I write southern historical fiction, local history, and I've written a devotional book. The two novels I'm writing are set in Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1760s. My weekly blog started out to follow my journey as a writer and a reader, but in 2025 it has been greatly expanded to include current events and politics in the United States as I see our democracy under attack from within. The political science major in me cannot sit idly by and remain silent.
Note: This will be my last blog post for a while. There are just more pressing tasks – like cutting down sweetgum sprouts — that need my attention. One of the joys of country living. They multiply like rabbits and grow as fast as kudzu.
I will sorely miss getting to work on my blog posts every day, but life changes as we grow older and energy is limited.
Today’s blog is about the Ground Observer Corps and what I learned about it when I was writing a local history column for Harrisburg Horizons newspaper.
The Ground Observer Corps was formed during World War II. One source I found indicated than more than 1.5 million civilians volunteered to man 14,000 observation posts in the coastal states of the United States. Another source reported 800,000 volunteers manned the eventual 16,000 observation posts.
There was a Ground Observer Corps post in the little town of Harrisburg, North Carolina, so I did some research about it in 2007 when I was writing a local history column for Harrisburg Horizons newspaper.
Keep in mind that radar detection of aircraft was low during the war, so human eyes on the skies was a way to try to keep our country safe from foreign bombers.
The program was ended by the Army Air Forces in 1944 but was formed again during the Korean War in the 1950s.
Public service announcements were used to recruit volunteers who were instructed to call their local Civil Defense office.
The Ground Observer Corps post in Harrisburg, NC was organized on July 14, 1955 through the Harrisburg Volunteer Fire Department. It was another civic service in which our local general practitioner, Dr. Nicholas “Nick” E. Lubchenko, played an important role.
Presentation of certificates of service to representatives of the Ground Observer Corps Station in Harrisburg, NC January 27, 1959. Pictured, left to right, are U.S. Air Force M/Sgt. M.L. Venable; Emmett C. Sapp, Jr.; J. David Blume; Lt. Col. James Brennan, Ground Observer Corps Coordinator for North Carolina; and P.V. “Pete” Smith.
John David Blume, Sr. was the post supervisor. Plato “Pete” V. Smith was chief observer. Emmett C. Sapp, Jr. was assistant chief. Mr. Sapp’s extensive experience in an Aircraft Battalion in North Africa, Italy, and Germany during World War II made him well-qualified to assist in training the volunteers in Harrisburg.
Volunteers signed up for whatever hours they could be at the fire station. The post had to be manned 24-hours-a-day, seven days-a-week. This was quite an undertaking in a town of just 300 people!
The volunteers constructed an observation tower in 1957 to make observations easier and more efficient. Duke Power Company (now Duke Energy) donated utility poles to support the tower. Mr. Sapp remembered digging holes by hand for the poles to be anchored in. The tower was 15 to 20 feet tall (to the floor of the platform) and the platform was 20 feet square.
Mr. Sapp told me that almost everybody who lived in Harrisburg at the time – men and women – volunteered and played a part in the program. Although primarily concerned about an invasion by enemy aircraft, all plane sightings were reported. “We couldn’t take any chances,” Mr. Sapp said.
Radar detection of low-flying planes improved enough by the late 1950s that the Ground Observer Corps was no longer needed. It was deactivated on January 31, 1959.
If you’d like to read more about the Ground Observation Corps’ operations in Harrisburg, look for Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1 on Amazon and at Second Look Books in Harrisburg. The book is available in paperback and e-book.
Janet
All history is local, but no history is just local
Today’s blog post is in honor and memory of all those brave soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944 — 82 years ago today. I knew one of them – Mr. Ira Lee Taylor of Harrisburg, North Carolina, and was privileged to interview him in 2007 about his World War II experiences while I was writing a local history column for Harrisburg Horizons newspaper. He was 93 years old.
I offer the following essay that I wrote in memory of Mr. Taylor:
“Memories of World War II”
His 93-year-old blue eyes were clear as his mind was sharp, though his back was bent and he relied on a walker to navigate inside his home. When I called and asked if I could interview him about his memories of World War II, he agreed without hesitation.
Born after the war, I was embarrassed by my ignorance of its details. It seemed that every year in school we started by studying Plymouth Rock and by the end of the year scarcely managed to get to Appomattox.
With pen in hand, I knocked on Mr. Taylor’s door. The only question I had in mind to ask him was, “What did you do in the war?” That question was enough for Mr. Taylor. Over the next several visits, he recounted in amazing chronological order the places he was sent and the things he saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt that forever changed his life. There was a reverence in his voice. We were treading on hallowed ground.
World War II Veteran and Harrisburg Mail Carrier, Ira Lee Taylor
Training for the war was thrilling and boring for a young man from a piedmont North Carolina community of fewer than 300 people. Although he had gone off to “State College” (now, North Carolina State University at Raleigh) and earned a degree in forestry, there was a naiveté about this army draftee that followed him through the battlefields of France, Belgium, and Germany. As he regaled me with his memories of the war, I sensed that many other recruits were as “wet behind the ears” as was Mr. Taylor. They shared a heavy responsibility and had in common the mindset, “You do what you have to do.” No self-pity in that generation!
It took 11 harrowing days for Mr. Taylor’s ship to cross the Atlantic along with other troop and liberty ships. German torpedoes picked off liberty ships on the perimeter of the convoy of more than 100 ships that transported and accompanied the U.S. Army 4th Division to England. The rough ocean made some men so seasick that they said if they survived the war they were going to stay in Europe.
Mr. Taylor recalled the training he got in England for the invasion of Normandy. He just didn’t know that was what he and thousands of others were being prepared for or when their skills would be put to the test. They were ordered to waterproof the trucks in the motor pool by packing something like Play-Doh around the sparkplugs and rigging up elbow pipes to the tailpipes that could carry exhaust up higher than the roof of the trucks in case the trucks were in deep water.
