Susan's Blogue

The Lions of Landfall

by Susan Taylor Block

Lions graced the Bungalow at Pembroke Park. The girls are unidentified. (Photo courtesy of Cape Fear Museum)

It’s no wonder “lions” once lounged at Landfall, an expansive community near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Owner Pembroke Jones’s voice was described as a roar when riding in his carriage down Jones Road, after the grand parties.For most of its 20th-century life, Landfall was known as Pembroke Park, a 2,000-acre hunting preserve that was owned by Pembroke Jones. Henry Walters was Jones’s best friend and he took artistic charge of Pembroke Park before Jones could do so much as order up the kit house he threatened to build there as his lodge.

Lions represent royalty and have been depicted in almost every facet of art. Henry Walters acquired many distinctive “lions” while amassing his enormous, diverse personal collection that he bequeathed to the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore. William Walters, Henry’s father, acquired a lion statue by French sculptor Antoine-Louis Barye, and placed it near the Walters’ Mount Vernon Avenue estate in Baltimore.

“Fuchi with Crouching Lions,” one of many such treasures acquired by Henry Walters. (Artist: Hagiya Katsuhira. Walters Art Gallery)

Walters hired John Stewart Barney to design an exquisite Italianate villa on the property that bordered Wrightsville Sound. Barney was a New York architect, novelist, and author who kept company with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and Walters in New York City and Newport. Versatile and studious, his design portfolio ranged from big city churches and libraries, to the development plan for the restoration of Williamsburg.

The Joneses called their 39-room home at Airlie Gardens, near Pembroke Park, “the Shack”; their mansion in Newport, “the Cottage”; and the new hunting lodge, “the Bungalow.” When the Bungalow was complete, about 1905, Walters filled it with furnishings from Palazzo Accoramboni, a palace in Rome, and invited many of his friends from Europe to visit the new spread. Lions were incorporated into Bungalow’s original design.

One of two Landfall lions that much caught attention when they graced the steps of City Hall. (Photo courtesy of Cape Fear Museum)

Former Mayor J. E. L. Wade and unidentified lion admirers at City Hall, about 1962. (Photo courtesy of Cape Fear Museum)

In 1912, Pembroke and Sarah Jones’s daughter, Sadie, born in an upstairs room at Wilmington’s Governor Dudley Mansion, married architect John Russell Pope at Mount Lebanon Chapel, in Airlie. Pope, who designed the Temple of Love at Pembroke Park, also designed the classical Lion’s Gate that divided the two Jones properties, Airlie and Pembroke Park, on the southern and northern ends of Jones Road. Most of the Lion’s Gate structure still exists, and it sits at the rear of the Lion’s Gate condominium community, off Eastwood Road.

Sadly, two large elegant marble lions that once stood at the gate were destroyed. The lions were imported from Italy and each weighed two tons. The lions crouched atop the gates, with their claws on a large serpent. Sometime after 1940, thieves misjudged the weight of the animals and the lions slipped while being hoisted. They fell onto the road and shattered into many pieces.

(See        http://susantaylorblock.com/2010/04/01/airlie-gardens-the-annex-landfall/     )

A portion of the Lion’s Gate, designed by John Russell Pope, architect of the Jefferson Memorial. (Photo by Susan Block)

Two mere 400-pound freestanding lions from the Bungalow disappeared from the lodge, sometime in the 1940s. School students placed them on the lawn of a Board of Education employee as a Halloween trick. Later, they were moved to City Hall, where they sat until someone complained they were not of proportionate height for the building. Their next home was the Kiddie Zoo, across South Third Street from the Greenfield Lake overflow. Eventually, vandals hit again, pulverizing one of the concrete animals. It is not known what happened to the other.

Long Beach resident Mary Ann Bolduc and a Landfall lion, at the Kiddie Zoo, September 1966. (Star News photo. Ruffin Collection, Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear)

   ******************************************************************************************************************************************* “The outside of the building (Bungalow) is what fascinated me – the lions and the gold fish that were big as flounders.” – Longtime Wrightsville     Sound resident Lossie Gardell, in an interview conducted in 2000. 

A portion of the Bungalow. (Photo by Hugh Morton)

READING LIST:

William and Henry Walters, The Reticent Collectors, by William R. Johnston.

