FLASHBACK - Old photos and stories related to history in Cabarrus and N.C.

Taking refuge in a British sloop anchored off shore, Martin spent the early months of the Revolutionary War concocting various schemes to regain power. All came to naught. Then he received word the British government wanted to pursue a Southern strategy to win the war, beginning with the capture of Charleston, South Carolina, in early 1776.

An emboldened Governor Martin instructed his emissary Alexander Shaw to propose an alternative: first capturing Wilmington. Taking the smaller but strategic valuable city, then reasserting royal control over the rest of North Carolina, would weaken Patriot manpower, supplies and resolve, Shaw argued, making it easier to seize Charleston and Savannah. With the Carolinas and Georgia back in the fold, British regulars and Tory militia could then move north against the largest province in revolt, Virginia, in late 1776 or 1777.

Shaw proved persuasive. British leaders agreed to converge on Wilmington — Gen. Henry Clinton sailing south from New York with one army, Gen. Charles Cornwallis west from Ireland with another. As for Governor Martin, he promised to raise many thousands of Loyalists, most either Scottish Highlanders from the Sandhills or ex-Regulators from the Piedmont with longstanding grievances against the coastal elites now running North Carolina’s revolutionary government.

Another part of the plan, at least in the minds of some British agents, was to draw Carolina militiamen away from coastal defense by inciting and arming the Cherokees to open a second front in the backcountry.

Martin threw himself wholeheartedly into the plan. On Jan. 10, 1776, he issued a proclamation calling for Loyalists to muster into militia companies for the impending conflict. He also promised “every aid, encouragement, and support to all such as shall come to vindicate and support the violated laws and Constitution of their country,” while fuming that “a most daring, horrid and unnatural Rebellion has been exerted in the Province against His Majesty's Government, by the base and insidious artifice of certain traitorous, wicked and designing men.”

This was his public proclamation. Also on Jan. 10, Governor Martin dispatched messengers to Loyalist militia commanders in Anson, Cumberland, Chatham, Guilford, Mecklenburg, Rowan, Surry and Bute counties to march their forces to a central location by Feb. 15. They soon settled on Cross Creek, now Fayetteville, as their initial destination, with the intention of then heading down the Cape Fear River to Wilmington to meet up with the incoming British regulars.

Because you know how the Revolutionary War turned out, I won’t worry about spoilers here. Britain’s first Southern strategy had too many moving pieces and was based on the faulty intelligence — much of it from Josiah Martin himself — that most Carolinians sided with the king. Nothing went according to plan. General Clinton showed up late. General Cornwallis was even later. The Cherokee attacks came too late, as well, and converted more than a few previously neutral frontiersmen into passionate Patriots.

As for the Loyalists, many fewer took arms than Martin predicted. And they never made it to Wilmington. To learn more about the resulting battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge (Feb. 27, 1776), please consider attending North Carolina’s First in Freedom Festival. It will be held on and around the Pender County battlefield this coming Feb. 21 to Feb. 28. Visit NCFirstInFreedomFestival.com for more details.

Their effort brought the ship home to Wilmington and transformed her into a living memorial to the 11,000 North Carolinians who gave their lives in World War II and to her 9,000 crew members who served aboard.

Today, those children are grandparents and great-grandparents scattered across North Carolina and throughout the country. Now, the Battleship North Carolina, a division of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, is searching for these original “North Carolina Navy” members — the kids, families and community leaders whose small donations made the impossible possible.

“Think about it: Children across North Carolina emptied their piggy banks and saved a battleship,” said Dr. Jay Martin, executive director of the Battleship North Carolina. “These donors are now in their 70s and 80s, living all across our state and beyond. We want to find them, hear their stories, and ensure their extraordinary contributions are never forgotten.”

The memories already shared tell a powerful story of determination and pride:

“There was very little extra money, but my parents managed to send many dimes with us to school to help save the USS North Carolina.”

“All of my brothers and sister and I sold drink bottles, raked yards, knocked on doors — most anything we could to raise money.”

“It was exciting to know I had helped bring the Battleship home.”

Whether you’re a former student “crew member” who donated a dime, a teacher who organized your class, or a community leader who helped rally your town — no matter where you live now — the Battleship wants to hear your story. Anyone who contributed, or whose parents or grandparents did, can share written memories, photographs or videos at www.battleshipnc.com/dimes. Submissions will become part of a digital archive and may be featured in upcoming exhibits and educational programming celebrating the people who accomplished what seemed impossible: a generation of kids who saved a battleship.