It was a time of “loose lips sink ships” and even journalists understood the necessity for complete secrecy of military plans and troop movements. The soldiers didn’t know much of what was going on in the war, but it wasn’t their business to know. It was their business to train, be ready, look out for one another, and follow orders.
The night before the scheduled invasion, the men of the 4th Division were briefed. They were told that they would make the landing on Normandy and it was expected that 80 percent of them would be killed in the process. They got halfway across the English Channel when a huge storm forced them to return to Plymouth, England.
Twenty-four hours later, Mr. Taylor was on one of the 499 vessels that took part in the invasion. Utah Beach was the code name of the speck of sand on the coast of France where he began his trek across continental Europe. “The beach was filled with black smoke, dust, dirt, and the smell of gunpowder. Boy, it smelled awful!” he said.
Another thing he mentioned that is not learned by reading a history book or watching a movie is the terrible smell of the fatigues the soldiers had to wear for the invasion and for the next several days. The fatigues were impregnated with chemicals to protect the soldiers in case they were gassed.
As Mr. Taylor’s narrative progressed through the war, he spoke of the ground quivering from the concussion of exploding bombs, booby-trapped bodies of American soldiers, countless nearly-impenetrable hedgerows, the French Resistance, foxholes, rumbling tanks, waves of blooming red poppies on Flanders Field, being surrounded at Bastogne in Belgium, The Battle for Huertgen Forest where the pine and fir trees in that beautiful forest were shirred off into matchsticks, shoe mines that would blow your foot off, the snow and cold of the Battle of the Bulge, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower walking up one day and talking to him like he was just another G.I., seeing the snow-capped Alps, and seeing lots of sights he had tried to forget.
Mr. Ira Lee Taylor of Harrisburg, North Carolina, with his framed military service medals
After a seven-day calm voyage back to the States during which the troops were treated to wonderful food and entertainment and sightings of whales and their waterspouts, the ship Mr. Taylor was on entered New York Harbor. Everyone rushed to one side of the ship to see the Statue of Liberty, but the ship started listing so badly that they were ordered to redistribute themselves on the deck.
Rewarded with a 30-day furlough, Mr. Taylor returned home to North Carolina where he got married and then boarded a bus bound for Camp Butner to be trained for the invasion of Japan. One of the men on the bus had a transistor radio over which came the announcement that Japan had surrendered and the war was over. That’s how close Mr. Taylor came to being shipped to Japan after what he had lived through in Europe.
The 4th Division suffered the third highest number of casualties of any United State military Division (22,600) in World War II. Mr. Taylor considered himself very fortunate to have come home alive. He delivered mail to my house for 32 years until he retired in 1980. It was only in 2007 that I learned that he had taken part in the largest military invasion in history.
If you want to read the whole story and other things I learned while writing the “Harrisburg, Did You Know?” local history column for Harrisburg Horizons newspaper, look for my books, Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1 and Book 2 on Amazon and at Second Look Books in Harrisburg, North Carolina.
Janet
All history is local, but no history is just local.
When I say it was a great privilege for me to get to write 175 local history articles for a free local weekly newspaper in Harrisburg, North Carolina for almost seven years, it is an understatement.
I was paid $25 per article, which in no way compensated me for my time and any skill I had to write the pieces. My true payment came in the form of new friendships I formed, old friendships that were renewed, the incredible amount of history I learned, and the confidence the experience gave me to think that perhaps I did have some potential as a writer.
Harrisburg Horizons (NC) newspaper banner
As a white woman in my 50s, I did not fully understand that it was partly my white privilege that opened many doors for me – and had opened doors for me my entire life. I was genuinely curious about the lives of the elderly black people who had lived their entire lives in the township in which I lived, but I will never be able to fully grasp what I was doing when I asked several of them individually to allow me into their homes to ask them some personal questions.
They had been born into a segregated society in the early years of the 20th century. I had been born into a segregated society in the early 1950s, but I was white. I could not identify with the challenges they had faced all their lives.
They opened up to me and told me things they maybe had never even told their children. I heard stories of discrimination that were mandated by law. What I did not hear from a single one of them was bitterness. That was the most impressive lesson I learned from my experience as a low-level newspaper columnist.
Getting to sit for hours with a veteran of World War II who was eager to share his memories was another experience I was honored to have while writing for Harrisburg Horizons newspaper. I got to hear first-hand the vivid memories he had while training for the D-Day invasion of France. It was from him I heard about the sights, sounds, and smells of D-Day. I heard about the relentless trudging along through non-stop war through the bloody beaches, the towns, the villages, the forests, and the farmlands of Europe.
Photo from National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia. Photograph from Library of Congress website
A stark contrast between that war and the wars in the late 20th century and early 21st century is that the World War II soldiers were there for the duration of the war. There was no deployment with a pre-announced ending date. The only way they could communicate with their loved ones was through slow-moving letters.
I approached another local World War II veteran who was on the USS Missouri and witnessed Japan’s surrender to General MacArthur, but he was disinclined to speak of the war. I respected his wishes and never spoke to him about it again. Many combat veterans do not want to talk about their experiences and we should always respect their wishes.
Many of the men and women I interviewed were parents of schoolmates of mine. I had known them to various degrees. I’d never met the mother of one of my black classmates until I went to interview her. She shared memories of attending a Rosenwald School.
Classroom in restored Siloam Rosenwald School in Charlotte, NC, 2024
The veteran of D-Day was my family’s mail carrier for decades, so I also got to interview him about his days as the only mail carrier for decades in the wider community. I only knew him as my mailman and Gail’s dad, so it was a revelation to learn that he had participated in the D-Day invasion, the Battle of the Bulge, Bastogne, the Huertgen Forest, … seeing General Dwight D. Eisenhower in person, etc.
