Andy Griffith

We lost Andy yesterday July 3, 2012. He was like part of my family. Actually he was part of my family on my mothers side through her father making him a distant cousin. Rest in peace cousin Andy. Now you know I have family from Mount Airy, NC.

Our National Anthem

The next time we present our National Anthem for 111 million world wide viewers on international TV, I propose we do it like this! What is your opinion?

Winter In Salem

Zinzendorf and the Moravians

Excerpt from "Old Salem - The Official Guidebook" by Penelope Niven and Cornelia Wright (click on the link to purchase your copy). Visit the official website of Old Salem Museums and Gardens

"The history of the Moravians comes to life at Old Salem. A unique religious group, the Moravians made the town of Salem an oasis of beauty and order in the Carolina back-country. Today in the workshops, homes, and gardens of Old Salem, men and women carry on the daily tasks of living just as they were done in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries - crafting beautiful objects, running households and businesses, and  engaging in artistic and musical pursuits. This guide will help you make the most of your visit to Old Salem, one of the most authentic living-history museums in the United States."

Zinzendorf and the Moravians

Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf

The goals and practices Zinzendorf laid out fit the traditions the Moravians had brought with them to Herrnhut. He recommended that they live out their faith in every aspect of their daily lives, intermingling the secular and the spiritual. They lived by the teachings and text of the Bible, rather than by the rules handed down by the church hierarchy. They patterned their public worship on the scriptures and the Apostolic Church. They believed in service to the church, to the community, and to the world at large.

In all these beliefs the Moravians were strongly influenced by Pietism, a movement that spread across Europe in the late 1600s and strongly influenced the Lutheran Church. In essence, the Pietists believed in a Christianity of experience and participation, a “heart religion” rather than a rigid doctrine and passive acceptance of a formal creed. Zinzendorf saw the Moravian congregation as a branch of Lutheranism, not as a separate church.

On August 13, 1727, in the beautiful refuge of Herrnhut, the pastor John Andrew Rothe gave an address, after which he, Zinzendorf, and the congregation walked to the Lutheran church in Berthelsdorf, a mile away. There the congregation took part in a confirmation and communion service led by Pastor John Suss, at which Zinzendorf offered a prayer. The service so inspired the Brethren that Zinzendorf marked it as the spiritual birthday of the Renewed Moravian Church.

Winter In Salem

George Washington Visits Salem - 1791

President George Washington

The following is an excerpt from “About Me” found on this blog:

“My fifth paternal great grandfather was born on December 5th 1733 on land adjacent to the girlhood home of Anna Ball. So what? Anna Ball was the mother of George Washington born on February 22nd 1732. They were the same age and lived near each other! There is documentation that grandfather was particularly acquainted with George Washington as he once lived a neighbor to the General, previous to his turning out under him. Not only him, but most, if not all, of his sons participated in the war which won our freedom. As President, George (its OK to call a friend of your grandfather's by his first name) visited Salem when grandfather lived nearby. Was he there? Did they have a chat? The road back to Virginia would have passed grandfathers home. Did he take a break, water his horses, have lunch or visit for awhile?”

In the spring of 1791 President George Washington began a tour of the southern states, not only to learn first hand about the condition of the country but also to give the citizens of the young United States a chance to meet their first President. His tour of the southern states, as well as visits to other parts of the country, also helped to strengthen the growing sense of American union.

Washington's travels during his presidency were also a testimony to his remarkable physical stamina. In his late fifties at the time of the southern tour, with years of military campaigning behind him, the rigors of travel in America at the end of the eighteenth century had little impact on him. His day often began well before dawn, and Washington would cover as much as fifteen miles before breakfast. In bad weather he traveled in a carriage, but if the day was fine he was in the saddle. Washington must also have felt the stress of being the most popular figure in the country. Wherever he went Washington was lionized. People poured out to see him in cities, towns, and villages all along his itinerary. Meeting and greeting, speeches, dinners and entertainments were all part of the routine. With as many as a dozen toasts at a dinner, Washington either had an amazing head for alcohol or took very small sips.

