury, was commander. From Buie's Creek to the mouth of Lower Little River, Captain Alexander Avera, of the then little village of Averasboro, commanded. They also had jurisdiction over the scattering of uneasy Whig Highlanders along the west bank of the river.

Out in the Barbecue section—an island of Whigs in a sea of Tories—Thomas Dobbins and Daniel Buie were commanders. Here occurred the incident that caused the Rev. James Campbell to leave Cumberland County.

The preacher was an outspoken Whig, but he had one son in the British army and another in the American. One day, just before the massacre at Moore's Creek, during services at Barbecue Church he prayed for the success of the American army.

After the service McAlpin Munn, a respected old Tory, came up to him, removed his hat in deference to the man of God and said:

“Meenister, ye ha'e been a longer time frae Scotland nor me, an’ ye nae ha'ed to take the Blood Oath I ha'e took. An’, noo, if I e'er hear ye pray ag'in as ye did this day, the bullet has been molded and the powder is in my horn to blow it through yer head!”

The Reverend Mr. Campbell knew Munn meant what he said. Very prudently he removed to Guilford County where Whigs were more numerous, bought 400 acres of land, and lived there until 1780 when he returned to Cumberland. His death occurred across the river from Bluff Church. His grave wasn't even marked until a few years ago when Rev. Angus McQueen of Dunn located it, and was instrumental in having a bronze marker placed at the grave of the man who brought Presbyterian religion to the Cape Fear country.

Incidentally, Munn's old powder horn and bullet mold are still in existence.

The companies of Buie and Dobbin operated under the command of Colonel Ebenezer Folsome who lived on the east side of the Cape Fear, near the Lillington Bridge. At other times Col. David Smith, whose brick house, the first in Harnett, stood on the road from Erwin bridge to J. C. Byrd's mill below Bunnlevel, commanded. Col. Smith was often sent on special assignments by the governor and saw only sporadic military service.

Col. Folsome was a zealous officer. So much so that many of his men became restive under his methods, and brought charges against him. Among other things they charged him with collecting money from them for rum supposedly furnished by the state.

Smarting under the accusation, the colonel heatedly retorted that the niggardly amount of rum paid for by the state wouldn't quiet a cradleful of bawling babies, let alone a battalion of mouthing, musket-toting farmers who fancied themselves as soldiers.

From then on, he told them, they could furnish their own rum, and huffily resigned his command. However, after serving a term in the legislature as senator from Cumberland he was again placed in charge of the Cumberland militia.

From the Battle of Moore's Creek in 1776 until the invasion of the state in 1781 by the British, the pre-Harnett Tories were sullenly quiet—the ominous stillness that presages the storm. Then came the days of blood, fire and terror.

Hard on the heels of Daniel Morgan's riflemen, retreating after their victory over the British at Cowpens, S. C., tramped the legions of the English under Lord Cornwallis, calling on the Tories, Highlanders and all, to rally to his standards.

About the same time there came riding out of the South Carolina canebrakes a man whom the Cape Fear Country would long remember. This man was of just average size, but he moved with the litheness of a Bengal tiger—and was just about as savage as one. Around his head he wore a red silk kerchief. He was David Fanning—“Scaldhead Dave”, they called him. As a youth he had contracted a disease that stripped his head of hair and left his scalp a festering stinking mass. Hence the cloth around his head. He wouldn't even remove it when he ate or slept.

What qualities the man had that caused Tories to flock to him no one can say. Hitler had them, so did Attila the Hun.

Maybe it was his habit of success. Quick to spot an enemy's weakness and quicker still to exploit it, there isn't a recorded instance where the Patriots obtained a clear-cut victory over Fanning.

Perhaps they came nearer doing so at Cane Creek in the upper part of the state than at any other time. It was here that brave old Col. Hector McNeill of Robeson and young Dushee Shaw of Harnett were killed and Fanning himself wounded.

The man Fanning just simply didn't know there was such a word as defeat. Able, daring, ruthless, he quickly became the scourge of the Cape Fear Country. So vicious, so utterly merciless was he that the hardbitten Scot Highlanders, no novices themselves, couldn't stomach him and refused to fight under him. Now and then under their own leaders, Duncan Ray, Archie McDougald, John McLeLan and the McNeills and McKays, they would join him for a mass operation when required. Otherwise, they did their own raiding and left Fanning to do his.

The principal muster grounds of the Harnett Tories were on

Upper Little River at the mouth of Jones Creek above Clark's Bridge and at Captain John McLean's Mill just below where the present Lillington-Fort Bragg highway crosses the river. The hut of the Lillington post of the American Legion stands almost on the exact site of McLean's Mill.

