Wednesday, March 21, 2012

North Carolina Button Factory

A manufacturing company in Wilmington, the North Carolina Button Factory produced Confederate uniform buttons.  In 1861, Louis Froelich, the “Sword Maker for the Confederacy,” started working in the arms industry and gained experience that helped him establish and supervise the Confederate Arms Factory.

Sources:
North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program, Confederate Arms Factory http://www.ncmarkers.com/Markers.aspx?ct=ddl&sp=search&k=Markers&sv=F-27%20-%20CONFEDERATE%20ARMS%20FACTORYLeon

Plank Roads



To bring wealth and awake their state from its supposed economic slumber in the antebellum era, North Carolinians advocated the use of plank roads in the late 1840s.  These wooded highways were purported to be an improvement over rough, dirt roads and a necessary step to create an intrastate (an eventually interstate) trade network of plank roads, railroad hubs, and seaports.  Such an effort was considered much needed, as one historians puts its, because plank roads could free “citizens from the bondage of primitive roads.”

During the late 1840s, entrepreneurs started receiving government charters to build plank roads, and by the mid-1850s, enthusiasm for such projects reached its statewide zenith; there were thirty-nine bills for plank road charters in 1852, and in the 1854-55 legislative session, thirty-two charters were granted.

Support for plank roads usually divided along partisan lines: almost three-fourths of Whigs supported their construction and about the same number of Democrats opposed them.  The plank road movement created spirituous debate and devolved, at times, into character assassination.  As evidenced by one Democrat’s letter to Fayetteville Observer, plank roads symbolized much more than internal improvements: “You [Whigs] is always makin fun of the democrats and hard shel Baptusts.  Case the sertain ways for themselves and case they bleve in the lord and do kist rite and case you hi floun whigs gits licked every onse and a while your awai a maikin things on us to try and injur our Karecktors.”

Except in a few cases, the charter process was similar for plank road companies.  The first step was the election of officers.  Providing detailed construction plans was the second.  The third was soliciting and acquiring subscriptions—the money given by investors for construction costs.  When the starting amount was raised (which varied by law from ten to twenty-five percent of the total expected cost of the road), stockholders convened to elect six to nine directors, who were then given control of subscription money.  Soon afterward, directed by a board and president with the power and privilege of property rights, the companies were incorporated.

Many North Carolinians were excited about the possibilities of plank road construction.  According to one historian, “the spirit of progress was everywhere” in the state.  Those in the mountains hoped plank roads connected them with the rest of the state, so they could benefit from increased trade.  Those in coastal towns, such as Wilmington, envisioned the plank roads leading to and from the ports and contributing greatly to an intrastate trade network.  From the mountains to the coast, and everywhere in between, entrepreneurs forecasted profits and consumers anticipated quicker shipments of needed goods.

At times, however, the logistics of road construction produced contentious debate.  The right of eminent domain was invoked to take individual’s land and some alleged that government officials and plank road officers colluded for personal gain.

Once construction began, public enthusiasm waned.  The development was not for those lacking heart or brawn.  People realized road construction was an arduous task, requiring more effort, money, and maintenance than previously thought.  Workers first graded a roadbed.  Then they elevated the center of the road so that water could drain.  Measuring approximately five by eight feet, wooden sills were laid next as support.  After that, pine planks measuring approximately eight feet long and eight inches wide and four inches thick were laid on top of the sills.  Laws required the roads to be a minimum of eight feet and a maximum of sixty feet, and typically plank roads were eight feet wide and adjacent to a well-graded dirt road.  Avoiding getting stuck in the mud, teamsters traveled on the planks, while individuals and light carriages passed on the dirt road.

To help pay for this construction, companies placed toll houses along the road.  On one road, one rider on horseback paid .5 cent per mile, a teamster with two horses paid 2 cents per mile, a teamster with three horses, 3 cents, and one with six horses, 4 cents.  Believing the companies to be “cheeters,” some avoided the tolls and cheated the companies out of a significant profit.

As with any type of construction, the skill and speed of work crews, the accessibility of raw materials, and the weather determined the time needed to build a road.  A team of fifteen usually laid 650 feet a day, or about one mile a week, or forty miles a year.  One crew of fifteen, however, put down an impressive 1,000 feet a day (more than a third and almost twice as fast as the average crew).  