After I wrote about a fighter pilot from Harrisburg being killed when his plane was shot down over Buigny, France during World War II, I heard from a resident of Buigny. He sent me photographs of the village and the field where Carl Higgins’ plane crashed on March 5, 1944. The D-Day veteran I interviewed said, “Carl is my hero.”
The B-26 Marauder flown by Carl Higgins, Jr. of Harrisburg, NC.
Later in his business life, the father of another of my classmates met Madame Chiang Kai-shek, wife of the Chairman of the National Government of the Republic of China. When he identified himself as being from Harrisburg, North Carolina, Madame Chiang immediately lit up and told that she remembered stopping at the depot in Harrisburg when she rode the train from Boston to Macon, Georgia to visit her sister!
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt with Madame Chiang Kai-shek. Photo from Library of Congress website.
The father of another classmate regaled me with his memories of growing up very poor, his family moving from one farm to another as sharecroppers, his marriage to his childhood sweetheart in 1936, purchasing his first car – and being berated about that purchase by the farmer he was a sharecropper for, how he had to quit school when his older brother literally jumped a train in Harrisburg during the Great Depression and made his way to Washington, DC… and much more.
In addition to interviewing individuals, I spent hours at the public library reading old newspapers and some hand-written records on microfilm. Oh, the headaches and eye strain!
One of the unexpected gifts of writing the local history column was the vast amount of history – local and national – that I learned. I had proposed to the editor of the new (week old!) newspaper that I had an idea for a column: local history. I did so because I knew a lot of local history and I enjoyed writing.
I quickly learned that there was a massive amount of local history that I did not know. While pouring over microfilmed newspapers from the 1800s and early 1900s, I often happened upon a tidbit about an event, an organization, a government policy, a person about which I was unaware.
Examples of the things I learned by chance from those old newspapers and other resources are the meteorite that fell here in 1849, a man whose occupation in the 1880 U.S. census of Cabarrus County was listed as “witch doctor,” the evolution of information gathered over the years via the U.S. Census, a head-on collision of two trains in Harrisburg in 1897, the oldest woman in North Carolina died here in 1930 at the age of 112, and the Sauline Players whose performances I enjoyed in elementary school was a theatre troupe based here in North Carolina.
I got to correspond with a Hollywood actress, Joan McCrea, whose career started with the Sauline Players. After contacting her former agent, who contacted her current agent, Ms. McCrea called me! She gave me invaluable background and behind-the-scenes details about the Sauline Players. The two newspaper articles I wrote about the Sauline Players have garnered more response from readers here and online than any of the other columns I wrote.
Actress Joan McCrea, who got her start with the Sauline Players in North Carolina
I have just scratched the surface of my 175 newspaper articles in today’s post. When I say, “All history is local, but no history is just local,” I base that on my experience as a newspaper columnist. It was an almost seven-year writing gig that opened my eyes to delve deeper into the things I knew and to explore the new things I learned.
I count my stint as a small-time, small-town newspaper columnist as one of the highlights of my life.
If you would like to read more about the topics I’ve mentioned today and all the topics I did not mention, please look for my two books – Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1 and Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2 – on Amazon in paperback and e-book. If you live in the Charlotte area, you can find all my books in paperback at Second Look Books in Harrisburg.
Book 1 contains the first 91 newspaper columns I wrote. Book 2 contains not only the other 84 columns but also my research notes from the numerous topics I did not get to write about when Harrisburg Horizons newspaper ceased operation in 2012.
Happy reading!
Janet
All history is local, but no history is just local.
As part of my weekly or semi-weekly series of blog posts to highlight topics I wrote about in my two local history books, Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1 and Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book2, today I will tell you a little about an April 11, 1897 train wreck in Harrisburg, North Carolina.
Although I grew up in Harrisburg in the 1950s and 1960s, I had never heard a word about that head-on collision between the north-bound Southern Railway “fast mail” train No. 36 and the south-bound passenger train No. 11 until I happened upon it while reading old newspapers on microfilm at the public library while doing other research for my local history newspaper column.
An example of a steam locomotive. Photo by Steve & Barb Sande on Unsplash.
The collision happened on an otherwise quiet Sunday morning in the tiny village that had developed along the North Carolina Railroad after a train depot was established in 1854. Newspaper accounts indicate that some area residents saw what was about to happen but were helpless to do anything.
The crash was heard for miles as the engine of No. 11 ran over the engine of No. 36. The boiler of No. 36 rested on the floor of No. 11, postal car when it was over. An express car of No. 36 left the rails and landed 150 feet from the track. A car hauling fresh produce was torn to pieces. Some train parts were thrown 75 yards.
Miraculously, none of the 96 passengers on No. 36 were injured, and many of them immediately exited the train to lend aid to the injured railroad employees.
Less than three minutes after the crash, No. 11’s postal car burst into flames. Somehow, one of the postal clerks, John Hill Carter, risked his life and extinguished the flames, thereby preventing both trains from catching fire.
The accounts of the agony suffered by the employees who were killed or injured are given in great, gory detail in the newspapers of the day, which was typical of reporting in that era.
Some employees were pinned under the wreckage, while others were badly burned by the steam from the boilers. Passengers formed a bucket brigade to throw cold water on one of the trapped men to help relieve his suffering from the steam.
The Richmond, Virginia, conductor of No. 11 was cut on the face. A porter on No. 11 was pinned in from the knees down.
Those killed in the wreck were from Monroe, Charlotte, Concord, and Thomasville, North Carolina, and Lynchburg, Virginia.