Col. Folsome labored mightily to control the situation, but it was a case of too few against too many. He simply had too much territory to cover. While he put out a fire Fanning would start, the Harnett Highlanders would be igniting one of their own. In a matter of weeks, most of the area between the Cape Fear and Yadkin rivers came under Tory control.

In the meantime, the Battle of Guilford Courthouse had been fought. Though Cornwallis claimed the victory, his shattered legions led by bloody Banastre Tarleton, came limping back down through Randolph and Chatham counties with General Greene and his patriots in close pursuit.

The British entered Harnett County in the vicinity of Broadway and camped for the night at William Buie's near present-day Mt. Pisgah Church. Back up the way where the road from Avent's Ferry—now Avent's Bridge—intersects Highway 421, two miles southeast of Shallowell Church, General Greene detached a small force under Col. James Thackston to keep track of Cornwallis. He sent Col. Harry Lee with his Legion down the old Pee Dee road and marched the main American Army from Ramsay's Mill toward South Carolina to mop up the last pockets of British resistance in that state.

The following night the British camped at Barbecue Church. This gave rise to the legend that Barbecue Church got its name because the British barbecued some beeves there. As a matter of fact, there are land grants on record naming the Creek “Barbecue” and bearing the date of 1753—28 years before Cornwallis was there.

It was at Barbecue that Banastre Tarleton's outriders encountered Captain Daniel Buie, Jacob Gaster, Laurence Strodder, Duncan Buie, John Small and several more of his command. They left Captain Buie for dead, his head split open by a sabre blow. He recovered and lived many years. Duncan Buie died on a prison ship in Wilmington. The others escaped or were later exchanged.

The following night the British encamped on Lower Little River where the McCormick home, “The Sandhills,” now stands. Some of the British who had died of wounds received at Guilford Courthouse are buried in the nearby cemetery where rests the remains of the famed Jennie Bahn and her husband, Archibald McNeill.

The next day the British continued their march toward Fayetteville and Wilmington.

Meanwhile, Colonel Thackston, with his small force, was pursuing Cornwallis, but wisely using the King's Highway which ran down the east side of the river, thus keeping the river between his command and the British.

In describing his march (he avoids the use of the word “retreat”) through upper Cumberland (Harnett), Cornwallis writes there were practically no provisions along the route of march, and that the inhabitants were in a starving condition.

It is interesting to note the Cumberland County tax list for 1780 shows the inhabitants along his route of march listed 3,000 cattle. Taxpayers being notably poor of memory at listing time, the swamps and back country must have been filled with cows standing practically rump to head.

On July 29, 1781, Colonal Duncan Ray with 10 or 12 Highlanders cross the Cape Fear just above Buie's Creek at the old McAllister road ferry. They marched down the east bank to Sproul's Ferry (later McNeill's Ferry), took the ferry which had been tied up on the Whigs’ side of the stream and moved over the rest of Ray's command, about 60 or 70 men.

A half-mile from the ferry stood Sprowl's Tavern. Ray's men surrounded the place. What followed is described by J. Rand of Wake County in a letter to Governor Burke dated July 30, 1781, as printed in the State records:

“Upon their first approach they shot down Andrew Beard, a good and zealous friend to his country, whom they left prostrate in the yard until this morning. When our people buried him, he appeared to be cut in several places in the arms. I observe this as it appears to me to be a wanton act of barbarity, as this man and a Mr. Travis of Cross Creek, unfortunately happened to be passing the place.

“After plundering Sproal of all his horses, a quantity of salt, his own and the buckles out of his wife's shoes, cutting the wagons to pieces, etc., they returned over the river carrying off Sproal, his wife and family, Travis and several poor people in the neighborhood. In short they left no living soul on the place. After getting over they turned the flat down stream and left Mrs. Sproal and the negroes some distance in the woods.

“Besides this, another party of about a hundred mounted men was seen on an old road to the ferry some 16 miles away.

“Colonel Folsome through the night has collected about 20 men and expects to be about 100 strong when all are joined. All he can do is rest on the defensive until he has enough force to cross the river. He requests the earliest assistance of your Excellency,

and thinks 150 or 200 horses and infantry would enable him to drive them from Cumberland.”

A few days after this, Col. Hinton of Wake County, with 250 men, crossed the river and headed for McLean's Mill with the intention of putting the obstreperous Tories back in their places.

There were only a few Tories at the mill. These were captured. Among them were Hugh Ochiltree, John McLean of Indian Branch, his son Neill, Malcolm McPhail, Malcolm Graham, Archibald McLean, James, Laughlan and Daniel McDonald, about a dozen in all.