Land of the Golden River: Old Times on the Seacoast, by Lewis Philip Hall.

Airlie: The Garden of Wilmington, available at the Airlie Gift Shop.  (All proceeds go the Airlie Foundation)

Camellia and Rosemary

Photo by Susan Taylor Block.

Shot without a flash – only the light of sunset shafting through a darkish hall. (Click to magnify.)

Along the Cape Fear: A New Identification

by Susan Taylor Block

Cover image is housed at Cape Fear Museum.

The process of identifying old photographs is an ongoing and exciting activity. It’s gratifying to pair names and faces in pictures that lack labels, and more so when the images are quite old. The cover photo of Along the Cape Fear has fascinated me since the book was published in 1998. It was taken at Lilliput Plantation, in Winnabow, NC, and was donated to Cape Fear Museum with only one identification, Eric Norden.

Photographer Eric Norden took this photograph of the rice fields at Orton Plantation. (Cape Fear Museum)

Norden is the man on the right. He was a surveyor who drew plats of many properties in town and along the river, as well as Hugh MacRae’s colonization projects. He amassed one of North Carolina’s finest collections of rare books that included 16th century titles, most of which were lost in a 1939 house fire. In 1902, about the time the cover photo was taken, he presided over the Wilmington Camera Club, All three men have a seriousness about them that made me continue to wonder who the two on the left were. I happened upon the identity of the middle man in 1999, when I saw him on the cover of another book: The Jiangyin Mission Station, by Lawrence Kessler. He is Dr. George Worth, a Wilmington native who spent most of his life as a Presbyterian medical missionary in China. Dr. Worth was on furlough in 1902, when he served as vice-president of  the Wilmington Camera Club.

The Jiangyin Mission Station cover features images of Dr. George Worth, wife Emma Chadbourn Worth, and son William, about 1896.

Like the others, the man on the left is playing for no audience, and seems too well-dressed to be standing in the midst of an overgrown plantation. Blood courses through his hand as he stares, almost glares, into the lens. His face stayed with me. One day I thought I finally had found a youthful match for him in a collection of McKoy family photos, but I could not be 100% sure.

William Berry McKoy, at age 16. (Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear)

Yesterday, while viewing photos posted by the Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear, I saw another McKoy photo that made me entirely sure the man on the left is William Berry McKoy (1852-1928). He was a Princeton graduate  and a title attorney, who collaborated with surveyor Norden. McKoy was prominent in local democratic politics and freemasonry. In 1886, he married Katherine Bacon McKoy, who was the daughter of Henry Bacon, U.S. Engineer for the damming projects at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. Her brothers were Lincoln Memorial architect Henry Bacon; and archaeologist and furniture designer Francis Bacon.

William Berry McKoy, (on left) about 1924. (Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear)

McKoy gathered information on Cape Fear River properties as early as 1881, when he delivered a lecture entitled, “Early Settlements on the Cape Fear, and the History of Old Brunswick,” to the Wilmington Historical and Scientific Society – an organization he founded. McKoy compiled history about many other local sites as well, and some of his work is included in Chronicles of the Cape Fear River, by James Sprunt – owner of Lilliput and adjoining plantations, Kendal and Orton.

In 1887, William Berry McKoy built the McKoy House at 402 South Third Street. James F. Post served as architect, and Alfred Howe was the builder. Architectural historian Tony Wrenn called the house, “Wilmington’s best representative of the Stick style and a first-rate example for any area.” Ironically, William’s brother-in-law, Henry Bacon (1866-1924), merely 21 in 1887, would design another house on the same street, but for an unrelated family – the MacRaes. The Donald MacRae House at 25 South Third Street, known today as the Ann Moore Bacon Church House, was built in 1901.

The William Berry McKoy House at 402 South Third Street.

As late as 1917, fifteen years after the Along the Cape Fear cover photo was taken, William McKoy was still interested in the picturesque, history laden area of Winnabow. He requested James Sprunt allow him, accompanied again by Eric Norden, to visit Orton Plantation and St. Phillip’s Church.

St. Philip's Church, Brunswick Town. (Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear)

“We have just moved up to town for the season,” replied Sprunt. “I think I could arrange to go down with you, however, or certainly to send you from Orton in a conveyance to the Old Church. … I may be able to go down in my own boat and bring you back in good time in the afternoon.”