One of the passengers on No. 36 was Charles Bitterman, of New Orleans, Louisiana. He belonged to “The Riverside Wheelman” cyclist club and was on his way to a bicycle race in New York. Cycling clubs were all the rage in America and Europe in the 1890s.
If you want to learn more about the 1897 train wreck, my two local history newspaper columns about it from 2007, are found in Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1. It is available in paperback and e-book from Amazon and in paperback at Second Look Books in Harrisburg.
Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1, by Janet Morrison
Janet
All history is local, but no history is just local.
In yesterday’s blog post, I wrote about the passage of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1870. It, on paper at least, gave black men in our country the right to vote.
Of course, voting was just one of the ways that people of color were discriminated against in the United States. Today’s post looks at a very important and impactful way in which one man set out to try to level the playing field when it came to education.
Julius Rosenwald was the president of Sears, Roebuck, and Company. Mr. Rosenwald, a white man of the Jewish faith, read Booker T. Washington’s autobiography, Up From Slavery, in 1910. The book opened Rosenwald’s eyes to the inequities between the education of white children and black children.
Rosenwald got involved financially and served on the Tuskegee Institute Board of Directors. In 1912, Rosenwald gave $25,000 to Tuskegee to help it build private schools for black children across the nation. Rosenwald gave his permission for $2,500 of that gift to be used to build five public schools for black children near Tuskegee, Alabama.
The idea and project grew perhaps beyond the two men’s imaginations or expectations. Over the next 30 years, 4,977 Rosenwald Schools, 217 homes for teachers, and 163 shop buildings were built in 15 states.
There were 787 Rosenwald schools built in North Carolina, which was more than in any other state. Eleven of them were here in Cabarrus County. Three of them were in the Harrisburg section of the county, and it is those schools – Bellefonte, Morehead, and Oak Grove – that I focused on in my three-part newspaper series in 2006, which I later published in Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1. I do not have a photograph of any of those schools.
I drove by the Bellefonte Rosenwald School many times, but I did not know it was a Rosenwald School. In fact, I had not heard of Rosenwald Schools until about 20 years ago. I did not know Bellefonte was a Rosenwald School until after it had been burned down for practice by the fire department. That whole story is a sad situation. People making those decisions had no idea the value of the building. I think the architect’s sketch and floor diagram below are the plans used in the construction of the Bellefonte Rosenwald School.
Possible design of the Bellefonte Rosenwald School at Harrisburg, NC.
The Bellefonte Rosenwald School had two classrooms, whereas some of the schools had just one classroom. In 2023, the abandoned one-classroom Siloam (or Salome) Rosenwald School was moved from its original location in eastern Mecklenburg County, NC to the campus of the Charlotte Museum of History. It was restored and I took the photographs below in September 2024. (The museum’s website identifies it as Siloam School, but it was originally located on Salome School Road.)
Restored Siloam Rosenwald School moved to campus of Charlotte History Museum and restored in 2024
Classroom in restored Siloam Rosenwald School in Charlotte, NC, 2024
In 2006, I had the privilege of interviewing two women and one man, all in their 90s at the time, who had attended the three Rosenwald Schools in Harrisburg, NC. It was wonderful – and heartbreaking – to hear some of their memories of those days of racial segregation in our schools. I’m glad I talked to them when I did, for they are gone now. Much of their oral history would be gone with them, if I had not taken copious notes and published their memories.
Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1, by Janet Morrison
If you would like to read more about Rosenwald Schools in general, including how they were funded and supported by their communities, along with some details about the three located in the Harrisburg section of Cabarrus County, North Carolina, look for Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1 on Amazon in paperback and e-book and at Second Look Books in Harrisburg in paperback.
Janet
All history is local, but no history is just local.
Last Tuesday, I blogged about the coming of the railroad to Harrisburg, North Carolina in 1854 (The Coming of the Railroad in 1854). After receiving several nice comments about the post, I decided to proceed with my plan to blog once-a-week about other topics I covered in my two books, Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1 and Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2.
One of my blogger friends who lives hundreds of miles from where I wrote my local history articles caught on to something I was hoping to convey: All history is local, but no history is just local.
The information contained in my two local history books does not just apply to Township One in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. Harrisburg and Township One have much local history that also applies to every small town in the United States.
Every town – big or small – in the United States started as just a collection of homes and perhaps a dirt crossroads. Roads expanded, railroads were built, family-owned grocery stores opened, electricity and telephone service eventually came. Even as Harrisburg’s history is unique to Harrisburg, it holds nuggets of the history and growing pains experienced by every town.
With that in mind, I hope a wider audience will get interested in my two history books. They are available in paperback and as e-book on Amazon and in paperback at Second Look Books in Harrisburg.
In 2009, I wrote a six-part series about “The Cotton Economy” for Harrisburg Horizons newspaper. Today’s blog post will hit on some of the details in those articles, for Cabarrus County, North Carolina was very much a cotton economy in much of the 20th century until textile mills moved to other countries.
Those six articles are in Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1.
Seventy years ago, most of the fields around Harrisburg, North Carolina were planted in cotton. Today, there is not a single cotton field in Cabarrus County, as far as I know.
As late as the 1960s some Harrisburg school children had to miss school for two or three weeks every fall because their families depended on them to pick cotton.
Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, but that piece of machinery turned out to be a double-edged sword. The increase in cotton production the gin sparked in the 19th century resulted in an increase in the slave trade.
By 1850 the United States produced three-fifths of the world’s cotton. Unfortunately for the South, where the cotton was grown, most of it was shipped to New England or to England to be milled into fabric.