The rest were at the Jones Creek muster ground under the command of Col. Ray, Capt. McLean and Lts. Archibald McKay and Malcolm McKay. They received news of Col. Hinton's presence at the mill and forthwith set out down the river to attack him.

One of their company, William Kennedy, arrived shortly after they had left, and set out down the ridge road to overtake them. This being a shorter route than the river road, Kennedy arrived at the mill ahead of the main Tory force. He strode into the mill, thinking his friends were there, but all he could see were strangers. Then the horrible realization came to him that these men were Whigs—his deadly enemies!

Kennedy was no dolt, and his life was at stake. He rushed through the door shouting that Fanning with 500 men was right at his heels. “Clear yourselves!” he bawled. “Clear yourselves or you will be taken prisoner!”

Psychologists have never been able to solve the mystery of the panic and hysteria that will sometimes seize a large body of men. Had there been only a handful present, Kennedy's strategy would not have worked.

But these men were raw militia levies. They mounted their horses and took off, carrying their prisoners with them. When pursuit failed to materialize, they got over their panic and camped for the night at the top of the hill.

During the night, Col. Ray arrived at the mill with his force and camped there. Early next day some of Hinton's men scouting toward the mill were fired upon by the Tories.

Again panic seized the Whigs. Taking their prisoners with them, they retreated toward the Cape Fear, firing aimlessly and being fired at just about as aimlessly by Ray's and McLean's men, until they reached the river at Fox Island below Lillington. They crossed there and camped for the night.

Hinton's men camped for the night below Fox Island; the Tories just across the river from them. Next day they moved up the river, crossed Neill's Creek and encamped about where

Willoughby Spence now lives. They posted sentinels at the river and began preparation for a feast.

About this time the sentinels at the river, spotting some of the Tories, began firing at them and were fired back at with good will. Again panic seized Hinton's men. They fled up the Atkins road leading to Wake County, this time leaving their prisoners behind. When they reached a point about where the present Buckhorn road turns off from 15A, they halted and formed a line of battle.

Meanwhile, their deserted prisoners had been having a conference. They had not been paroled or released. If they should be captured again, they would be immediately shot. They decided their prudent course was to follow their late captors. This they did but when Hinton's men saw their running forms through the trees, they imagined it was the dreaded Fanning coming and they took off again, never stopping until they reached the Wake County line. Next day, their tour of duty up—they went home.

Their late prisoners chased them another mile or so and gave up in disgust and out of wind. A running man is a poor match for a running horse.

Such was the so-called Battle of Indian Branch—a thing of much noise, which wasn't even a battle, and all the shooting was done miles from the branch. There were no listed casualties unless you count the three luckless Tories supposedly hanged by Hinton's men on Italy Hill above Lillington.

On August 14, Colonels Ray, McDougald and Capt. Hector McNeill (son of Archie and Jennie Bahn) headed their forces toward Cross Creek to make prisoners of the men then in Court Session. Up at Averasboro, Capt. Alexander Avera received intelligence of this movement. Mounting his swiftest horse, he galloped down the King's Highway on the east side of the river, crossed the river at Beaseley's Crossing above Fayetteville and pounded into Cross Creek.

He unceremoniously dashed into the Courtroom, bawling: “Gentlemen! Hear me! Fanning is on his way here to take you prisoners.”

It is said that never before, or since, has the Cumberland Courthouse cleared so quickly and completely. Despite Avera's warning, several of them were captured before they could get out of town. Avera was among those who escaped.

The Tories hung around Cross Creek several days, robbing, plundering, burning and destroying what they called “Rebel property.” It was on this raid they captured Thomas Hadley, member of a zealous Whig family, and staked him out in a swamp, a prey to insects. Poor Hadley's bleached bones were found months later.

Raiding courts was a specialty with Fanning's forces. They captured the Court at Pittsboro in Chatham County and then as a sort of dessert to the feast, they raided Hillsboro and made off with Thomas Burke, Governor of North Carolina, and many more prominent Whigs. They were taken to Wilmington by Capt. John McLean (of McLean's Mill) and thrown into Craig's Bull-pen, the enclosure where he kept most of his prisoners.

It was about this time that the massacre at Piney Bottom, now part of the Fort Bragg Reservation, took place.

When Cornwallis moved through upper South Carolina and into North Carolina on his way to Guilford County Courthouse, many patriots in his path fled with their families to refuge with friends on the Neuse River. Among them were Capt. Culp of South Carolina and Col. Wade of Anson.

After the British had left Wilmington for Yorktown and Green had marched back to South Carolina, Culp and Wade started back home with their families, and several friends.