With all the identifications in place, the photograph takes on a strong Presbyterian slant, and the connections become clearer. William McKoy and Eric Norden were members of First Presbyterian Church, as was James Sprunt, who was known locally, even internationally, for his generosity to Presbyterian causes. Dr. Worth was a member of First Presbyterian before moving to China. Almost wholly, Sprunt and First Presbyterian Church supported Dr. Worth and his family in their missionary work. Princeton, founded by Presbyterians, played into the picture, too, with James Sprunt’s son, Laurence, following McKoy there, two decades later. James Sprunt was close to First Presbyterian Church minister Dr. Joseph Wilson, whose own son, Woodrow Wilson, taught at Princeton. Sprunt gave substantial financial support to the school.

First Presbyterian Church, dedicated in 1861, burned New Year's Eve, 1925. Designed by Samuel Sloan, who also served as architect of the N.C. Governor's Mansion. (Cape Fear Museum)

The Knox tie did truly bind during James Sprunt’s lifetime. His guest lists were heavy with other Presbyterians of Scottish descent. Like most of their church peers, the three Presbyterian cover-men were serious minded, modest people who would have been uncomfortable in any sort of spotlight, no matter how dim. They were the sort of people who would have taken the lowliest seat at the table. It is interesting that images of William McKoy and Eric Norden landed on the cover of one book, and Dr. Worth is featured on two.

Sources:  Bill Reaves Collection, New Hanover County Public Library; Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear; Cape Fear Museum Library; Perkins Library, Duke University; James Sprunt, Chronicles of the Cape Fear River. Tony Wrenn, Wilmington, North Carolina: An Architectural and Historical Portrait. Susan Taylor Block: Along the Cape Fear. Author’s nterview, December 30, 2012, with Elisita McKoy McCauley.

The Naming of Kendal, York, and Orton Plantations

by Susan Taylor Block

Orton Plantation, about 1941. (Etching by Louis Orr. Private Collection)

There is a long-standing tradition that Orton and Kendal plantations, in Brunswick County, NC, were named for picturesque towns in England in which the Moore family, who were the original owners, once lived. Fresh research indicates that is not the case. The real naming source is much more interesting and exciting. The Moores were military leaders, and do not seem like the kind of people who would name something important for something bucolic.

Maurice Moore, a son of Governor James Moore of South Carolina, was the first Moore to walk the land. In 1725, he became the original owner of Orton and Kendal. Maurice sold Orton to his  brother, “King” Roger Moore, who built the fortified house that is now contained within the present larger structure.

Thirty years ago, Dr. William Craig, of Salina, Kansas, provided a single clue to the naming of the plantations when he stated that Maurice Moore was most likely named for Prince Maurice of England. Brothers Prince Maurice and Prince Rupert were nephews of Charles I, and commanders in the Royalist army. Working from that supposition leads to the Moore’s long military history in Ireland, and their very brief but dramatic war experience in England. The following information was gathered over a period of months from an assortment of sources detailed in the bibliography.

A Military Heritage

The Moores of Cape Fear descend from one of Ireland’s most ancient families. The original spelling, O’Mordha, is Irish-Gaelic for “stately and noble.” That progressed to O’More, O’Moore, and then to Moore. The O’Mores were a leading sept of Ireland, who ruled the region of Leix for approximately 500 years. The Judeo-Christian faith was fundamental to their identity, and always a factor in their military history.

The O’Mores, all Roman Catholic, emerged as towers of strength and acquisitive warriors so early they were written into Ireland’s diaphanous mythologies. The recorded life of Conall Cearnach, the most famous of the Moore’s earliest known ancestors, is a good example of fairy tale blended with true war stories. His skill at decapitation and his habit of hospitably sharing his bed with the heads of those he had slain were real, but Irish tradition wove fantasy into his origins.

After Gahan O’More became Lord of Leix in 1016, documentation of the family’s genealogy improved. A long list of O’More princes followed Gahan. Brains, brawn, earthiness, and bravery were required to rule in Ireland’s hostile, rugged, woodsy conditions. It was a human process of natural selection in which only the fittest survived – or at least lived long enough to pass their genes on to the next generation.