In the 1850s approximately 500 miles of plank road were laid in North Carolina.  The longest plank road was the Fayetteville and Western, which stretched 129 miles from Fayetteville to Salem.  It was one of the few that received state financial assistance.  Each year the Fayetteville and Western made a profit, and in turn, the state revenue grew.  Many government officials, such as Jonathan Worth of Randolph County and Francis Fries of Salem, also served as company officers.

Scholars suggest that plank roads were doomed from the start.  First, they competed with railroads, a faster mode of transportation.  Also, the timing of plank road construction was bad; in 1856 the North Carolina Railroad connected the mountains with the coast.  Second, travelers cheated road companies by avoiding tolls.  Third, the economic panics of the 1850s discouraged many investors.  Fourth, plank roads required continual and costly maintenance.  And fifth, the circumstances of the Civil War damaged or destroyed many plank roads.

Although the plank road movement was described as a failure, historians consider it an important development that rescued the state from its “slothful” economic condition.  More scholarship needs to be done, however, to determine that the failure of the plank road movement was “inevitable,” and if the Tar Heel state was indeed economically inactive.

Sources:
Robert B. Starling, “The Plank Road Movement in North Carolina” North Carolina Historical Review (1939) 16: 1-22, 147-73 and Harry L. Watson, “’Old Rip’ and a New Era” in Lindley S. Butler and Alan D. Watson, eds., The North Carolina Experience: An Interpretive and Documentary History, 217-40.
By Troy L. Kickler, North Carolina History Project

Sources:
Robert B. Starling, “The Plank Road Movement in North Carolina” North Carolina Historical Review (1939) 16: 1-22, 147-73 and Harry L. Watson, “’Old Rip’ and a New Era” in Lindley S. Butler and Alan D. Watson, eds., The North Carolina Experience: An Interpretive and Documentary History, 217-40.
By Troy L. Kickler, North Carolina History Project

Saturday, March 17, 2012


St. James Church
Corner of Third and Market Streets houses a famous painting of the head of Christ. Ecce Horno, “Behold the Man, “which is estimated to be over 500 years old. A portrait of Christ with a crown of thorns on his head and blood on his face and body.  The painting was captured from a Spanish pirate ship in 1748 at a settlement on the Cape Fear River twenty miles below Wilmington.  The artist who painted the portrait is unknown, although it is thought to be Francisco Pacheon, who lived in Spain in the sixteenth century.

Source: A Pictorial History of Wilmington by Anne Russell




St. James Episcopal Church was established in the year 1729. Proceeds from the sale of goods that had been salvaged from the Fortuna, a Spanish ship that was abandoned after the Spanish had an unsuccessful attack on Wilmington, went to the construction of St. James and its sister church, St. Philip's Church. The original church building for St. James was built and completed in 1770. The church took on a vital role in the American Revolutionary War. British General Lord Cornwallis took up residency in a house across the street from St. James. The British used St. James as a hospital, and later as a riding school to train the British soldiers. The church was torn down and rebuilt in 1839, the new building constructed from the original bricks of the church. Architect Thomas U. Walter, who designed the dome of the United States Capitol, designed the new church building. St. James, yet again, found itself taking a role in war. In the American Civil War, the church was used as a hospital for Union soldiers, who had at the time taken the confederate city of Wilmington after the fall of Fort Fisher. The church's parish house was built in 1923. Next to the parish house was a house built by Henry Bacon, the architect of the Lincoln Memorial in 1901. The Bacon house later became church offices. The church is the resting place of three Episcopal Bishops, Robert Strange, Thomas Atkinson, and Thomas H. Wright, who are buried underneath the church.[2][3]
Church interior
St. James Episcopal Church's oak altar and reredos were carved by Silas McBee, depicting the Nativity, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus. McBee also designed the Bishop's chair and two of the stained glass windows, imcluding The Resurrection of Christ.
Ecce Homo
A painting of Christ was found in the captain's cabin of the Fortuna by scavengers when being salvaged. The painting turned out to have been done by Spanish artist Francisco Pacheco, and was named Ecce Homo, Latin for Behold the Man. The painting was given to St. James Episcopal Church in 1751, and still resides in the church.[4]
Notable burials
The historic graveyard at St. James has many notable burials.[5] These burials include:
References
1.                           ^ http://www.stjamesp.org/refresh/templates/about.php?id=3
3.                           ^ http://www.stjamesp.org/refresh/templates/about.php?id=4

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