They crossed the Cape Fear at Sprowl's Ferry (McNeill's) and camped for the night on Anderson Creek. During the night one of their party stole a piece of cloth from an orphan girl named Marion McDaniel. It was just a coarse piece of cloth but to the girl it meant a dress to wear to the kirk at Barbecue.

This theft was the spark that touched off the powder keg. John McNeill, another of Archie's and Jennie Bahn's sons, seems to have been the principal leader. For it was he who dispatched messengers to the various Tory hangouts during the day following the theft of the cloth. But McNeill found it convenient to spend the afternoon at Col. Folsome's, leaving there just at sundown.

From Folsome's to Piney Bottom was a matter of over 40 miles. But John McNeill was riding with Col. McDougald when they struck the Whig encampment at 3 o'clock in the morning. Several of Culp's party were killed, including a young boy whose head was slit open by one of the attackers. Culp, Wade and several more escaped and rode for help while the Tories plundered the wagons before setting them afire and leaving.

Culp and Wade returned to Cumberland County with 100 men and began a program of senseless bloodshed without parallel in the valley. Not even Fanning could match them in brutality.

It is interesting to speculate what would have happened had Fanning been available at this time. But he was in the Deep River country recovering from wounds received in the Cane Creek Battle.

Before they satisfied their lust for blood, Culp and Wade had murdered at least eight men, besides robbing many more and burning a number of homes. Oddly enough, Culp and Wade

stayed out of Harnett during this raid of revenge, confining their operations to what is now Moore and Hoke territory. Maybe they were hesitant to tackle the Tory big wheels.

Right after this raid, Culp himself was murdered.

After the war, Colonel Wade had John McNeill tried for his life for his part in the affair at Piney Bottom. However, McNeill put Colonel Folsome on the stand and proved he was at Folsome's home until sundown.

The jury promptly returned a not guilty verdict. It was impossible, they said, for a man to ride from Folsome's to Piney Bottom in the time stated. From then on McNeill was called “Cunning John.”

But John McNeill did make that ride. He practically had lived in a saddle all his life. Arch McDougald and John's brother, Daniel knew he made it; they were at Piney Bottom with him. But they were in Nova Scotia when John was tried. McDougald returned in later years. He is buried at Cameron's Hill, near the present village of Spout Springs.

Marion McDaniel knew McNeill made the ride, but she wasn't called as a witness. McNeill returned her piece of stolen cloth the day following the Piney Bottom incident. Now she could have her dress. It should have been a thing of wonder too. Fifteen men died on account of it!

These occurrences marked the turn of events in the Harnett area. In October of that year while the bands played, “The World is Turned Upside Down,” Cornwallis surrendered his British Army at Yorktown.

Major Craig abandoned Wilmington in November and sailed away. But Fanning still remained as a menace. However, he, too, left North Carolina in 1782. Now the Cape Fear Country could lick its wounds and set about rebuilding its way of life.

Men Identified As Being From What Is Now Harnett County

Who Served in the Revolution

SOURCES: Vouchers in Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, N. C.

U. S. Pension Lists, Washington, D. C.

Colonial and State Records

Cumberland County Records

NOTE: Unless otherwise indicated, all served in the Cumberland County Militia.

NameNameBenjamin AtkinsIca Atkins, In Moore's Creek CampaignJames AtkinsCapt. Alexander Avera, In Moore's Creek CampaignJohn Atkins

NameNameThomas AveraJohn GreenWilliam AveraCapt. Philemon HodgesJames AikensWilliam Hodges, Continental LineWilliam AndersonCorporal Consider Bushee, Rhode Island Continental LineAlexander JohnsonFrancis JonesThomas KillenMark BroomGeorge KillenMichael BlockerCapt. Neill McCraineyCapt. Daniel Buie, Died on prison ship at WilmingtonDaniel McCraineyAnguish McDougaldDuncan Buie, Wounded by TarletonMajor Alexander McDonald, Cumberland County Minute MenLt. Bedreddon CarrowayJames CarrowayArchibald McDougaldJohn CarrowayAlexander McDougaldDaniel ClarkHardy MatthewsDavid ClarkJohn MatthewsJohn ClarkJoseph MatthewsJohn CampbellJacob MatthewsAbraham CarterSgt. Alexander MorrisonLt. Richard CreechLt. Mark MyattDaniel CameronJesse Moore, In Moore's Creek CampaignAllen CameronJames Christian, Army of RevolutionNathan PrinceJacob ParkerWilliam CuttsJoseph Peoples, Captured by TarletonCapt. Robert Cobb, In Moore's Creek CampaignRobert PhillipsDavid DoddRichard Plummer, Rhode Island Continental LineCapt. Arthur DonnelyFrancis DonnelyEdward RobersonJohn DobbinsYoung RyalJames DobbinsWilliam RobersonCapt. Thomas DobbinsDuncan RayLt. George DraughonJohn RayEdward EverageJames Reardon, Served in Maryland MilitiaGeorge EvansJoseph Edwards, In Moore's Creek CampaignWalter RandEphraim FaulknerNeill ShawJohn FaulknerDaniel Shaw, Shot by ToriesFrancis Faulkner, In Moore's Creek CampaignCol. David SmithJohn Spears, Revolutionary ArmyCol. Ebenezer Folsome, In Moore's Creek CampaignRobert Scoggins, Continental LineIsrael FolsomeIsaac FolsomeJohn Small, Captured by TarletonJoseph GuestCapt. Joshua GuestPeter Stansell (Stancil), N. C. LineWilliam Goodrich