By the time of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, at least 47 generations of O’Mores had lived in and dominated Leix. Many of them are represented in the long list of O’More’s who ruled the area, now Laois – a 660 square-mile county located inland, southwest of Dublin. For most of them, the cause of death would be listed simply as “slain.” Known today as County Laois, the Leix region, renamed by Mary Queen of Scots as “Queen County,” is sometimes still referred to as “O’Moore County.”

The O’More family’s dominance of Leix was diminished by two strong Plantation settlements enforced by the English. The first occurred in 1556, and the second, in the 17th century. However, neither was completely successful because of continuous incursions and assaults by the O’Mores.

The Moore’s high spirited ways; their unfaltering allegiance to the country of Ireland and the church of Rome; and their record of creating “disturbances” kept them in the forefront of royal attention. Not surprisingly, the English chose Leix as the first Irish region to seize and Anglicize. Newcomers were charged to replace Irish culture with English culture. In some cases, this caused an interesting mix, but rarely were Irish culture and customs diminished. In fact, it was said that some Englishmen and women became more Irish than the Irish.

This period in Ireland’s history has a North Carolina perspective. Sir Walter Raleigh, for whom Raleigh, NC is named, received the largest Irish grant during the plantation period. Eventually Raleigh’s land was sold to Sir Richard Boyle, known later as the Earl of Cork – the wealthiest descendant of the Early Stuart monarchs. It was Boyle who colonized much of Ireland for the English. However, when the Crown turned against Boyle, he helped Rory O’More, Maurice and King Roger Moore’s great-grandfather, stir up the Irish Rebellion of 1641.

Rory O’More’s uncle, Rory Oge O’More, set the stage for rebellion against the Tudors after he failed to build a bridge of peace between England and Ireland through an alliance with young Edward VI and his court. Edward was only nine years old when he ascended to the throne in 1547, and a bevy of advisors made most of his decisions for him. Edward’s father, Henry VIII, had sought earnestly to neutralize tensions by inviting the Irish chieftains to England for an airing of grievances. At those meetings, the Irishmen were treated with respect.

In 1548, Edward’s crafty advisors enticed the Irishmen chieftains to do them harm instead. The group consisted of leading members of the O’Moore family of Leix and the O’Connor family of neighboring county, Ofally. Soldiers seized Rory Oge O’More and the others upon their arrival at court, then threw them into dark, dank jail cells. While the Irishmen lived like rodents, King Edward’s deputies took advantage of the absence of home leadership in Ireland by taking possession of additional properties that belonged to the O’More and O’Connor families.

Prison merely incubated Rory Oge’s rebellious nature and he emerged with so much fire and stealth that the English eventually would spend 200,000 pounds trying to catch and kill him. In the meantime, he organized forces responsible for torching at least 500 homes and killing many hundreds of Englishmen. Finally, a 1,000 pound reward led to Rory Oge’s capture. He was killed in 1578 and his head was displayed at Dublin Castle.

Rory Oge O’More

Rory Oge’s brother, Callough, was father of Rory O’More, who gained fame as a leader of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Rory was born in 1600 and died about 1653. Though he spent most of his youth in Ireland, he may have attended military school in Spain. He married Jane Barnwell, daughter of Sir Patrick Barnwell of Leix. The Barnwell and O’More families stayed close, even after coming to America where the two families owned neighboring South Carolina estates, and where Col. John Barnwell and Col. Maurice Moore fought Indian Wars together.

Along with three other rebels, Rory helped plan a bloodless overthrow of English rule in Ireland. His motivation was, generally, the dream that Ireland would be set free from tyranny and oppression, and, specifically, the hope of recovering his family’s estates from the English, What began as a movement to surprise-and-conquer soon changed to violent conflict between established Irish Catholic families and Scottish and English newcomers. Despite Rory’s involvement in numerous battles, apparently he escaped physically unscathed.

The rebels attempted to take Drogheda, a city on Ireland’s east coast, in 1641. The seige failed, but eight years later Oliver Cromwell would succeed. He led a massacre of Royalist defenders, another great blow for the O’More family who were Royalists at that time. Later, Cromwell bragged that his forces killed one in ten captives, clubbed the officers, and shipped the rest to Barbadoes. The O’Mores apparently made their way to England before moving to Barbadoes, but many folks of Irish Catholic descent peopled the island by the time they arrived. This gave the O’More family advantages.