If you are of a certain age, you may remember buying towels and sheets manufactured by Cannon Mills. Headquartered in Kannapolis, NC by the mid-1910s the company was the largest towel manufacturer in the world, and in the 1960s was the world’s largest manufacturer of household textiles. Cannon had mills all over Cabarrus and other piedmont North Carolina towns.
For decades textile mills were the biggest employer in Cabarrus County. But Cannon Mills is no more. I see some “Cannon Mills” labels in some textile products today, but those manufactured in the 21st century were not made by the Cannon Mills I’m talking about.
The Cannon Mills I’m talking about was purchased by Fieldcrest in 1986 and then by Pillowtex in 1997. Over the years, the textile mills in Cabarrus County employed fewer and fewer people due to mechanization and manufacturing moving to other countries.
If memory serves me correctly, I believe at one time there were more than 20,000 people employed in the mills in Cabarrus County. When the 7,650 people who permanently lost their jobs when Pillowtex declared bankruptcy and ceased operations on July 30, 2003, it was the largest permanent lay-off in North Carolina history.
The first cotton mill built in Cabarrus County was not built by the Cannon family. It was the Locke Mill, which still stands at the corner of Church Street and McGill Avenue in Concord, NC. It was converted into condominiums around the turn of the present century.
As I told in Part I of my newspaper series, building that first mill was a formidable and risky undertaking. The spinning frames were shipped from Fishkill, New York by sea to Georgetown, South Carolina. From there, up the Pee Dee River to Cheraw, SC, and from Cheraw to Concord by six-horse wagons
The engine that ran the steam-powered plant was shipped by sea to Wilmington, NC and up the Cape Fear River to Fayetteville, NC. From there it was transported by horse and wagon. Locke Mill began operations in 1840.
As stated in Part I in my series, “When the 1850 US Census was taken, Concord Manufacturing Company reported that its steam-powered cotton factory employed 15 males and 55 females. The males were paid an average of $12.47 per month and the females were paid an average of $4.91 per month.”
But I have gotten way ahead of myself. Most of what I included in my six newspaper articles revolves around the little cotton gins that sprang up around Harrisburg in the 1800s.
By 1850, there was a water-powered cotton gin on McKee Creek here in Township One. It was located where present-day Peach Orchard Road crosses the creek and where there is now a plan to build a couple hundred houses. That is also where Robert and William Morrison’s grist mill was in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Samuel Wilson’s cotton gin on McKee Creek was no small operation, even though that creek is too small to hardly be noticed today. According to the 1850 US Census, Mr. Wilson reported having processed 24,000 pounds of seed cotton valued at $30,000 the previous year.
To put that in perspective, that $30,000 would be well more than $1 million today!
Wilson’s cotton gin employed four men who were paid an average of $15 per month. The gin produced 1,080 bales of ginned cotton.
While some cotton gins were water-driven, others were powered by horses.
In his 1948 paper, “Some Sketches of Rocky River Church and Vicinity,” William Eugene Alexander explained how a horse-powered cotton gin worked. Quoting Mr. Alexander in part from my book, “ʻIt took four horses, hitched two abreast, and it took two boys to drive them…. There were no lint condensers to the gins, but the lint was blown out into the lint room like a snowstorm and a hand would gather it up in a basket and carry it to the cotton press in the gin yard, where it was baled.’” (Incidentally, it was late in the 20th century before “brown lung” was recognized as a disease caused by breathing cotton dust into one’s lungs.)
Mr. Alexander’s explanation continued, “ʻThe press was constructed with a large wooden screw pin, 10 or 12 inches in diameter. This press was probably 18 or 20 feet high, and was manipulated by means of long levers, to which a mule or horse was hitched for power.’”
This blog post is getting too long, so I will just mention some of the other cotton economy things I wrote about in the other five “installments” – all of which are found in Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1.
Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1, by Janet Morrison
As is prone to happen from time-to-time in industry, friction developed between the cotton farmers and the owners of the cotton mills. Farmers struggled to get a fair price for their cotton. The Cotton States and International Exposition was held in Atlanta, Georgia in 1895. Special train fares were advertised in the newspapers for farmers wanting to attend the Exposition. Among those farmers was one of my great-grandfathers.
There was a case of suspected suicide in 1907 by a 13-year-old Harrisburg girl who worked in a cotton mill. In my research, I found a newspaper article from Durham, NC from 1899 in which it was reported that several mills there had adopted a policy of not hiring children under 12 years old.
In my research, I also found a deed of trust at the courthouse giving the details of the purchase of machinery in 1901 for the construction of a steam-powered cotton gin near the railroad tracks by Harrisburg Improvement Company. Until electricity came into the village years later, that gin ran on steam power generated by an old locomotive steam boiler.
Have I whetted your appetite to want to read more? Look for my books on Amazon and at Second Look Books!
Janet
“All history is local, but no history is just local.” ~ Janet Morrison
I wrote a local history column for Harrisburg Horizons newspaper from May 2006 through December 2012. Before you residents of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania get too excited, I will clarify that this free weekly newspaper existed in Harrisburg, North Carolina.
Of the 175 newspaper columns I wrote, six were a series of articles I wrote about “The Coming of the Railroad.” This is an important local topic for without the North Carolina Railroad there would be no Town of Harrisburg, NC today.
It’s hard to imagine the town without a railroad today, even though in an effort to establish “high-speed” rail between Charlotte and Raleigh, the at-grade railroad crossings in Harrisburg were replaced with bridges in 2013. That’s a story for another day.
Imagine a rural farming community in 1854, about halfway between Charlotte and Concord. Was everyone excited about the coming of the railroad? Farmers were probably not happy about the piercing whistles of the steam engines scaring their livestock, but they were possibly pacified by the fact that the depot planned for the community would give them a convenient way to sell their agricultural products.
Photo by Claud Richmond on Unsplash. (NOT a photo of a Harrisburg, NC steam train.)