NameNameLawrence Strodder, Captured by TarletonWilliam Sproal, In Moore's Creek CampaignNeill SmithLevi West, Drummer in Continental LineFrances Smith, In Moore's Creek CampaignLt. William West

Harnett Men in War of 1812 Called To Service At Wilmington,

N. C., September 29, 1814—Never Got Into Action

NOTE: These men are listed because of a popular tendency to disregard the War of 1812 in this area.

SOURCE: N. C. State Records

Cumberland County Records

1ST CUMBERLAND REGIMENT

OfficersPrivatesCapt. Archibald McCrainieThomas H. Massey1st Lt. Daniel ShawJohn McKenzie2nd Lt. John ShawNeill McNeillEnsign John HodgesPhilip McRaeAllen NorthingtonPrivatesWilliam NunneryJesse BetheaMalcolm PattersonNeill BuieAngus RayRowland FaulknerAaron SearcyE. FolsomeSamuel SearcyWilliam HodgesJames SorrellDrury MasseyFrederick Yarborough

2ND CUMBERLAND REGIMENT

OfficersPrivatesCapt. John BurtMurdoch McLeod2nd Lt. Murdoch OchiltreeArchibald McGregorPrivatesDuncan McDougaldJohn AveryAsa MatthewsYoung BlanchetJohn MorrisonJames CameronHardy ParkerJames ChristianIca ParkerMalcolm ClarkArchibald PattersonLevi EnnisAsey PearsonJohn EvansGeorge SearcyJohn JohnsonLemuel SearcyTapley JohnsonWilliam SmithWilliam KennedyJonathan SmithJames KillenJames StewartJohn KnightHenry UrquhartDuncan McLeanNorman UrquhartHugh McLeanWilliam Watson

CHAPTER VI

FLORA McDONALD AND JENNIE BAHN McNEILL

No history of Harnett County would be complete without mention of two of its more famous women residents: somber-eyed Flora McDonald and red-headed Jennie Bahn McNeill.

Yet in the Colonial Records of North Carolina, and in the records of Cumberland County and of Anson County, no mention of either of these great women by name can be found. As far as those records are concerned, neither ever existed.

Let's take Flora McDonald first. She occupies a place in Scottish annals comparable to that of George Washington in our own history. Many books have been written about her life in Scotland and her brief stay in North Carolina. Barely is one book cold before another is hot off the press. And each succeeding writer points out the errors of his predecessor—then proceeds to grow a brand new crop of his own.

Flora McDonald's life in Scotland is too well known to be dealt with here. Just as a memory refresher: she was the daring young lady who was the main character in effecting the escape of Bonnie Prince Charles after his disastrous defeat at Culloden Moor in 1746.

For aiding him in his escape from his English enemies, Flora pulled a short sentence in the grim old Tower of London, where Sir Walter Raleigh spent his last days before being beheaded.

Because Prince Charles was much in the public eye, Flora shared in his publicity. However, to her fellow Scots she was either famous or notorious, depending on whether they liked or loathed her.

People then were pretty much as they are now. Human nature has changed very little through the years.

As for the Bonnie Prince—that unmannerly lout never even had the grace to thank Flora for risking her life and reputation for him. Beyond a simpering, “I trust we shall meet again in the royal palace,” there is no record of an expression of appreciation on his part.

And for poor Flora, she lugged around with her all the rest of her life a couple of bedsheets which that cheapskate slept between—mementoes of a great moment of her life.

In 1750 Flora married Allan McDonald, and in time they raised a family of five sons and two daughters.

With the worsening of economic conditions in Scotland, Allan and Flora sailed for North Carolina in the summer of 1774. They took with them their eldest daughter, Anne, with her husband,

Alexander McLeod, and their children (names not known); two sons, Alexander and James; and eight indentured servants. They landed at Wilmington in August or September of 1774.

