snippets ~ chatham history BLOG

This salt-glazed stoneware jug was made by Chatham County potter Nicholas Fox between 1830 and 1850. The jug is stamped with both the potter’s name “N. FOX” and Masonic symbols. Fox's pottery was characterized by the inscribed bands seen on this jug, as well as a thumb or finger print at the handle.

Salt glazing was a technique used by stoneware potters to create a glassy surface. Salt glazing required firing the pottery at a high temperature that resulted in the clay becoming non-porous. This, combined with the salt glazing, meant that potters did not have to apply a glaze to the interior of the vessel. It could hold liquids and not seep, unlike earthenware storage vessels.

Nicholas Fox (1797-1858) and his family migrated from Pennsylvania to Chatham County, North Carolina, in the late 18th century. Fox and other family members became established potters in the area and trained other potters, most notably Nathaniel H. Dixon and John and Henry Vestal.

The jug is in the collection of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem. You can find additional photos and information on the Museum's website. https://mesda.org/item/collections/jug/1705/

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #pottery #NicholasFox #MESDA 

Chicken processing in Chatham County. 1950s?

Believed to be Siler City. Look at those skinny chickens!

From Duane Hall's Historic Siler City collection. Thanks for sharing, Duane!

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #chickenprocessing #SilerCityNC #chicken #1950s

Charlie Daniels was a North Carolina musician who found national success with hits such as “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” However, Daniels’ teen years were spent in Gulf, Chatham County where he founded his first band, The Misty Mountain Boys, at Goldston High School. Daniels passed away at 83 on July 6, 2020 in Tennessee leaving behind a music legacy combining many different genres such as bluegrass, country, rock and jazz with ties to Chatham County and North Carolina as a whole.

Learn more in a podcast about Daniels that was produced by Ella Sullivan for a Girl Scout Gold Award. You can listen and read it here:

https://chathamspast.wixsite.com/alookinto/charlie-daniels

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #ChathamHIstory #ChathamNC #CharlieDaniels #GulfNC #GoldstonNC

Chatham County school bus number 39. Year unknown, but this was back in the day when students were bus drivers.

Thanks to Larry Pickard for the photo from his Goldston Studio collection!

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #schoolbus #goldstonstudio

Crutchfield's Taxi Cab Service, Siler City, 1947.

Thanks to Larry Pickard for contributing this photo to the CCHA collection!

#ChathamNCHistory#ChathamCountyNC#ChathamHistory#ChathamNC#SilerCityNC#CrutchfieldTaxiService#taxi

Few travelers have passed this stately house on 15-501 between Pittsboro and Chapel Hill without noticing and admiring it. Bill Sharpe has provided a brief description of its history and his own boyhood memories of the house and its early occupants.

Read it here on our website:

https://chathamhistory.org/.../White%20House%20on%2015...

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #ChapelHill #WilliamBrooksCheekHouse #architecture

This photograph is of "Kentucky," the Chatham County home of Frederick Jones Hill, one of several Cape Fear planters who made their summer homes in Pittsboro in the early 1800s. Kentucky was located on the 99-acre parcel that is now occupied by the Chatham County Agriculture and Convention Center.

The land on which Chatham County’s new Agricultural Center was built has an interesting history. The earliest owner shown in Chatham County records is Mary Watters, daughter of Continental Army General James Moore, and wife of Colonel William Watters, who also served in the Continental Army. In 1825 Mary Watters sold the 99-acre property to her son-in-law, Frederick Jones Hill. The deed (Z/460) indicates that the property was her former residence. The Old Stage Road formed the southern boundary of the parcel and then turned north for some distance within the parcel before joining Old Salisbury Road which continued northwest.

Frederick Jones Hill was a physician, planter and enslaver, and legislator known for his early legislation to establish public schools in the state. Raised in New Hanover County, he, like several other wealthy Wilmington families of the period, had ties to Pittsboro. Hill, his father, and three uncles owned elaborate summer homes in and around Pittsboro. Hill and his uncle, Dr. Nathaniel Hill, were instrumental in building St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in 1831 in Pittsboro.

The records are unclear whether Frederick Jones Hill built his summer home, “Kentucky,” on the parcel he purchased from his mother-in-law Mary Watters, or whether it was built prior to his purchase of the property. Hill and his wife, Anne Ivey Watters, were third cousins, once removed. They married in 1812 and had no children. The Kentucky property was eventually inherited (in 1874) by William H. Moore, a presiding elder of the Methodist Church, and to whom both Hill and wife Anne had family connections.

Until the property was purchased by Chatham County in 2012, it had been handed down in the Moore family through several generations.

Remarkably, some features and artifacts from the property’s early history survived, and the Chatham County Historical Association sought to document those and to learn whatever possible about that history prior to its development as the county’s long-awaited Agricultural Center. Volunteers wrote a detailed report about the property and surviving structures and artifacts. You can read it on the Chatham County Historical Association website: https://chathamhistory.org/.../CCHADocumentsAgCenterPrope...

