Oddfellows Lodge: Yanceyville, NC

Oddfellows Lodge: Yanceyville, NC

Reverend John Grasty's diary mentioned an Oddfellow's Lodge in Yanceyville in September 1849. On the 28th he attended a meeting at which some kind of anniversary was observed and John Kerr made the primary address. On October 10, 1850, Grasty attended another meeting of the Oddfellows and saw several new members initiated.

Source: When the Past Refused to Die: A History of Caswell County North Carolina 1777-1977, William S. Powell (1977) at 426.

Gallows Near Yanceyville, Caswell County, North Carolina

Where were the gallows near Yanceyville, Caswell County, North Carolina?

It appears the gallows were near the county poor house. This would have been just north of Yanceyville on or near what now is the County Home Road.

J. W. Grant. Gallows Execution. North-Carolina Free Press (Halifax, North Carolina), 28 Dec 1827.

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Grim duties were also required, hence one follows with almost baited breath the entries made in May, 1849, of court being in session in Yanceyville and how the minister mingled with the people of the green. Then comes a rather cryptic reference to "Margarette," a slave woman, who is found to have murdered her two children and whose trial is in progress. "Went to the C. H. and heard the lawyers speak for Margarette." Two days later one reads of the minister going to the "gaol" to give spiritual service to the condemned woman. Then comes the following entry:

"May 25, 1849. Went to gaol, Margarette said she hoped God had forgiven her sins, that she was very happy and willing to die, that she loved the Savior and all mankind. At 12 I stood in the carry-all under the gallows and preached the funeral of Margarette from Jeremiah 17:9, "the heart is deceitful above all thing and desperately wicked. Bro. Wilson then followed in a few remarks. We prayed and then shook hands with Margarette commending her soul to God. We then left the ground before the execution. Oh it is a solemn thing to attend the last hours of the condemned."

Source: Diary of Reverend John Sharshall Grasty (1825-1883)

Senator John Walter (Chicken) Stephens Was Not Murdered

Senator John Walter (Chicken) Stephens Was Not Murdered 

The term murder often is used loosely. However, when it is displayed on a North Carolina historical marker, it should be used with appropriate legal and factual precision. Homicide is the killing of one person by another. Murder is a form of criminal homicide where the perpetrator intended to kill the other person, sometimes with premeditation (a plan to kill). Whether the homicide was "criminal" can only be determined in an appropriate legal proceeding. Since no such legal proceeding resulted with respect to the killing of Senator John Walter (Chicken) Stephens, he was not murdered.

In the case of John Walter (Chicken) Stephens, there undoubtedly was a homicide. A Caswell County coroner's court of inquiry so concluded in 1870. The jury found that Stephens "came to his death by strangulation caused by a small rope drawn around his neck in a noose and by three stabs with a pocket knife, the blade of which is about three and half inches long . . . done by the hands of some unknown person, or persons. . . ."

And, there are two "confessions" to the killing. The first was by Dr. Felix Roan on his death bed in 1891. The second was by John G. Lea, a written statement released after his death in 1935. However, neither of these "confessions" had any legal impact. While the two accounts differ as to the participants and the method of killing, both show that a group of men planned and carried out the killing of Senator John Walter (Chicken) Stephens in the Caswell County Courthouse. Several of the men purportedly associated with the killing were arrested and brought before a grand jury. However, no indictments resulted. None of the men were ever tried. None of the men ever submitted to a court a guilty plea. Thus, it is incorrect to say that Senator John Walter (Chicken) Stephens was murdered.

Some have objected to this analysis believing that it is an affront to the memory of Senator Stephens and in some way absolves the killers. To the contrary, using the word "murder" suggests that a court was involved and that some form of punishment was meted out, which is not the case. The killers suffered no adverse legal consequences. Some have objected to this analysis with the statement: "What difference does it make?" I believe the response to that kind of thinking is obvious. The facts and the law matter. It seems that the Ku Klux Klan planned to kill Senator John Walter (Chicken) Stephens, and that this plan was successfully implemented at the Caswell County Courthouse in May 1870. No person was tried for the killing. No person entered a guilty plea with respect to the killing.

Accordingly, while the facts overwhelmingly support a homicide, it is incorrect to say there was a murder.

 Yanceyville Barbershop Features in Photograph Exhibition: 1999

More amusingly, Michael Traister's "Storefront, Yanceyville, NC" plays with the mirroring effect of plate glass to condense the images of a headless mannequin and a barbershop sign, "We Want Your Head in Our Business." Cameras can lie after all.

Juried by Tom Southall, curator of photography at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the photography annual at Meredith's art center runs through Dec. 5.

What: North Carolina Photographers Annual Exhibition

Where: Frankie G. Weems Gallery, Meredith College, 3800, Hillsborough St., Raleigh

When: Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday 2-5 p.m.; through Dec. 5.

Call: 760-8465

The News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), 19 November 1999.

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Michael Traister operates a photography business in Asheville, North Carolina. I attempted to find a copy of "Storefront, Yanceyville, NC," but without success. The photograph shown here is not associated with the Michael Traister photograph.

Photograph courtesy The Caswell Messenger (Yanceyville, North Carolina), 19 February 2020.

Order of the Long Leaf Pine: Members from Caswell County, North Carolina

Order of the Long Leaf Pine: Members from Caswell County, North Carolina (listed by award date)

John Reid Blackwell: February 1970

Millard Quentin Plumblee: November 1984

Maud Florance Gatewood: December 1984

Samuel Ryland Farmer: December 1984

Stuart Neal Watlington: December 1984

Dr. Houston Gwynn (HG) Jones, Ph.D.: July 1996

Lawrence Clem (Larry) Snead: March 2003

George Malloy Shelton, Jr.: August 2006

Gladys Alma Fowler Graves: September 2008

James Monroe Long III: December 2010

Robert Ross Blackwell: December 2010

William Billy Hodges: January 2011

Baron Lee Terrell: June 2012

William Bennett Atwater, Jr.: January 2013 

Bernard Lawrence Satterfield: September 2013

Fred Allen Smith: November 2014*

Larry Neal Stogner: February 2015

Raymond Armstead Hodges: May 2017

Michael Lee Welch: August 2017

Marlene Pyrant Watlington: November 2020

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* Received the award on November 11, 2014, Veterans Day

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Caswell County Bright Leaf Hoedown

 Bright-Leaf Hoedown

With the next Hoedown approaching (2022), it is fun to look back.

In 1983, the event featured an annual Farmers' Olympics. Events included cow-chip throwing, tobacco spitting, corn shucking, tobacco gum ball balling, and an obstacle course where the runners had to carry two full buckets of water.

Edgar Harges [Hargis/} of Alamance County won the tobacco spitting even with 19 feet, 1 inch. Don Swann came in second.

W. D. Pleasant of Purley won the cow-chip throwing contest, which attracted ten contestants. He also took first place overall in the Olympics. David Brandon of Burlington came in second overall.

The News and Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), 27 September 1983.

The knife photograph is not associated with the newspaper article. Click image to see a larger version.

North Carolina's Most Dangerous Rural Intersection: 1971

 

Caswell County Trivia

In 1971 the North Carolina Highway Commission designated the intersection of Highway 86 and the Park Springs Road in Caswell County as the most dangerous rural intersection in North Carolina.

The Park Springs intersection with Highway 86 achieved its "most dangerous" rating on the basis of 21 accidents in a three-year period (with 11 of those crashes occurring in 1970) and "a very, very low traffic volume."

The Bee (Danville, Virginia), 6 October 1971.