R. E. Wicker, civil engineer of Pinehurst, N. C., is recognized in America—and perhaps in the world—as the leading authority on Flora McDonald in North Carolina. Over a generation of years he has made an exhaustive—and exhausting—research covering her life and movements during the nearly four years she lived in this state. From that point on this story of Flora McDonald is based on his research.

If we can believe tradition, the McDonalds journey up the Cape Fear to Cross Creek was one grand succession of balls, parties, and just plain celebrations.

After a short stay in Cross Creek, they removed to Cameron's Hill in western Harnett. Many people have wondered why they chose to live at such an out-of-way place. The answer is simple. Cameron's Hill at that time was the junction point of roads that led to the Deep River and to Salem, Averasboro and Fayetteville. A person who lived there could keep up pretty well with happenings throughout the Upper Cape Fear section. Nearby was located the important trading post of Marchant John Cameron.

There was another reason for the McDonalds going to Cameron's Hill. Flora had a half-sister, Annabella and her husband Alexander McDonald, who lived there.

In 1772 Duncan Buie sold to this Alexander McDonald 100 acres on the south side of a hill called Mt. Pleasant, a mile from the south prong of Barbecue Creek. This hill became Cameron's Hill a few years later when Allan Cameron purchased it.

The Cumberland court minutes of April, 1772, record that:

“Alexander McDonald complains that his indentured servant Angus Nicholson disobeys his lawful commands. . . . Court orders Nickolson to receive 7 lashes on the bare back with a hickory switch.”

Evidently Angus was beginning to absorb some of the spirit of freedom of those days.

It is very probable that Flora and Allan never intended to take up permanent residence at the Hill. They just “visited”’ with Alexander and Annabella while Allan looked around for a choice location. This he found in the lower part of present-day Montgomery County, then part of Anson. He bought of Caleb Touchstone two plantations: one 475 acres, the other 50 acres, and named his new home Killiegrey. This land was located on Cheek's Creek about one and a half miles northeast of Pekin.

The Register of Deeds office of Anson County does not show this transaction. Allan may have followed a practice quite common among the thrifty Scots of that period: The buyer and

seller admitting the transaction in open court, with at least one of the subscribing witnesses present to testify under oath that he witnessed the deal. This method cost neither party anything but it got the transaction on record in the court minutes. The deed could be properly registered, years later, if necessary, when money became more plentiful or further transfer of the property was made.

There were good reasons why Allan chose this location in Montgomery County. It was a goodly land, pleasant to look upon, for it was rolling country to remind the Scots of their own Hie'lands. And there were plenty of newly arrived Scotsmen in the area, their wrists bearing fresh scars from the Blood Oath they had taken before coming to America. That oath bound them to the King, whereas the Buies, Clarks, Dobbins and others of the Barbecue-Cameron's Hill section were not hampered by any such foolishness. They were pro-Whig and said so.

Too, the McDonalds had kin folk out there. Nearby lived old Hugh McDonald, Flora's step-father. Her mother Marion may have been there, too, but this is doubtful. Then there was Soirlee McDonald, along with a township full of McLeods, all of the same mind politically.

True, back at Cameron's Hill they had been nearer the center of operations. It was only a short distance to Cross Creek. Barbecue Church was nearby where tradition says Flora worshiped, and this is probably correct.

The house where the McDonalds lived at the Hill has long since gone back to the earth, but the Flora McDonald spring which supplied their water needs still flows.

There are many stories of Flora sitting on a rock by this spring, gazing into the bluish haze of the west, lonely and watching and waiting, waiting for her men folk out there hunting a site for their new home in this bountiful land where they hoped to live happy and peaceful lives.

And even then, up in New England, dark clouds shot through with lightning flashes were boiling over the sky. War!

No records have been found to indicate when Flora and Allan moved from Cameron's Hill to Killiegrey. A letter dated July 3, 1775 from the Safety Committee at Wilmington is addressed to Allan McDonald of Cumberland County. This would indicate Allan was still at the Hill. The Committee wanted to know if he intended raising troops for service against America.

In 1784 Allan filed a claim with the British government for damages sustained while in America. It is this claim that told of the lands he purchased in Montgomery County. In it he stated that the income from a grist mill on one of the tracts kept his

family in food. This would show the McDonalds moved there too late in 1775 to start a crop.

On April 20, 1776 the General Assembly refers to Allan McDonald as being a resident of Anson County. So sometime after July 3, 1775 Allan and Flora set up their new home at Killiegrey on Cheek's Creek.