Five years later, Grady was coming home from Mount Pleasant Graded School for lunch, playing tag with friends, when he ran into Main Street, directly into the path of an oncoming truck. He was killed instantly.

Some time later, Betty Kate came home from school one day to see that workmen had left a ladder leaning up against the tree and she began to climb it.

But when she looked up into the treetop, she saw Grady, who told her, “Go back down! You will get hurt! It is not your time! See, I told you angels live in trees!”

The McAllister home still stands, as does Grady’s tree. Perhaps Grady is still there, too.

“This upgrade to the driveway and parking area will make for a much more pleasant visitor experience,” said Site Manager Amanda Brantley. “We look forward to completing this project quickly so that the public can return in December to enjoy all that Reed Gold Mine has to offer.”

Updates to the site’s operating schedule will be posted on Reed Gold Mine’s social media accounts and website 

https://historicsites.nc.gov/all-sites/reed-gold-mine

About Reed Gold Mine

Reed Gold Mine is the site of the first documented gold discovery in the United States. North Carolina led the nation in gold production until 1848, when it was eclipsed by the great rush to California.

Today, the site interprets the history of gold mining and features exhibits on geology and mining technology. Visitors can experience the site through guided and self-guided tours of the historic underground mine, panning for gold, three miles of hiking trails, and a working reconstructed 19th century stamp mill.

The site is located at 9621 Reed Mine Rd. in Midland, N.C. 28107. For more information, visit https://historicsites.nc.gov/all-sites/reed-gold-mine or call (704) 721-4653.

The players pictured here are:  front row, Ray "Cotton" Page, Douglas Caston, Bobby Casper, Earl "Dude" Clark, Paul Petrea, Eugene Parrom, Bill Watts and Lloyd Ritchie; second row, Gilbert "Gib" Heilig, Charles Fortune, Omeldo de Diego, Eugene "Lefty" Sides, Vance Goodman, Van Tarlton, Bob Richards, Bob McMahan, J.C. Rinehardt and Bob McAllister; and  third row, Ray Hill, John Williams, Hoy Moose Jr., Alva "Jake" Walters, John Suther, Carl Hill, Ray Fisher, Flake Mills, Paul D. Fisher, Dink Earnhardt,  and Coach Earl Hinson. Not pictured were: Buss James, John Eury, Ray Huffstickler and Clyde Brooks.

Coltrane-Webb Elementary School is in the 1958 building, while a new Coltrane-Webb is built on the corner of Spring Street and Grove Avenue.

The program begins at 2:30 p.m. at the ECHS Museum in Mount Pleasant. The program is free and open to the public.

Some grave sites could be identified by faint depressions in the ground, visible to those with a trained eye. Researchers also found a single headstone fragment under an old log. Beyond these markers, there was little surface detail to guide the search.

The discovery highlights the role of the enslaved in the fort’s history and their contributions to the plantation established by Revolutionary War figure Gen. William Lenoir in 1792. It also confirms generations of family stories and holds deep significance for their descendants.

William LeNoir, who today bears the name of the original plantation owner but with a slightly different spelling, had four generations of ancestors enslaved at Fort Defiance. As he walked the cemetery on a recent Saturday afternoon, his gaze fell on a giant beech tree carved with faint initials and other traces of vanished histories. The massive trunk, descendants have said, seems to anchor the area in the manner of a witness tree, and there is something in its size, age and strength that is reassuring.

For descendants of those enslaved at Fort Defiance in Caldwell County, the research work at the fort represents important steps toward acknowledging the roles in plantation life of people who were not free.

“Whenever I come up, I feel like I’m drawn to come look at the tree and see how it’s doing,” LeNoir said.

The work of discovering and quantifying the graves and attaching them to an ancestral story “brings about some reflection,” he said.

“It connects the dots for me,” LeNoir said. “It gives me a reference for where a portion of my history started. It grounds you to know you had family who were an integral part of helping make Fort Defiance what it was. I think of them as the hidden faces of Fort Defiance.”

Revealing something of these faces has been detective work involving local historians, descendants and interdisciplinary researchers at App State led by Cowan, a professor in the Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences (GES).

Central to the effort is Dr. Leslie McKesson, a descendant of the enslaved who is an affiliate faculty member in App State’s Honors College. Her study of historic Lenoir family papers gave credence to rumors that a cemetery for the enslaved existed somewhere on the property — including a decades-old report from one descendant that he had stumbled across what looked like a grave in the forest. Ike Forester, the fourth great-grandson of William Lenoir, has done extensive work summarizing history related to enslaved people at the fort, and that documentation became the starting point for the search, McKesson said.