Washington first traveled south through the eastern parts of the Carolinas and Georgia and then returned to Virginia by a route that took him farther to the west. He entered North Carolina on the return trip late in May near Charlotte. Passing on through the state, Washington intended to spend the night in Salem, and word came to the town to expect the President in the afternoon of May 31st.

It is easy to imagine that Washington's visit to Salem, while it was certainly the occasion of much enthusiasm was also the cause of a bit of anxiety. Throughout the south Washington's tour was a celebration of the Revolution. He was hailed as the Father of his Country. Speeches and toasts memorialized his service in the war against Britain. Many of those who greeted and entertained him had been his fellow soldiers in that war as my Grandfather was. Salem was something of an exception.

The Moravians of Salem and the surrounding countryside - the old tract of Wachovia - had, at the time of the American Revolution, a tradition of pacifism going back more than three hundred years. When hostilities began between the British government and its colonial opponents the Moravians asked to be left alone. The official diary of the Moravian settlements records simply, "It does not accord with our character as Brethren to mix in such political affairs, we are children of peace." To patriots or loyalists, who were sacrificing much for their cause, this was hard to accept. The Moravian settlements were persecuted by both sides as they tried to maintain their religious commitment.

Whatever concern there may have been the meeting between the President and the Moravians went smoothly and pleasantly.

Washington's Southern Tour, May 31, 1791

We are fortunate to have several accounts of Washington's visit to Salem, the most important ones being the diary of the President himself and the official diary of the Moravian community.
President George Washington was at the end of his Southern tour when he arrived at the North Carolina village of Old Salem. His first impression as he approached the Moravian village was how pleasantly it was placed on rising ground surrounded by beautiful meadows, well-cultivated fields, and shady woods. The houses were built in a German style with trees surrounding them forming a pastoral scene.

George Washington

To avoid giving out or owing political favors, Washington declined private offers of food and lodging and always looked for public accommodations wherever possible. He was impressed by the cleanliness and neatness of the Salem Tavern, and as he approached, he was greeted by music from the tavern steps. The Moravian band was an important tradition, but the Moravian practice of not calling attention to or exalting individuals was evident by the absence of festive decorations. Washington rarely smiled because of ill-fitting false teeth, but he wrote in his journal how much he enjoyed his Salem visit.

Major William Jackson, who had political connections in South Carolina, was Washington's private secretary and traveling companion. They were accompanied by Washington's pet greyhound, Cornwallis, and his white parade horse, Prescott. Washington, dressed in his continental uniform, rode Prescott into all the southern towns except Old Salem. In respect of their deep religious convictions, he entered by coach, dressed in civilian clothes, and had Prescott led by a groomsman.

Although smaller than his official state coach, Washington called this traveling coach "his white chariot". The white coach was easily seen and recognizable from a great distance. The oval presidential seal, designed by Washington and used today, was painted on each of the four quarter panels. The four seasons, by Italian artist Cypriani, were painted on the doors, front and back of the coach. Washington would have preferred six cream-colored horses with white manes, but was warned that they would be a great disadvantage in the red dirt he would encounter on his southern journey. Instead he chose four reddish-brown, black-manned bays.

Great crowds followed and gathered around the entourage to see the legendary commander. While the men dressed as all 18th century males, the Moravian ladies stood out in the crowds by their unique dress. Work dresses were solid blue or brown, and a cap that covered all signs of hair was worn indoors and out. The caps and better dresses were always white. The ribbons that tied the cap and laced the jacket of the dress were colored according to the status of the woman. Little girls wore bright red, single women wore pink, married women blue, and widows wore white.

Charles Caldwell, one of the thirteen-rider escorts formed in Salisbury, is the standard-bearer on a white horse. The thirteen riders represented the thirteen colonies. Caldwell and his company met Washington at Waxaws to guide and inform him of the land, the people, and historic events of North Carolina. They traveled with him to the border of Virginia as Washington returned to his home at Mount Vernon.