Rory escaped with his life, but lived in exile as a walking target . There are conflicting reports on his last years, but a tablet inscription on the island of Inishbofin, Ireland may hold the truth: “In memory of many valiant Irishmen who were exiled to this Holy Island and in particular Rory O’More, a brave cheiftain of Leix, who after fighting for Faith and Fatherland, disguised as a fisherman escaped from his island to a place of safety. He died shortly afterwards, a martyr to his Religion and his County, about 1653. He was esteemed and loved by his countrymen, who celebrated his many deeds of valour and kindness in their songs and reverenced his memory, so that it was common expression among them; ‘God and Our Lady be our help, and Rory O’More’.”

The Rory O’More Bridge in Dublin.

The Rory O’Moore Bridge in Dublin memorializes the man who remains a hero to many. Rory and Jane O’More had at least three children:  Charles, Anne, and Nathaniel. Little is known about Charles, except that he might have moved to County Cork. Anne married Patrick Sarsfield. One of the their sons, also named Patrick, became the first Earl of Lucan and was an Irish hero of the Jacobite Resistance.  King James II created him Baron Roseberry, Viscount of Tully and Earl of Lucan. Rory’s other son, Nathaniel, was the father of Governor James Moore and the grandfather of King Roger Moore.

Patrick Sarsfield, first cousin to Gov. James Moore of South Carolina.

A Dizzying Trail of Connections

It seems certain that Orton, Kendal, and York, the plantation south of Orton and Russellborough, were named in remembrance of places meaningful to the Moores because of the English Civil War. As stated earlier, the Moores were Royalists. The war raged intermittently from 1642 until 1651, and spanned the reigns of Charles I and Charles II, both of whom arranged favors for the Sarsfield family. The Sarsfields owned fine residences in the Devonshire region of England. It is almost certain that two of Rory O’More’s children, Anne Moore Sarsfield and Nathaniel, lived near one another during the mysterious years that followed Rory’s rabble-rousing in 1641.It’s possible Nathaniel’s son, James, attended French military school with his first cousin, young Patrick Sarsfield. John Yeamans, who is forever entwined in Moore history, resided not far away, in Bristol He was connected with the Sarsfields and had been a landowner in Barbados since the late 1630s. His stepdaughter, Margaret Berringer, would be mother to Maurice, Nathaniel, and King Roger Moore.

It was surely during this period that the O’Mores pulled the drapes on their lives. They Anglicized the spelling of their name to “Moore;” would soon find the Anglican church inviting ; and fell silent concerning their past. Governor James Moore, Nathaniel’s son, made a mystery of his childhood, youth, and early adulthood. He had the marks of a man with much formal schooling, yet no one knows for certain where he received it. His early life story is so obscured we do not even know the name of his mother. After he became Governor of South Carolina, he used a seal that bore the swans and arms of Devonshire – a stop along the way when compared to hundreds of years’ worth of family history in Ireland.

Sir John Yeamans’ cousin Robert, a fierce Royalist, conspired with Charles I to overthrow Cromwellian dominance in Bristol. Just hours before the King’s’ nephew, Prince Rupert, reached Bristol, Robert Yeamans and his co-conspirators were arrested. Yeamans was hanged, drawn, and quartered – adding fuel to the Royalist fire in John – who would become Gov. James Moore’s step-grandfather.

Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice were involved in trade with Barbados. Sir John Yeamans and James Moore spent years in Barbados, and sailed aboard the Loyal Jamaica together, from Barbados to America in 1665, when Moore settled permanently in South Carolina.

Family history states that Nathaniel Moore, son of Irish rebel Rory and grandfather of King Roger Moore, fought under Col. John Yeamans during the Civil War. Yeamans left England after the war and established residence in Barbadoes, where he was rewarded properties he named, with gratitude, “Kendal Point” and “Orton Plantation.” Prince Rupert was given the title Baron Kendal. Royalists were victorious at Cole Orton Hall, in Leicester, England where the Sarsfields, and perhaps Nathaniel, lived in comfort.*

Prince Rupert was the leader in the freeing of York and York castle. Thus, we get the name York Plantation from the same source. All but forgotten today, York was owned by Nathaniel Moore, brother of Maurice and King Roger. Nathaniel’s house sat on bluff that was sixty feet high.

