First Ladies of Caswell County 1985

First Ladies of Caswell County 1985

Jame Armistead Scott [Mrs. Archibald DeBow Murphey]
Mary Lee Varner Carter
Ann (Nancy) Graves (1786-1855) [Mrs. Bartlett Yancey]
Janet Leigh Harris Cobb
[Mrs. Bedford Brown]
Mary Skipwith Brown
[Mrs. Romulus Saunders]
Maud Florance Gatewood
[Mrs. Solomon Lea]
Ann Newman Gunn Everitt
Mrs. John Kerr
Bea Gatling Gwynn [  ]
[Mrs. Thomas Day]
Dorothy Yarbrough Zimmerman
Henrietta Jeffries
Helen Payne
Lizzie Lownes
Helen Little
Ida Isabella Poteat
Geneva Williams Warren
Mrs. Barzillai Shufford Graves

Palmer Store (Caswell County, North Carolina)

Palmer Store (Intersection of Yarbrough Mill Road and Highway 57 -- Between Milton and Semora). The last of the Palmer family to operate the store was Sewell Palmer, son of Reverend Benjamin Boswell Palmer (1845-1915). Last use may have been a barber shop.

Nicholas Longworth Dillard (1906-1969) Monument

Nicholas Longworth Dillard (1906-1969)

Nicolas Longworth Dillard challenged his students to face life with the determination to succeed and to write their name on the face of time. The Caswell County High School Class of 1966 did just that as they worked on a memorial to the man who was a principal for 37 years; a man that changed the lives of African American children in Caswell County and made an impact throughout the world. On Friday, as over a hundred graduates from the school gathered, the monument to N.L. Dillard that now stays in Yanceyville’s Square was unveiled.

The granite monument is a symbol of the hard work, respect and love of Dillard’s former students who raised the funds and collaborated with designers to make their dream a reality. In December, Tresca Byrd and Betty Graves approached the Caswell County Commissioners with their plans for a class project. “We are graduates of Caswell County High School, Caswell County Training School Class of 1966 and for the past five years Tresca and I have been serving as chairperson and vice-chairperson of the class. We are getting ready for our 50th class reunion and we would like to leave a class gift,” said Graves. That gift, she explained, would be a monument to Dillard who “worked hard and his dedication affected the entire community and county and his ability to work with people to improve as a county.” Byrd added that the committee had been working for years on the plan, “We have worked with people at the national level and local level.” In fact, the stone is made from Virginia Mist Granite which is the same stone used in the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Totten Family: Making Molasses 1983

(for larger image, click on photograph)

"The County Visits"

"Making Molasses: An Age-Old Art"

When the wintry winds blow and the snow falls in the month of February, what could be more appealing than a big plate of steaming hot pancakes for breakfast, lathered with butter and covered with molasses? Not the usual kind of molasses you find n a store, mind you, but the rich, dark, homemade kind -- that kind made by the Waymon Totten family of Yanceyville.

The growing of sugar cane for the making of molasses has been known for centuries, and the Totten family uses that knowledge to the fullest. Every few years, the whole family -- Waymon and Beatrice, and sons Tommy, Henry, Otis, Robert, Waymon and J. C. -- gather together for the pleasant ritual of boiling down cane sap to make the molasses.

The process is a simple one, but one that takes considerable time from start to finish. Beginning in mid-fall with a cane field grown on the family's farm, it takes at least seven or eight hours for the process to be completed.

Frogsboro, Caswell County, North Carolina

(for larger image, click on photograph)

Frogsboro is an unincorporated community in Caswell County, North Carolina. However, the origin of the name "Frogsboro" was long a mystery. Many speculated, and reasonably so, that it had something to do with frogs, but until recently the full story was not known.

According to Caswell County resident Donald Hightower, the following explains the name given to the Caswell County "Frogsboro" community:

"There was a frog pond on Warren Wade's farm that in later years was enlarged. However, some viewed it as an over-size mud hole! One could hear the bull frogs croaking, often resulting in some large and tasty frog legs. The frog pond remains today, across the highway from the Old Lea Bethel Baptist Church.

"This is what I was told many times by the older men that lived around Frogsboro. Back in the day, I enjoyed sitting around and listening to them talk: Floyd Harris; Warren Wade; Earnest Rudd; Speck Thaxton; Tom Fitch; and Shorty Hightower (my father). Those men knew a lot of Caswell County history."

Dated: September 12, 2016
_______________

1. Robert Warren Wade (1920-2006)
2. Floyd Owen Harris (1912-2007)
3. Ernest Rufus Rudd (1913-2002)
4. Henry (Speck) Thaxton (1926-1993)
5. Thomas Fitch
6. Daniel Lorenza (Shorty) Hightower (1909-1974)
_______________

(for larger image, click on photograph)

Courthouse Fire Made Many Heroes

(for larger image, click on photograph)

"The County History: Courthouse Fire Made Many Heroes" by Joshua Durham

The old Caswell County courthouse stands like a silent sentinel, overlooking the public square in Yanceyville. Built just prior to the Civil War by free and slave labor, the old structure has been the scene of many important and intriguing trials, and to most residents of Caswell County, stands as a reminder of the many-faceted history of Caswell.

But, without the hard and fast work of a few courageous men in 1952, the old courthouse could have been lost forever, the victim of a flash fire!

The morning of March 13, 1952 dawned cool and clear, and people went about their business in Yanceyville as usual, not suspecting that the day was going to be one for the history books.

Around ten o'clock that morning someone spotted a small column of smoke drifting from under the eave of the courthouse, on the southeast corner of the roof. This small column soon turned into a billowing cloud of thick, dark smoke. A call was put in for the Yanceyville volunteer fire department, then the only such department in the county, and firemen soon arrived on the scene.

An attempt was made to enter the attic of the courthouse through a doorway located at the top of the winding staircase in the front of the building, but without modern breathing apparatus, the firemen were forced back down.

1940 Caswell County Community and Neighborhood Grouping

(for larger image, click on photograph)

Community and Neighborhood Grouping of White Population Caswell County, North Carolina (1940)

In 1940 the Caswell County Land Use Planning Commission cooperated with the United States Bureau of Agricultural Economics in a "reconnaissance survey" of neighborhoods and communities in the county as the first step in discovering groupings of rural people which would provide the basis for the organization of community land use planning. By on the spot observations and by informal interviews it was discovered that there were forty nine fairly well defined large communities. These were determined in some cases by voting districts, consolidated school districts, and the topography of the area.

The communities were Anderson, Cobb's School, Dan River, Hightowers, Leasburg, Milton, Pelham, Stoney Creek, and Yanceyville. There were, of course, a great many more. At least forty-five places with their own distinctive names can be identified today on a map.

Source: Powell, William S. When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County North Carolina 1777-1977. Durham: Moore Publishing Company, 1977. Pages 316-317. Print.