AN IREDELL NEIGHBORHOOD A HALF CENTURY AGO 1845-53
By Captain H.A. Chambers of Chattanooga, Tennessee
The Landmark
Statesville, N.C.
May 4, 1900
I have heretofore spoken of the superstitious people
and the supposed ghost of the suicide in Hoover’s Hollow. A good many
people then believed and doubtless still believe in ghosts, “spirits”,
“haunts”, haunted houses, etc.—at least to the extent of making them
timid at night about deserted houses and lonely places. Much of this
resulted from the habit many of them had then of telling ghost and witch
stories to and in the presence of small children.
There was an old lady from the Plymouth settlement south of Third Creek
whom I remember only as “Granny” Matthews who used to visit in the old
neighborhood and who had a vast fund of such stories which she delighted
to tell and in truth of which she seemed to me to thoroughly believe. I
remember that once when she was on a visit at my grandfather’s she told
some of these uncanny stories with such minuteness of detail and such
powers of vivid description that my heart seemed almost to stand on end
at her bare recital. I have long since lost all fear of ghosts but some
of her stories still remain in my memory.
“Tice” Wilson, heretofore mentioned, used to tell a ghost story on
himself. Although a mature, married man when I heard him tell it, he had
a strong vein of superstition in him and still, even then, to think he
had actually seen a ghost or “haunt”.
He said when he was a young man he had on one occasion been detained at
a neighbor’s house until after night. In order to get home, he had to
travel over a newly cut road leading through the woods. He did not at
all like the prospect of going alone, but there was no one to go with
him or he was ashamed to ask for an escort. He was bare footed and was
carefully picking his way through the stumps and other obstructions to
keep from stumping his toes, when he happened to look behind him and saw
something white as a sheet silently following behind him. When he
stopped, it stopped. When he moved, it moved. It kept just the same
distance from him. He started to run—it ran too. When he looked back, it
was still moving silently along the same distance behind him. To use his
own language he then “fairly flew” to home. Indeed, he said he must have
flown because though the road was a long one and full of stumps, rocks,
roots, he never stumped a toe or hurt his foot in the race. When he
reached home, he fainted and fell in the door and was “laid up” for a
time. He knew of no plausible explanation of the apparition except as a
ghost. I have the impression that his theory was confirmed in his view
by the fact that some person in the vicinity had died about the same
hour or shortly before. The inference is that the wraith of the departed
was seeking to accompany him on his lonely journey home.
In the scarcity of entertaining books, periodicals and newspapers, now
so cheap and abundant, the families in the old neighborhood amused
themselves by asking and answering conundrums, telling anecdotes and
repeating ghost stories as above.
I used often to hear my grandfather and the old men of the neighborhood
talk about the “shooting matches” for the display of skill in
marksmanship, for prizes that had once been customary among the people.
While they were not then so frequent and important as in former times to
be considered as one of the customs of the time I am writing about. I
can remember that my grandfather, who had been no poor shot himself,
used still to go on occasion to one of these affairs; and I have a vague
recollection of one of them being either in his own place or at the
north end of the field, not far from the site of the neighborhood
schoolhouse. I recall no other in the immediate vicinity.
I think I have heard my grandfather speak of them being held at Sumter
Hoover’s and other points on the south side of Third Creek. But the
custom had fallen greatly into disuse. Sometimes when a few neighbors
with their guns happened to meet and they would shoot at a mark to amuse
themselves but without any prize for the one who did the best shot.
Moreover, there were still, in those days, plenty of squirrels, some
wild turkeys and pheasants, hawks, wild geese at certain seasons,
occasional cranes, and wild ducks about the creeks and ponds and
possibly, now and then, a deer or “painter” (panther) to furnish sport
and which required skill with a rifle.
Among the best shots in the neighborhood, as I remember, were James
Haithcox and Cowan Chambers. Indeed, the latter was quite a hunter,
especially of wild turkeys. Every man and boy in the community, however,
was familiar with the use of guns and some of them formed strong
personal attachments to their rifles after the manner of Davy Crocket
and his “Betsy”. This familiarity with the use of fire arms, together
with the thoroughly trained militia men got from the county and general
muster, and the martial spirit thus inspired; fitted the men of the
neighborhood for the splendid Confederate soldiers they made during the
Civil War.
While the old fashioned “shooting matches” had not been entirely
abandoned, yet they were becoming so infrequent and so few were held in
the neighborhood after I can remember that I never became familiar with
their use and practice. But I think the usual prize for the winner was
the first choice of a quarter-beef, veal or mutton, the price of which
had been “made up” or contributed to by the contestants. Indeed, as few
families of that day could themselves use or preserve an entire beef, it
is probably that the shooting match was used as a means of disposing of
it.
But time has wrought many changes in the people and customs. Even the
physical appearance of the old neighborhood when I saw it in 1891 and
1896 is very different from what it was fifty years ago. The “no fence”
law has seemed to me to “turn everything out of doors”. Some of the
houses considered fairly substantial structures in their day are
gone—not a vestige left—like those of Uncle James Barkley and my
grandfather.
Much of the wood land is cleared up and under cultivation. Many of the
fields then in cultivation are now in broomsedge, sassafras, or pines.
The field that was the “new ground” at my grandfather’s place when I
left there in 1853 was covered thickly with full grown field pines when
I saw it last in 1891.
In that year I took my son and some friends in a hack from Statesville
with the intention of showing them the place in the old neighborhood
which I was familiar in my boyhood. I could not locate and recognized so
few places that I gave up the effort. In 1896 my wife and I went in a
buggy from Statesville along the Salisbury Road through the neighborhood
to “Farmville”, the old Chambers place. It hardly seemed like the same
road I had traveled so often when a boy—the houses, fields, and wood
lands had been so changed.
To Be Continued
Transcribed by Christine Spencer, May, 2008