In the meantime, their daughter Anne and her husband Alexander McLeod had bought a home they called Glendale. It was located on Wad's Creek between present-day Pinehurst and Carthage.

Then came the dreaded summons to war. On Jan. 10, 1776 Royal Governor Martin ordered General Donald McDonald, lately come from Boston, to raise a loyalist army.

From then on, if one can believe some writers, Flora spent all her time haranguing Highlanders, inspecting troops and taking parades. That she was a powerful factor in the raising of the loyalists there is no question, but a lot of the stories attributed to her during that period are just that—stories.

Nevertheless, a great many Highlanders and quite a number of the old-time Regulators rallied to the King's Standard as Cross Hill near Carthage for the march to Cross Creek. The Highlanders used their time-honored method of raising the clans: dipping burning crosses in goat's blood to extinguish them, then sending riders bearing the charred crosses in all directions to summon the clansmen to the rallying point on this hill near Carthage. Hence came the name Cross Hill.

They had been told they would be sent to Nova Scotia to be formed into regiments for service against the “Rebels” in New England. By the time they arrived at Cross Creek, it became evident that they would probably have to fight their way out of North Carolina and, in many instances, fight their neighbors and kinsmen. This was more than they had bargained for. At roll call each morning whole companies would be on the missing list.

Allan McDonald along with his sons, Alexander and James, and with his son-in-law, Alexander McLeod, had been issued officer's commissions. In spite of their efforts and those of other clan leaders, the army continued to melt away.

Finally, in sheer desperation, General Donald McDonald issued orders for the remainder of his army, now down to 1500 men, to march on Wilmington.

History records what followed at the Widow Moore's Creek on February 27, 1776. The Highlanders marched into a well-prepared trap; and in the massacre that followed, many of them were captured and the rest scattered through the woods. Allan and his

son Alexander were captured, but his son James and Alexander McLeod escaped.

Allan was jailed at Halifax, N. C., for a while before being transferred to Philadelphia and later to Reading, Pa. In a letter to a friend he plaintively wrote: “To walk on foot the length of Philadelphia is what I can never do.” But he did. After being kicked around from one bull pen to another, he was finally paroled to New York, where he arranged for the exchange of himself and his son in Aug. 1777.

Meanwhile, the confiscation Act of 1777 had been passed, and Flora McDonald was among the first to be ejected from her home. All the McDonald possessions at Killiegrey were confiscated save a few articles. Flora then moved over to the present Moore County, where she could be near her daughter, Anne.

Her new home was on Nick's Creek near the head of Chandler's Upper Pond on land owned by Kenneth Black, about three miles from Anne's home.

It was here she and, presumably, her son James lived until March, 1778, when her son-in-law, now Major Alexander McLeod, arrived under a flag of truce to take his wife and family and Flora and her son to New York.

Flora lived in New York for a short while before following Allan to Nova Scotia, where he was stationed with his regiment. She was in London in 1779 and back in Scotland the next year. She died on the Isle of Skye March 4, 1790, and was buried with Allan's kindred at Kilmuir. Sept. 20, 1792, Allan died and was buried at the same place.

Flora McDonald was one of the unluckiest women of history. Misfortune dogged her steps all the days of her life. Even in death she was denied a normal burial. A violent storm began raging the day she was to be buried and it was three days before her body could be committed to the earth. When a stone slab was erected at her grave, souvenir hunters promptly chipped it to fragments. In later years it was replaced by a massive Iona Cross, which despoilers found too tough to handle, for it is still standing, strong, indomitable—like the woman whose resting place it marks.

Jennie Bahn

Contemporary with Flora McDonald was another storied woman who lived in the Harnett area. She was Jennie Bahn McNeill, born Janet Smith, daughter of John Smith, a lowland Scot, and his wife Margaret Gilchrist, who died on the voyage to America in 1739.

John Smith died sometime before 1754 and is buried on the land he owned across the river almost opposite Wade Station.

His grave is marked by a rough stone slab with the letters J S rudely carved thereon. He had a son Malcolm, who seems to have inherited most of his father's estate.

Janet Smith was born about 1720 and was probably married to Archibald McNeill shortly before, or around, 1748. From traditional accounts, Janet was small of stature and very attractive. She had red hair and a fair complexion, characteristics transmitted to many of her descendants. Her Scottish neighbors called her Jennie Bahn, meaning Jennie the Fair.

Her husband, Archie, son of Lauchlin McNeill and his wife Margaret Johnstone, was a man who liked to take life easy, so easy that he was known as Archie Scorblin’—or Scrubblin’—meaning insignificant, below standard, scrubby. Archie Scrubblin’, it seemed, enjoyed hanging around his cider barrel, raising the children he sired and Jennie Bahn bore. There were nine of them: seven sons and two daughters.