“The story that is here at Fort Defiance is unique because of the amount of information that we have about enslaved people and because of the fact that we can tell a fuller story,” McKesson said. “What happened with the Revolutionary War, what happened here on Fort Defiance property, would not have happened without the labor of a lot of people who were not free. So it’s a broader story, and it’s beginning to get a broader audience.”

Science beneath the surface

To show what’s under the sod without disturbing the ground, Terrell wrangled massive datasets.

“With a project like this, we have to collect gridded data,” he explained. “So we run lines from south to north to hit burials laid east to west — hopefully multiple times — and there is 1 foot of space between each of our lines. Then we use software to make those cross sections into animation that will show a reflection map of the entire subsurface in 3D.”

Finding and interpreting changes in the density of the ground is far more subtle than work surrounding other burials, which may have a coffin or other hard material to serve as a target for the radar.

“There’s no casket and no biological material left here,” said Terrell.

The data, gleaned from a radar machine that had to be pushed like a lawnmower, forms the basis of Terrell’s senior honors thesis. He worked closely with Cowan and Keith Seramur, an adjunct research and teaching professor in the GES department who owns a geological consulting company and provided equipment and expertise. The work and mentorship gave Terrell research experience that would be tough to gain elsewhere as an undergraduate.

“This is a master’s thesis or Ph.D.-level project I get to work on here,” he said. “The Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences focuses on undergraduate education, which is really special.”

A cross-disciplinary, collaborative effort

Many hands are helping reveal and celebrate the hidden history of Fort Defiance, whose original structure was built to defend against Native Americans well before Lenoir acquired the land. Eagle Scouts and student volunteers pitched in to clear brush so surveys could be done, and the fort’s board of directors, staff and volunteers have supported efforts and provided space for an art exhibit revealed to the public in late March. During an emotional unveiling of the mural, Israel Solomon, an Indianapolis-based artist who is descended from the enslaved at the fort, imagined a world of imagery and color where his ancestors moved.

“As an artist, I want to work on projects that are meaningful and can stand the test of time,” he reflected. “Definitely, there is a lot of love that lies throughout the work.”

The artistry, historical detective work and supporting efforts help close a circle in a way that the fort’s governing board finds important to its mission.

“We come together to share the other side of the story of Fort Defiance, to pay respect and honor those other faces that lived and worked here,” said Sandra Watts, president of the board, as the mural was unveiled in the fort’s summer kitchen. “It’s our responsibility to educate people about the country’s history so it’s not forgotten or repeated.”

The broad framework of the effort involves collaboration across university departments — an approach that has become central to many of the research missions at App State.

Dr. Andrea Burns, associate professor in the Department of History and director of App State’s applied and public history graduate program, led a graduate class in fall 2024 that used the products of McKesson’s spring 2024 class, “Antebellum Slavery in Appalachia,” as a foundation to create curriculum for public school educators, fort staff and volunteers. The inspiration for the exhibit also sprang from McKesson’s class, offered through the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies. Dr. Beth Davison, a professor of sociology in the department, assisted with the class and planning for the exhibit and spearheaded fundraising and promotion efforts.

“The idea for Israel’s paintings came out of the class when I realized that I had ancestors who were enslaved there,” McKesson recalled. “Israel is my first cousin once removed, and I’ve always followed his work. The idea of having him interpret the experiences of our ancestors and others who were enslaved there came up one day as I was talking to Beth Davison about the overall class project and what we could do with the summer kitchen as a permanent exhibit space. I mentioned that I’d love to see his talent incorporated there to honor our ancestors and demonstrate how much they and their descendants continue to contribute to history and society.”

Cowan plans to work in cooperation with the Fort Defiance directors to have the cemetery recorded by the state of North Carolina as an official burial ground. The boundaries will be delineated and the site commemorated in some fashion, depending on what the board decides. More attention will go to the fort site, buried in the sod, its location undetermined until recently. Cowan intends to seek funding to bring in an archeologist from App State to excavate the area.

“As soon as we get funding, we’d like to dig the fort up,” she said.

The grave sites are located away from the fort’s footprint and will be left untouched.

“I think it’s important to tell the whole story,” Cowan reflected. “When groups come here, they will not be able to overlook the accomplishments of the enslaved in making this a successful plantation.”