Prior to the coming of the railroad, it is said that it sometimes cost a farmer half his profits to transport his produce to market by wagon. Poor roads and distances to markets prohibited the transporting of perishables very far.
Although Charlotte has a population of a million people now, in 1854 it had a whopping 1,000. The State of North Carolina decided it would be good for the economy to construct a railroad from Goldsboro, in the eastern part of the state, to Charlotte in the southern piedmont.
The State sold bonds in New York City to finance the project. Ten thousand shares were sold at $100 each.
Goldsboro was chosen because it had rail service to the port at Wilmington, NC. A railroad from the south to Charlotte and one from the north to Danville, Virginia, which threatened to extend a line to Charlotte, would surely mean that goods from western North Carolina would be shipped to Virginia or to the port at Charleston, South Carolina.
It was understood from the beginning that much of the construction labor for the project would be undertaken by slaves of property owners living along the rail right-of-way. Some of the slave owners were paid on a yearly basis for supplying their slaves for the project.
I found it interesting that wrought iron T-rails manufactured in Wales were used in the initial construction of the 223-mile-long railroad. The rails weighed 60 pounds per yard and were brought in through the port at Charleston.
In the early 1850s, a steam locomotive needed on average a cord of wood (that’s a stack of wood eight feet long, four feet wide, and four feet high) and 1,000 gallons of water for every twenty-five miles. A tender could carry that much wood and water. That is what dictated the approximate distances between some train stations.
That’s how the little farming community of Harrisburg, North Carolina got a train depot and the designation as Harris Depot on maps.
If you are interested in learning more about the North Carolina Railroad and the ways the coming of the railroad and depot changed life in a farming community in the early 1850s, look for my book, Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Books 1 and 2. Book 1 contains the first 94 local history articles I wrote, including the series about the railroad. Book 2 contains the other 84 local history articles I wrote, including more articles that reference the railroad.
Topics in the two books include such things as the blowing up of the King’s gun powder in 1771, a minuteman in the American Revolution, President George Washington’s 1791 visit, the 22-mile ring dyke the town sits in, general stores, family-owned groceries stores, education in the 1800s and three Rosenwald Schools, how the town got phone service and electricity, our Ukrainian doctor (Nicholas E. Lubchenko) who escaped from the Russian Army, the cotton economy of the area until the mid-20th century, Hurricane Hugo in 1989, floods, earthquakes, the building of roads and bridges, the changes necessitated by the high-speed rail project, mail service from the 1800s until the early 21st century, the construction of the Charlotte Motor Speedway and the running of the first World 600 NASCAR race in 1960… and much more.
Here are the links for purchasing the books on Amazon:
Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1, by Janet Morrison
If you live in the Harrisburg, NC area, you can find the books in paperback, Tuesday through Saturday, at Second Look Books, 4519 School House Commons.
I hope my blog post today whetted your appetite for reading more about the history of our little town of 20,000 now. I imagine many of our local stories are similar to ones in your town’s history.
Janet
The government should be afraid of its citizens, not the other way around.
I wanted to blog about the sinking of the Ida Nicholson, a schooner that sank off Ocracoke Island, North Carolina in 1870, but I was unable to find sufficient information about the incident. It was hauling 101,600 of the one million bricks needed for the construction of the Hatteras Lighthouse when it went down in a gale in the infamous “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” The entire cargo was lost.
Plan B: My chance to introduce you to Dr. Nicholas E. Lubchenko
The amazing Dr. Nicholas E. Lubchenko was a topic I kept on the backburner to use when I didn’t have another blog subject calling my name. Today is that day!
In case you’ve wondered why I end my blog posts by asking you to remember the people of Ukraine, in addition to my heartfelt belief that Ukraine deserves to remain an independent nation, it is my small way of honoring the memory of a country doctor who served so many in my community for decades, regardless of their ability to pay the small fee he charged.
Dr. Nicholas E. Lubchenko
Those are Dr. Lubchenko’s people in Ukraine, and they yearn to remain a free nation not under the thumb of Vladimir Putin.
Dr. Lubchenko’s Early Years, Military, and Medical School
Nicholas E. Lubchenko was born in Bulai, Zerkov, near Kiev, Russia (now, Ukraine) in 1882. One of ten children of a leather worker, he graduated from an agricultural college in Kharkov. Kharkov, Ukraine is familiar to us now since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war.
By 1906, Lubchenko was in the Russian army. His dream was to get to America, which he called “the greatest country in the world.” He concluded that if he did not escape from the army, he would never make it to America.
Quoting from my book, Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1: “One day in 1906, while still in the arm, he walked out of Russia and crossed into Austria, with a ‘samovar (a Russian urn with a spigot made for boiling water for tea) under his arm and one change of clothing.’ He could speak French and German but not English.
“He got a job working on a ship bound for New Orleans. After he arrived in America in November of 1906, an eastern Louisiana family helped him until he saved enough money to travel to South Carolina where his brother, Alexis, lived.”
He worked on a cotton farm in Ridgeway, South Carolina, saved his money, and after five years was able to borrow money to attend the North Carolina Medical College in Charlotte, NC. He had $69 when he arrived in Charlotte.
He put himself through medical school by working for various doctors in his spare time. During World War I, the North Carolina and Virginia Medical Schools had to merge due to the economy, so Lubchenko moved to Richmond, Virginia, and graduated in 1915.
Dr. Lubchenko’s Medical Career
Dr. Lubchenko served as a medical officer in the Merchant Marine on a transport ship in World War I and then started his medical practice in Newell, NC. He married a nurse from Cabarrus County, NC.
During the 1918-1919 Spanish Influenza Epidemic, Dr. Lubchenko made house calls from morning and into the night.