The active, driving Jennie Bahn spent much of her time in the saddle, looking after the family's cattle herds and taking up large areas of land. Each year she drove herds to market at Cross Creek and, on occasion, as far as Petersburg, Va.

Her surveying methods were original, if not accurate. They resembled the Indian method of measuring land by so many “shoots of an arrow.” She would send a slave to walk a certain direction until she rang a large bell. At the sound of the bell he was to travel another direction. By this method she would enclose large tracts which did not satisfy her neighbors in many cases. They claimed she infringed on their land.

This was probably true, for in time the lawyers of Cumberland were to rise and call her blessed when the suits began hitting the court calendar.

Oddly enough, the land grant office at Raleigh and the court records at Fayetteville do not once mention the name of this remarkable woman. The tracts she acquired by patent were entered in the names of her husband and children. In later years a son, Malcolm, was to spend much time in litigation over these “cowbell surveyed” tracts.

Stories tell of Jennie Bahn driving herds of 3,000 cattle to market as far away as Philadelphia. They couldn't take along enough feed or buy it en route to take care of a herd that size. There is a story that on a drive to Petersburg probably, when the feed ran out, she tried to buy some from a wayside planter. He refused to sell. Wherewith Jennie Bahn ordered his fence taken down and drove her hungry cattle into his hay meadow.

Cumberland County tax records show husband Archie and sons listing 500 cattle. Allowing a 3 to 1 lapse of memory ratio

at listing time, this would indicate a combined herd of 1500. That's still a lot of cows!

There is much evidence to show that Jennie Bahn did visit Philadelphia and that she did meet and admire Benjamin Franklin, who could be quite a party man when occasion required. Be that as it may, there has been a Benjamin Franklin in the McNeill and collateral family generations ever since her trips to Pennsylvania.

Jennie Bahn did not confine her land acquiring to taking up vacant land. She bought the Sprowl Ferry property, later McNeill's Ferry, by a neat bit of psychology, along with some cash.

She dropped in on William Sprowl one day shortly after the Tory raid on the ferry in 1781 when Andrew Beard was killed. Sprowl and his wife had been roughly handled by the raiders, and from current reports, he could expect another raid almost any time.

Naturally, he was unhappy. He was homesick for his native Scotland—or even Philadelphia where his brother lived. Jennie could talk to him fluently about both places—and did. Then she touched on the unsettled conditions in the Cape Fear country and how worthless property was becoming. When she left, Sprowl was blubbering and Jennie Bahn was sobbing her commiseration. But she had a signed option on his place at a figure far less than its real worth. Poor Sprowl never got back to his native Scotland, or even Philadelphia. Shortly after selling the ferry lands he mas murdered.

It is not to be implied that Jennie Bahn spent all her time out on the range. She was a good wife and mother but the driving force in her never allowed her to take things easy. There is an old song in the Valley that runs: “Upstairs, downstairs, Jennin Bahn the weaver.”

If we take this song literally it would imply that her home was two storied. Her family lived at various times in several locations. During the Revolution they lived at the old home place on Anderson Creek. It was here the British seized her saddle horse when a forage party passed by. Jennie Bahn went out to bid farewell to her horse. As she caressed the animal she stealthily ran her fingers up its neck and slipped off the bridle. “Git, you beast!” she shouted, slapping it with the reins. The mare took off at full speed. “Catch her if you can,” Jennie Bahn told the soldiers. They didn't.

On another occasion she was in the kitchen preparing a meal. There was company visiting them that day. Jennin Bahn reached for a skillet on the fireplace.

“Law! Mis’ Jennie!” shrieked the cook. “Don't use dat pan. De dog's been eatin’ out'n it!”

“Shucks!’ was the retort. “This isnt quality we're cooking for. The dog pan's good enough for them.”

There are stories of how she divided her sons during the Revolution, placing three in the American army and three in the British. One son, Archibald, was killed as a child by falling from a tree.

Actually, five of her sons, Lauchlin, Neill, Cunning John, Nova Scotia Daniel and Leather-Eye Hector served at various times with the Loyalist forces, Malcolm did serve a short stretch in the Cumberland militia and was county sheriff for one term during the war, but in the early days of the war he was indicted for urging one of the Treadway boys to join the King's forces.

It has already been explained how Cunning John received his name. Daniel got his by removing to Nova Scotia at the end of the war. Hector wore a piece of black leather over the socket from which the eye had been gouged in a furious fight with, of all people, his father-in-law to be, one Barksdale.

Barksdale didn't like Hector for b