(Map courtesy of the Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear.)

Together, with the naming of Maurice, there seems to be too many coincidences to ignore the importance of the English Civil War and its princes in the naming of York, Orton, and Kendal plantations. Nathaniel Moore and Yeamans knew the king’s nephews and fought in at least some of the battles. The war stories, passed down with emotion, were still fresh when the Cape Fear Plantations were named. These symbols from the distant past are like slender shafts of light peeking through those drapes. What is revealed is an important period of Moore family history that echoes along the western bank of the Lower Cape Fear.

Today, Orton and Kendal plantations are owned by Louis Moore Bacon, a great-great-great-great-great-great grandson of King Roger Moore.

(* It is ironic that Wilmingtonian Richard Bradley actually was from Kendal, England, and his son, also named Richard, named his Wrightsville Sound property Edgehill, about 1812. Edgehill was the name of the first battle of the English Civil War, and Prince Rupert was involved. At least one Edgehill battle was fought near the Sarsfield’s hometown.)

Bibliography

Bacon, Ann Kidder Moore. The Ann Kidder Moore Bacon Historical Collection.

Bishir, Catherine W., North Carolina Architecture. UNC, Chapel Hill and London, 1990.

Brooks, Baylus C., Jr. “Brunswick Town and Wilmington: Shifting Political Shoals on the Cape Fear River.”

Cheshire, Joseph Bount, Nonnulla. Chapel Hill, 1930.

Chisholm, Hugh (editor), Patrick Sarsfield. Cambridge University Press. 1911.

Connor, R. D. W., “Cornelius Harnett: The Pride of the Cape Fear.” The North Carolina Booklet, Vol. V, No. 3, January 1906.

Connor, R. D. W. A Documentary History of the University of North Carolina, Volume I (1776-1799). Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1953.

Connor, R. D. W. A Documentary History of the University of North Carolina, Volume II (1776-1799). Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1953.

Davis, J. Kenneth, Jr. Patriarch of the Lower Cape Fear: Governor James Moore & Descendants. Wilmington, 2006.

Fisher, R. H. Biographical Sketches of Wilmington Citizens. (History profile by Louis T. Moore)

Gault, Charles, Collection. Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear.

Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear. Family files.

Lee, Lawrence. The Lower Cape Fear in Colonial Days. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1965.

Leland, John G. A History of Kiawah Island. Kiawah Island Company, 1977.

MacLysaght, Edward, Irish Families; Their Names, Arms, and Origins.

McCaffrey, Carmel, In Search of Ireland’s Heroes: The Story of the Irish from the English Invasion to the Present Day. Ivan R. Dee, 2006.

Methodist Episcopal Church, South -Minutes of the Sixty-First Session (December 1 – 6, 1891). LeGwin Bros., Printers and Binders, 1897.

Moore, Augusta Jocelyn. Moore Reminiscences. 1899. (Historical Society of the Lower Cape Fear.)

Moore, James Osborne III, A Colonial Family on the Southern Frontier. (HSLCF)

Moore, Louis T. Stories Old and New of the Cape Fear Region. Wilmington, 1968.

Morrill, Dan. The Civil War in the Carolinas. Charleston, 2002.

New Hanover County Public Library. Family files.

O’Hanlon, Very Rev. John Canon, and the Rev. Edward O’Leary, History of Queen’s City County.

Osborn, Rachel and Ruth Selden-Sturgill, The Architectural Heritage of Chatham County, North Carolina. Chatham County Historic Architecture Survey Committee and North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1991.

Paulist Fathers, Catholic World, Vol. 7.

Perdew, Margaret Yeamans Moore. The Margaret Yeamans Moore Perdew Collection.

Powell, William S. The First State University: A Pictorial History of The University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill. The University of North Carolina Press, 1972.

Reaves, William. The Bill Reaves Collection, New Hanover County Public Library.

Alice Borden Moore Sisson Collection, New Hanover County Public Library

Sprunt, James. Chronicles of the Cape Fear River.

Sprunt, James. Tales and Traditions

Taylor, William Cook, History of Ireland 1833.

Thomas, Cornelius M. D, James Forte. Wilmington, NC: J. E. Hicks, 1959.