Dr. Lubchenko became a naturalized American citizen on April 2, 1923. He moved his family to Anson County, NC, but then they moved to Harrisburg and he resumed serving the people of eastern Mecklenburg County and western Cabarrus County.
He tried unsuccessfully to enlist in the US Army when World War II started, but age and the vital medical service he was rendering in the Harrisburg area prevented that. It is said that he stayed angry about that for a long time.
Dr. Lubchenko operated his medical practice out of his home in Harrisburg, NC, but the majority of his work was probably done through house calls. He practiced medicine in Harrisburg until his death in 1960.
Dr. Lubchenko, the Humanitarian
In a 1989 newspaper interview, one of the Lubchenkos’ daughters said he did not send bills to his patients. As stated in my book, “She quoted him as saying, ‘If they don’t want to pay, they won’t. If they do, they will, and if they want to pay and couldn’t, it would embarrass them.’” A 1944 ledger indicates that his usual charge for services was $3.00.
In addition to being a physician around the clock, 365 days a year, Dr. Lubchenko loved his adopted community and worked to make life better for the residents. Harrisburg was a small community of just 300 people in 1950, but Dr. Lubchenko wanted the best for the wider community.
He donated the land for and was the driving force in establishing the Harrisburg Volunteer Fire Department in 1954. It was the first volunteer fire department in Cabarrus County and served a wide area. For instance, we lived five miles from Harrisburg, but my father was a charter member of the fire department.
In 1955, Dr. Lubchenko helped organize a post of the Ground Observer Corps in Harrisburg. These were the days of the Cold War before radar was in place to detect enemy aircraft.
Reflections
As a child, I was scared of Dr. Lubchenko. I could not understand his heavy Russian accent and he was somewhat gruff. It was only as an adult, many years after his death, that I gained a true appreciation for him.
Although Harrisburg started growing rapidly a few years after Dr. Lubchenko’s death, it would be 30 years before the town had another doctor. His death left a great void in the wider Harrisburg community.
You can read all about Dr. Lubchenko, his medical practice, his house, the Harrisburg Volunteer Fire Department, the Ground Observer Corps, and many other aspects of local history in Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1. The book is available in paperback at Second Look Books in Harrisburg and in paperback and as an e-book from Amazon.com. (By the way, Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2 is also available.)
Hurricane Helene Update
As of Friday, 169roads in North Carolina are still closed due to Hurricane Helene, including Interstate 40 near the Tennessee line. That count consists of 1 interstate, 11 US highways, 20 state highways, and 137 state roads. That’s a decrease of two roads over the report two weeks ago. More heavy rain, wind, and icy conditions hit over the weekend with more of the same predicted for midweek. Repairs are made slow under such conditions.
There has been some good news about I-40. It is thought that by March 1 one lane of I-40 in both directions will open. The speed limit will be 40 mph on that stretch just east of the TN-NC line. I have not read whether commercial vehicles will be allowed, but my hunch is that they won’t.
News about the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina is not good. The flooding and wind from Hurricane Helene last September caused 48 landslides in one 38-mile section of the parkway. There are no estimates for when those 38 miles will be completely rebuilt or if all of it can even be rebuilt. That section between Asheville and Linville will not reopen in 2025.
Until my next blog post
I believe most people want to see a peaceful end to the war in Ukraine, but I don’t want Ukraine to have to do all the compromising.
I hope you have a good book to read.
Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.
I wish more emphasis had been put on Lewis & Clark’s Corps of Discovery when I was in school. Living in North Carolina, it just wasn’t taught much. I suppose in the Midwest and Great Plains states it was and is taught in detail.
Today marks the 218th anniversary of the conclusion of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s grand trek into the great unknown in search of the Northwest Passage.
I learned more about the Lewis & Clark Expedition from watching Ken Burns’ documentary film than I learned in school. Ken Burns has a gift for weaving story, quotes, and geographic images together in a comprehensive telling of particular times or events in American history.
The When and the Why
US President Thomas Jefferson is remembered for his curiosity. Since the 1400s, explorers had dreamed of finding Northwest Passage – a waterway across North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. President Jefferson wanted the Pacific coast of North America to be found, and he was convinced that a group of explorers would find it if they could just cross the Mississippi River and follow the Missouri River across the lands included in the Louisiana Purchase.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the group that was assembled to explore the region. It was a vast unknown to the European settlers. What the Corps of Discovery did was comparable to the space exploration of our time, except Lewis & Clark did not have computers to guide them. They really didn’t know what the terrain and weather would be like once they ventured very far beyond St. Louis.
In the spring of 1804, at the direction of President Jefferson, this band of intrepid explorers set out on a journey of unknown time and distance. (I guess it is sort of like the two astronauts who are going to be on the International Space Station for eight months instead of the originally planned eight days.)
How does one pack for such an adventure? What thoughts went through their minds as they headed west, not knowing if or when they would see their families again?
The Preparation
For starters, I will point out that the Corps of Discovery was made up of Lewis, Clark, and nearly four dozen men. As I recall, in school we were led to believe that it was just Messrs. Lewis and Clark and that they were joined by a Native American young woman, Sacagawea, somewhere along the way.
They spent the winter of 1803-1804 on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River in a collection of huts they built. It was called Camp Debois. Among the supplies they gathered in preparation for their journey were nearly two tons of flour, nearly two tons of salt pork, 50 pounds of coffee, and 100 gallons of whiskey.
Information was gathered from fur traders, and the men were drilled, for this was comparable to a military mission and a chain of command was integral if the expedition had any chance of being successful.
The How
They started out in a keelboat with two large canoes. Lewis was accompanied by a Newfoundland dog named Seaman who reportedly caught squirrels, beaver, and an antelope. They had been told they would encounter numerous nations of “savages” who would not welcome white men. The message they carried was that all the land within sight in all directions belonged to the United States of America.