Washington was impressed with the neat orderly appearance of the town as well as with the demeanor of its inhabitants. He considered it a well governed, hard-working community. The people of Salem were impressed with Washington's simple, friendly manner, particularly with children. The Moravians loved music, and Washington was so pleased with the band which played for him on his arrival that he asked if he could have music to accompany his dinner. The next day, June 1, Washington toured Salem, visiting its workshops and Choir houses. He was particularly taken with the waterworks. In the afternoon the leaders of the community made a formal address to the President to which he responded. Governor Alexander Martin arrived late in the afternoon, and he and the President attended a "singstunde" with singing and instrumental music. At four o'clock on the morning of June 2nd, the presidential party left Salem and on June 9 crossed back into Virginia.

Many places claim that George Washington slept there, but few have documentation to support such a visit. Salem not only has such documentation, but President Washington provided documentation himself of his visit to Salem, NC beginning on May 31st 1791 as part of his Southern tour in the Diary of his tour through North Carolina.

"Salem is a small but neat village, and like all the rest of the Moravian settlements, is governed by an excellent police, having within itself all kind of artisans. The number of souls does not exceed 200. Wednesday, June 1st, having received information that Gov Martin was on his way to meet me, and would be at Salem this evening, I resolved to await his arrival at this place, instead of halting a day at Guilford as I had intended. Spent the foeehoen (afternoon?) in visiting the shops of the different tradesmen; the houses of accommodation for the single men and sisters of the fraternity, and their place of worship. Invited six of their principal men to dine with me, and in the evening went to hear them sing, and perform on a variety of instruments, church music."

This is a compilation of the visit:

...was visited by the first President of the United States, George Washington, then on a visit to Alexander Martin, Governor of North Carolina. General Washington spent a day among the Moravians, visiting the homes of the single brethren and single sisters, and in the evening attending service in the church. The President seemed to take an a special interest in the water works by which the town was supplied with water. In the Reich homestead, now occupied by Mr. Augustus Reich, a descendant of the family who occupied it in 1791, is the room where the meeting took place between Washington and the town authorities. The conversation was carried on in the French language. The room is much the same as in the olden times. In an adjoining room a young girl, (afterwards the late Mrs. Isaac Boner) played on a spinet, the piano of those days. Washington heard the music and entered, listened to her and highly commended her work. The lodging room of the President in the old hotel is shown in good state of preservation, and in appearance is the same as when occupied by him. The building is of brick and in the old German style of architecture. It stands among the few "Washington headquarters" in the South, and should be preserved as such.  

Check out this Book!

On June 1st, 1791 a large number of people came to the tavern to see and greet President Washington, who came out and mingled with them, saying in response to their hearty cheers: "after all, good people, I am but a citizen of our free country, like you all. I thank you for the honor shown me." Turning around be saw a group of boys, and laying his hands on each of their heads as he passed along, he gave them a few encouraging words. Next day, June 2, in company with Governor Martin, the President went to the Governor's home in Rockingham county, a few miles above Leaksville (now Eden).

Winter In Salem

What Did They Find Here?

When those Scots Irish and Germans got here "the country of the upper Yadkin teemed with game. Bears were so numerous it was said that a hunter could lay by two or three thousand pounds of bear grease in a season. The tale was told in the forks that nearby Bear Creek took its name from the season Daniel Boone killed 99 bears along its waters. The deer were so plentiful that an ordinary hunter could kill four or five a day; the deerskin trade was an important part of the regional economy. In 1753 more than 30,000 skins were exported from North Carolina, and thousands were used within the colony for the manufacture of leggings, breeches and moccasins." In 1755, NC Gov. Arthur Dobbs wrote to England that the "Yadkin is a large beautiful river. Where there is a ferry it is nearly 300 yards over it, [which] was at this time fordable, scarce coming to the horse's bellies." At six miles distant, he said, "I arrived at Salisbury the county seat of Rowan.