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #FrederickJonesHill #Kentucky #HillFamily #PittsboroNC #ChathamCountyAgricultureandConventionCenter #CapeFearPlanters

We love maps! How about you?

Pictured here is the 1870 Ramsey map of Chatham County. It's a useful summary of so much information about a slice of Chatham history. We often turn to it when researching Chatham topics.

The Ramsey map lists dozens of places-- some still on current maps and others long gone. We would love to share the stories of all -- if only we knew them! What place on the map would you most want to know more about?

You can see a larger version of the Ramsey map here: https://chathamhistory.org/.../Pictures/RamseyMapSmall.jpg

Our website also contains an index to the map:   https://chathamhistory.org/.../Researc.../RamseyMapIndex.pdf

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #Ramseymap #maps #ChathamPlaces #communities #1870s

This 1939 photo, taken in Pittsboro, always had us curious about what a "Pickle Low party" might be.

In her trek through North Carolina in 1939, famed documentary photographer Dorothea Lange captured the photo above in Pittsboro. Lange offered no details other than those that appear in the caption “Sign tacked to pole near the post office. Main street, Pittsboro, North Carolina.” At the time, the Pittsboro Post Office was located in the main block of Hillsboro Street.

Perhaps Lange decided to photograph the sign because she too was curious about it. A little online research suggests that "piccolo" was slang for jukebox, or recorded music. The sign has the word spelled in an unusual way but the message was likely clear to all potential participants -- Come dance to canned music.

Hosting the party was GW Leach--likely George W. Leach, who lived with his wife Sallie on Masonic Street. Note the admission charges included on the sign: Single man, 10 cents; man and woman, 15 cents. Commenters on other sites have suggested that this was what was called a "rent party." Especially during the Great Depression, this was a party with music and dancing, given to raise money for the host's rent or household expenses by collecting a contribution from each guest. Sometimes food was sold at the event. Too bad Lange didn't stay in Pittsboro to photograph the party!

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #PiccoloParty #DorotheaLange #1930s #PittsboroNC

What can an old store ledger tell us about the history of Chatham County? Plenty, if we pay attention. Back in 1974, local historian Wade Hadley obtained a copy of a ledger covering part of 1851 and 1852 for the general store located at Saint Lawrence Post Office in Chatham. The day book is believed to have belonged to Henry C. Luther, who was postmaster at Saint Lawrence. The book is in the collection of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC-CH. The image of Hickory Mountain Township from the 1870 Ramsey map, shows the location.

Hadley wrote a sixteen-page paper that gives a glimpse into western Chatham in 1851-1852. Saint Lawrence was an important crossroads community before the Civil War --located approximately four miles east of what is now Siler City--between the old and present routes of highway 64. Earlier it was called McCarroll, for Dr. James McCarroll, who operated an ordinary (tavern/inn) there. McCarroll died in 1777 and was buried near his home. His widow, Elizabeth, later married Patrick St. Lawrence--for whom the area was likely renamed.

By 1851-52, settlers had been in the area for around ninety years and some farms were in the hands of second or third generation Chathamites. Hadley notes that the items they were buying at the general store "give an indication of how far they had advanced from the state of near self sufficiency characteristic of the earliest settlers in the backcountry of Chatham County."

Hadley's paper lists all of the items purchased at the store during the period covered by the ledger, along with the unit price, total amount sold, and number of sales. He notes that tallow candles were the main source of household illumination; firearms were muzzle loading; looms and spinning wheels were used in many homes. Calico, homespun, indigo, coffee, molasses, rice, sugar, and chewing tobacco were staples.

Fashions of the date "penetrated the backwoods of Chatham as evidenced by the purchase of a 'California hat' on April 10, 1851 for $2.50 by Mr. Samuel B. Perry." Artificial flowers, ribbons, lace, and neck ribbons were purchased. Luxuries such as broadcloth, silk bonnets, silk handkerchiefs, and French brandy were purchased by a few families. On rare occasions, fresh lemons and coconuts were available.

The list includes several items that we were unfamiliar with and had to look up: asafetida, coperas, saleratus. See the comments below for what we found.

The day book records the names of 159 customers. Hadley lists the thirty-five regular customers who made purchases on ten or more occasions during the period covered by the ledger. Surnames include Alston, Brooks, Caviness, Cotten, Crutchfield, Dorsett, Dowdy, Evans, Hackney, Hall, Headen, Hutton, Johnson, Kirkman, Lineberry, Marsh, Perry, Rogers, Self, Teague, Temples, and Webster.

Wade Hadley's paper is now available on the Chatham County Historical Association website: https://chathamhistory.org/resources/Documents/PDFs/ResearchArticles/GeneralStoreatSaintLawrencePostOffice.pdf

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #StLawrencePO #generalstore #ledger #WadeHadley #ChathamCountyHistoricalAssociation