Seaman proved his worth not only as hunting squirrels for the men to eat, but also as a guard dog. There were instances when Seaman scared off an angry buffalo and even kept grisly bears at bay.
On November 15, 1805, Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River in present-day Washington. That was one year, six months, and one days after they began their journey.
What they did not find
They did not find a waterway connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific.
What they found
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
What they found was the Great Plains, the majestic Rocky Mountains, unknown plants and animals, and native peoples who were curious about them and not hostile as had been expected.
Photo by Aida L on Unsplash
They found the kindness of strangers.
Photo by Boston Public Library on Unsplash
They found a native woman named Sacagawea who would guide them and save their very lives.
They found a vast and wondrous land that none of them could have imagined.
The documentation they brought to President Jefferson
President Jefferson sent Lewis & Clark and their crew off with explicit instructions as to record keeping. Jefferson even devised a complicated code matrix they were to use if they needed to try to send secret messages back to Washington.
They were to record in great detail the geography; animals; soil; crops; natural plants; minerals; and human inhabitants and their languages, populations, food, clothing, religions, and their interest in commerce.
Journals were kept, along with meticulous records of what they saw that would be of scientific and future exploration benefit.
The completion of the expedition
The Corps of Discovery returned to St. Louis at noon on September 23, 1806. Lewis immediately wrote a long letter to President Jefferson informing him of their return and that they had indeed reached the Pacific Ocean, although not by water the entire way. Included in the letter was the news that instead of taking half a day to cross the western Continental Divide, it had involved crossing 60 miles of treacherous snow-covered mountains.
Since my last blog post
I had the privilege of telling the 37 members of the Leadership Cabarrus Class of 2025 about the history of Harrisburg last Tuesday. Organized by Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, it was an interesting group of people from various walks of life who are relative newcomers to Cabarrus County. I was allotted 20 minutes to give them the highlights of Harrisburg’s rich history.
I’m not much of a public speaker, but I went through my two local history books, Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Books 1 and 2 and made notes from some of the highlights I thought would be of interest to the group. It was a congenial group and I enjoyed the experience. It had been a couple of years since I had spoken to a large group of people.
Until my next blog post
As always, I hope you have a good book to read.
Make time for friends and family.
Don’t forget the people of Ukraine, as another harsh winter is approaching.
Now that I have your attention… today’s blog post is about ancient history. This is one of the topics I wrote about in Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2.
Photo by guille pozzi on Unsplash
Harrisburg, North Carolina sits inside a 22-mile syenite or ring dike. One can get a feel for it from several high points in the area, such as when traveling south from Concord on US-29 near the intersection with Union Cemetery Road. It’s like looking across a gigantic bowl.
Another possible place from which to catch a glimpse of the “bowl” is on NC-49 southbound after you pass Old Charlotte Road. The Charlotte downtown skyline is visible briefly from that location as well as the one referenced above on US-29.
Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2, by Janet Morrison
What, you may ask, is a syenite or ring dike? I’m no expert on volcanology, but my understanding is that it is a circular dike around a volcano.
According to 2001 Encyclopedia of Earthquakes and Volcanoes, by David Ritchie and Alexander E. Gates, Ph.D.:
“If magma is removed from the magma chamber beneath a volcano, it can undergo caldera collapse. The volcano and the area around it collapse because they are no longer being held up by the liquid. A series of concentric faults and cracks develop around the collapsing volcano. As they do, magma will squeeze up around the cracks and faults forming ring dikes.”
I’ll take their word for it.
In 1966, U.S. Geological Survey geologist Harry E. LeGrand and Henry Bell III led a scientific excursion in Cabarrus County to study our ring dike and other interesting rock and mineral deposits in the county.
You might be able to access a pdf of “Guidebook of Excursion in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, October 22-23,1966” by going to https://www.carolinageologicalsociety.org. Search for “1960s Field Trip Guidebooks” and then scroll down to find that particular guidebook.
The Harrisburg area has experienced a population explosion since 1966. The landmarks noted in the 1966 guidebook are either gone or more difficult to locate today. The concentric rings that were reportedly visible from the air in 1960 by R.G. Ray might not still be intact.
If you’d like to know more about this topic, the 1849 meteorite; Harrisburg’s first organized housing and business development of 100 years ago; the Morrison-Sims Store and Old Post Office; the flood of 1886, the Piedmont Area Development Association (P.A.D.A) of the 1960s; earthquakes that have been felt here; McCachren’s Store; Rocky River bridges in the 1870s; the Sauline Players; a tribute to George L. Govan; Rocky River Academy; the Rocky River Presbyterian Church’s fourth sanctuary which was completed in 1861; a 1777 estate sale; Hugh Smith Pharr and his mill; a 1907 attempted train robbery; 1816 – the year without a summer;
Also: items such as milk, apples, and dry cleaning that were all delivered to homes in the mid-1900s; Blume’s Store; high-speed trains; the boundaries of Township 1; early Harrisburg education; Pharr Grist Mill on Back Creek; how electricity came to Harrisburg; a 1912 church homecoming; Pioneer Mills Gold Mine and Community; a fellow named Collett Leventhorpe; a 1911-1912 debating society; and the tenth anniversary of the Harrisburg Branch of the Cabarrus County Public Library system… please purchase Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2.
The book also contains nearly 150 pages of my research notes on subjects I didn’t get to write about when I wrote a local history newspaper column from 2006-2012.
Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1 and Book 2 are available in paperback at Second Look Books, 4519 School House Commons in Harrisburg, NC.
Second Look Books, 4519 School House Commons, Harrisburg, NC
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