Danial Boone about 1760

The town is just laid out, the courthouse built, and 7 or 8 log houses built." Most of Salisbury's householders ran public houses, letting travelers sup at their table and drink too. In 1762, there were 16 public houses. There was also a shoe factory, a prison, a hospital and armory all here before the Revolution. Even so, it was still only an outpost in the wilderness. Salisbury was for twenty-three years the farthest west county seat in the colonies. And through this outpost the wagon road ran, and on that road the immigrants continued to travel even after the area was settled. Governor Tryon wrote to England that more than a thousand wagons passed through Salisbury in the Fall and Winter of 1765. That works out to about six immigrant wagons per day. This river area now is part of High Rock Lake.

Modified from the article: The Scots-Irish From Ulster and The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road
Information provided by Brenda E.McPherson Compton

Winter In Salem

Who Traveled South on the Wagon Road?

For 118 years, the English and Dutch settled the New World, lining the harbors and pointing their cities, their eyes, their hearts to the east, across the Atlantic. They were on the fringes of a vast continent but, for the most part, they forever more turned away from it and toward home. They were certainly colonists, even those stern faced few who came to these shores for religious reasons. Most of the other settlers had come to expand the business opportunities of home establishments. Their ties to those establishments were strong.

It took a different kind of settler, someone who had cut his ties altogether, someone who didn't really have all that much to lose, to look west at a wilderness and there see something more than raw materials ready for exploitation. It took folks like the Germans and the Scots Irish to put their backs to the ocean and see home in front of them. Escaping devastating wars, religious persecution, economic disasters, and all of those other things that still cause people to come to these shores, the Scots Irish and the Germans had no intention of returning to their native lands. They were here to stay. They didn't look east but to the south and west toward land. They didn't see wolves and Indians. They saw opportunities. And as different as the Germans and the Scots Irish were, they had what it took to flourish in the back country. Not possessions that could be lost in the fording of a river, not personal contacts and the sponsorship of powerful men, but rough and tumble ability and a heavy streak of stubbornness. They knew slash and agriculture, they knew pigs, they could hunt and forage, they knew hard work. They built their cabins the exact same way. And eventually, they traveled together in that same heavy stream southward along The Great Pennsylvania Wagon Road.

In 1749, 12,000 Germans reached Pennsylvania. By 1775, there were 110,000 people of German birth in that colony, one-third of the population. When Philadelphia was a cluster of Inns and Ordinaries: the Blue Anchor, Pewter Platter, Penny Pot, Seven Stars, Cross Keys, Hornet and Peacock. Benjamin Franklin, one of that era's most open-minded men asked, "Why should the Palatinate Boors be suffered to swan-n into our settlement and by herding together establish their language and manners to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us, instead of our Anglicizing them and will never adopt our language or customs any more than they can acquire our complexion."  But the Germans kept coming, thinking like their Scots Irish compatriots who are recorded as noting that!, "It was against the law of God and nature that so much land should be idle while so many Christians wanted it to labor on and raise their bread."   In short, Pennsylvania was flooded.

Modified from the article: The Scots-Irish From Ulster and The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road
Information provided by Brenda E.McPherson Compton

Winter In Salem

Why Did They Travel South?

There is probably no more beautiful land anywhere than that part of Pennsylvania now known as the "Amish Country." It must have appeared to those people fresh off of the boat, truly a land flowing with milk and honey. But it filled rapidly. Land became expensive. The most important reason why the Germans and Scots-Irish put what little they owned on their backs and took the southbound road was the cost of land in Pennsylvania. A fifty acre farm in Lancaster County, PA would have cost 7 pounds 10 shillings in 1750. In the Granville District of North Carolina, which comprised the upper half of the state, five shillings would buy 100 acres.  The crossing of an ocean was move enough for most of the early immigrants. The generation, which could still feel the waves beneath their feet when elderly, often stayed in Pennsylvania, but their children repeated their parent's adventure. Often, they cast off their lines, raised whatever anchors they had, and "sailed" south right after their patriarchs had gone to their reward.

