"Bellfield" in Yanceyville, Caswell County, NC

"Bellfield"

The following story of Bellfield and friends Bell Siah and Andy Ferguson apparently is found in a letter from George Andrew Anderson (1869-1945) to his son James Ezekiel (Zeke) Anderson (1914-2005). Presumably this letter remains in the files of the Anderson family or was donated to the Caswell County Historical Association (CCHA), an organization in which Zeke Anderson and wife Sallie Gibbs Pridgen Anderson (1915-2012) were deeply involved (being founding members). The research library at the CCHA's Richmond-Miles Museum is named for Sallie Anderson.

Here is the story as published in 1948:

"Behind the [Caswell County] courthouse lies what is still called Bellfield, where more than 150 years ago [before 1798] Bell Siah and Andy Ferguson, two Irishmen from the old country, used to sit beneath a great sassafras tree or fish along the branch.

"There were never better friends than these. One day as they sat beneath the tree, which according to a letter written by George Anderson to his son Zeke Anderson, had a trunk 'like the torso of a human body, while outstretched limbs were human in their resemblance,' Bell must have told his friend that he was going to fashion a coffin for himself out of the tree. This he did, using axe and adze to hollow it out, and sweet gum and bee's wax to polish the surface; then he stored in the loft of his cabin.

[Photograph: Looking south behind the Courthouse toward Country Line Creek. Image not associated with the above newspaper article. Click image to see a larger version. Courtesy Tim Ross.]

"When the time neared for the coffin to be put to its intended use, Andy was there; and he listened to his dying friend say: 'I feel that my calling and election is sure, and I can smell the shamrock and the hawthorn blooming in the fields of Old Ireland.'

"Whereupon, Andy replied, 'Bell, when you get up there in that great country where all is peace and love, tell them that you knew Andy Ferguson in the old country and that he was a good and kindly man who dried the widow's tears and fed the orphans' mouths.'

"Then, scarcely able to hold back his tears, Andy went outside to recompose himself. There another thought occurred to him and he went back to Bell and said:

"'Bell, another thought has come to me. It may be that you have made some miscalculation in the route you are taking. It may be that instead of entering that land of perpetual bliss, you might go to that other world where there is nothing but misery and suffering. If so, tell them that you didn't know a thing about Andy Fergurson in the old country.'

"Bell Siah died, with one request -- that he buried at night in the bed of Bellfield Branch. His friends in compliance dammed the stream, dug a grave six feet deep, placed the hand-hewn casket tenderly in place, then broke the dam and allowed the waters to flow over the grave.

"Andy Fergurson could stand no more the once pleasant surroundings, and soon disappeared."

Source: MacCaughelty, Tom. "History of Yanceyville and Caswell County Replete With Drama, Colorful Personalities, Places, Legends, Life." Durham Morning Herald (Durham, NC), Sunday, 28 March 1948, Sec. IV, pp. 1 and 3.

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The stream behind the old Caswell County Courthouse runs down to Country Line Creek. It has been called Jail Branch. Both George A. Anderson and Zeke Anderson owned and lived in the large house just southeast of the Courhouse, owning at one substantial acreage behind the house. Today, a portion of this land has been developed into an impressive Arboretum. The above newspaper article contains the only reference I have seen to this land being called "Bellfield."

In 1792 when Caswell County was divided and its seat of government moved to a central spot, the town of Caswell Courthouse was begun in a wilderness on a sloping hillside that drained into Country Line Creek via a rocky branch known now as Jail Branch. The 100 acres purchased from James and Mary Ingram was a part of a larger tract granted to his father Benjamin Ingram. Original plats are not extant, but it was described as being between Rattlesnake and Country Line Creeks. Rattlesnake rises north of the town and runs to the Dan River.

Sources: The Heritage of Caswell County, North Carolina, Jeannine D. Whitlow, Editor (1985) at 74 (“Yanceyville” by Katharine Kerr Kendall) and 76 ("Yanceyville 1833-1839” by Katharine Kerr Kendall).