As North Carolina's Secretary of State, William L. Saunders wrote in 1886,   "Immigration, in the early days, divested of its glamor and brought down to solid fact, is the history of a continuous search for good bottom land."  In their search for bottom land, English colonists encroached onto territories claimed by France. This pressure became one of the reasons the French and Indians went to war against England and her colonists. The Germans and Scots bore the brunt of the war, a cabin burning, wife-kidnapping, farm ambushing, bloody, and horrible guerrilla war. For eleven years mayhem reigned on the frontier. In 1756, three years after the war started, George Washington wrote that the Appalachian frontiersmen were "in a general motion towards the southern colonies" and that Virginia's westernmost counties would soon be emptied. Western North Carolina seemed to those escaping the war to be safer because the Cherokee were on the British side-at least at the beginning. To western North Carolina they came.  This French and Indian War, which started the year Rowan County was created, joined the quest for more and better land as a major factor in sending those Germans and Scots-Irish down the Wagon Road to safer territory. Not only that but, the peace treaty that ended the war stated that no English settlers would go over the Appalachians. Thus, the best unclaimed land in all of the colonies lay along the Yadkin, Catawba and Savannah Rivers between the years 1763 and 1768.  When the war ended in 1764, the western settlements of Pennsylvania had suffered a loss of population. Virginia and North Carolina had grown.

Modified from the article: The Scots-Irish From Ulster and The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road
Information provided by Brenda E.McPherson Compton

Winter In Salem

The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road

October 1753, fifteen Moravians are traveling to North Carolina to begin a new settlement. The route they follow from Pennsylvania does not yet have its famous name: The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road. The brothers often were required to cut down trees, improve and widen the road in order to pass.

During the early years, travelers walked, leading five or six pack animals laden with supplies: tools, seed, and fabric. In places, the famous path they trod was only three or four feet wide. The wilderness literally crept right up to their feet and brushed their faces as they walked. In later years they marched alongside oxen as these over sized beast pulled two-wheeled carts heaped to overflowing, crossing rivers that licked high about their animals flanks and often soaked every single individual piece of their worldly possessions. Finally, when the path had been worn clear by thousands and thousands of previous travelers, they rode in wagons as the path was widened into an honest to goodness road. These Pennsylvania German built wagons at their largest would be twenty-six feet long, eleven feet high and some could bear loads up to ten tons. It took five or six pairs of horses to pull them.

No matter if they walked or rode, in the mid afternoon, they stopped to take care of the animals, prepare food, and put up the defense for the night. The cries of wolves in the distance and the pop of twigs just outside of the firelight sounded danger. Bands of Indians in the early days, bands of thieves later, chased away deep sleep, no matter how tiring the day, how bone weary the traveler. The fastest loaded wagon could go about five miles a day. The trip took a minimum of two months. Wagons broke down, rivers flooded, supplies gave out, and there was sickness but no doctors. Wagons were repaired, floods ceded, the wilderness supplied their need, and the sick were buried or stumbled on.

Only a few trails cut through the vast forests, which covered the continent between the northernmost colonies and Georgia, the southern tip. The settlers, as they moved inland, usually followed the paths over which the Indians had hunted and traded. The Indians, in turn, had followed the prehistorical traces of animals. Who knows why the animals wandered where they did, but some of those early travelers on that road, the Scots-Irish Presbyterians, would have assured us it was certainly predetermined. Even so, few paths crossed the Appalachians, which formed a barrier between the Atlantic plateau and the unknown interior. Through this unknown, even then, there was a road. The Iroquois tribesmen of the North had long used the great warriors path to come south and trade or make war in Virginia and the Carolinas. This vital link between the native peoples led from the Iroquois Confederacy around the Great Lakes through what later became Lancaster and Bethlehem, Pa. through York to Gettysburg and into Western Maryland around what is now Hagerstown. It crossed the Potomac River at Evan Watkins Ferry, followed the narrow path across the back country to Winchester, through the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to Harrisonburg, Staunton, Lexington, and Roanoke. On it went into Salem, NC, and on to Salisbury, where it was joined by the east-west Catawba and Cherokee Indian Trading Path at the Trading Ford across the Yadkin River. On to Charlotte and Rock Hill, SC where it branched to take two routes, one to Augusta and another to Savannah, Georgia. It was just a narrow line through the continuous forest.

Virginia's Gov. Col. Alexander Spotswood first discovered this Great Road in 1716 when his "Knights of the Golden Horseshoe," crossed the mountains, drank a toast to King George's health and buried a bottle claiming the vast valley for the King of England. In 1744, a treaty between the English colonists and the Indians gave the white men control of the road for the first time. By 1765 the Great Wagon Road was cleared enough to hold horse drawn vehicles and by 1775, the road stretched 700 miles. Boys and dogs, smelling like barnyards, drove tens of thousands of pigs to market along this road, which grew gradually worse the farther South you went. Inns and ordinaries, which spotted the road undoubtedly taught more than a few of them the ways of the world. But that was all later.

The majority of the folks who by the thousands would walk over Spotswood's buried bottle would have probably thought his whole 1716 ceremony a little preposterous and quite a bit pretentious. You see, they were plain folk trying to get away from Latin, from mottoes, and from knights with horseshoes no matter their element of manufacture, steel or gold. They were as different from Spotswood's cavaliers as a golden horseshoe is from an ox's hoof.

In the last sixteen years of the colonial era," wrote historian Carl Bridenbaugh, "Southbound traffic along The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road was numbered in tens of thousands. It was the most heavily traveled road in all America and must have had more vehicles jolting along its rough and tortuous way than all the other main roads put together."

When the British captured Philadelphia, the Continental Congress escaped down The Pennsylvania Wagon Road. Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett traveled it. George Washington knew it as an Indian fighter. John Chisholm knew it as an Indian trader. Countless soldiers, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Pickens, Andrew Lewis, Francis Marion, Lighthorse Harry Lee, Daniel Morgan, and George Rogers Clark, among them, fought over it. Both the North and South would use it during the Civil War.

And down this road, this glorified overgrown footpath through the middle of nowhere leading to even greater depths of nowhere, came those people looking for a better life for themselves and their children, down it came those settlers, those hardworking stubborn Scots Irish and Germans: the preachers, the blacksmiths, and farmers.



Modified from the article: The Scots-Irish From Ulster and The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road
Information provided by Brenda E.McPherson Compton

First Map of the Wagon Road:

1751 Map by by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson

 The 1751 map by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson's father) is in the collection of the Moravian Archives and is one of the many early treasures housed in Salem.This blogger is privileged to have a copy made directly from this map in his collection.

The map above, drawn by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson’s father) in 1751, was the first to show “The Great Road from the Yadkin River thru Virginia to Philadelphia distant 455 Miles” — what would come to be known as The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road or just the Great Wagon Road. Fry and Jefferson based their map on firsthand surveys not, as was common at the time, on the word of other people who had traveled through the land. On their map, the road ends at Wachovia (Wachaw), the Moravian settlement. Later, it would be extended further south and west. Also marked is the “Trading Path leading to the Catawba & Cherokee Indian Nations,” the Indian trading path that predated European settlement.

Fry and Jefferson were commissioned to draw an accurate map of the most-inhabited (by whites, that is) parts of Virginia, and that was the only land they surveyed. As a result, they drew the border between Virginia and North Carolina only as far west as the Allegheny Mountains, although in theory that border still ran to the Pacific Ocean. Note that the western border of Pennsylvania is clearly drawn on the map; Virginia also claimed all the land that is now Ohio. Note also that the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania isn’t drawn! That boundary was in dispute at the time. Not until 1763 would Mason and Dixon set out from Philadelphia to survey the boundary between the two colonies and draw the line that would bear their names.