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Copyright 2012: The Orton Foundation

Oysters Roasted

by Susan Taylor Block

How my eyes do fill with moisture

When I contemplate the oyster:

A hapless piece of mollusk meat

That everyone just loves to eat.

A feasibility study

Would’ve come back muddy:

“Hazardous to open the shell.

They’re ugly, and, oh, how they smell.”

I’ve been to roasts throughout my life,

And even have an oyster knife,

But I just sit and watch the show

Of oyster eaters, row on row.

They pry and shuck and gobble down,

Sometimes with a tiny frown.

They’re in no mood to talk or hear,

But just to wolf those oysters dear.

Ingested in an eight-month season,

Their attraction’s without reason:

It’s gritty food that cavemen ate,

We might just call it “people bait.”

So, someone, somewhere should aspire

To breed a new hit in the mire

That draws the ladies and the gents

And earns them soon a lot of cents.

(Copyright 2012)

Image from:  www.richmond.com

The Hills of Queen Street

by Susan Taylor Block

Our family is thankful to have many photos from the past. They represent various branches and are exhibited online as the Hill-Taylor Collection. The Hills, my mother’s father’s “people,” were good at leaving an interesting and varied trail of images. A fraction of their story is told in this article with photographs, documents, news clippings, paintings, and handwritten genealogical documents.

Owen Canady Hill, about 1900. (Photo by J. J. Burnett, Wilmington. Hill-Taylor Collection)

Owen Canady Hill, my great-grandfather, was born August 18, 1839. He died September 1, 1904, after years of suffering from Civil War wounds. Owen was born in Wilmington, at Monk Barns, an 18th-century house on Greenville Sound where the family worked as tenant farmers. Before that, they lived on “Topsail Sound,” where, in 1737, another Owen Hill received a land grant to 640 acres of land. Some of the Hills lived or moved to greener pastures in Duplin County, but Owen’s ancestors, for the most part, stayed in the same quiet little area where they farmed and enjoyed Stump Sound oysters and other famously good seafood. They marketed most of their seafood in Wilmington, and that required frequent trips to the seafood market that once sat in the intersection of 2nd and Market streets. Owen made this run many times during the economically challenging years that followed the Civil War.

During the Civil War, Owen Canady Hill served in Capt. James Metts’ Company G, Third North Carolina. He took part in the Seven Days’ Battle around Richmond, as well as battles at South Mountain, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Payne’s Farm and Gettysburg. He was taken prisoner at Sharpsburg for almost two months; wounded at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Payne’s Farm. He was imprisoned at Spottsylvania; then imprisoned again, at Elmira, New York. He was released June 23, 1865, and walked back to North Carolina. Shrapnel scattered throughout his body sometimes made him feel as if he was on fire.

Owen split his time between Onslow County, where he kept a home at Stump Sound, and Wilmington where he set up a grocery store and blacksmith shop in Dry Pond. His Wilmington house sat on the northeast corner of Sixth and Queen streets. From 1867 to 1886, Owen and wife Mary Elizabeth Taylor Hill, a fellow Onslow County native, had eight children: Rebecca Ann, John Thomas, James Richard, Mary Ida, Martha Ann, Marion Owen, Oscar Claude, and Grover William. This essay will follow only the line of James Richard Hill.

Mary Elizabeth Taylor Hill, at 516 Queen Street, about 1903. (Hill-Taylor Collection)

The Primitive Baptist Church, on Castle Street. (Photo by Susan Block)

This interior shot of Church of the Good Shepherd, designed by architect Hobart Upjohn, was taken by a Hill family member shortly after the building was completed in 1912. (Hill-Taylor Collection)

Here, Hill family members and friends loll near the banks of the Cape Fear River. (Hill-Taylor Collection)

The Hills went to several different churches, including Fifth Avenue Methodist, the Primitive Baptist Church, First Baptist Church, and, most conveniently, Church of the Good Shepherd, at 6th and Queen streets. Good Shepherd might have won them all, if one senior member of the Hill family had not taken great exception to a line in the Nicene Creed. Firmly Protestant, and unaware that the word “Catholic,” in lower case, means universal and all-inclusive, the elderly woman nearly fainted when the congregation read in unison from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer: “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.”

Owen and Mary’s children were educated in public schools. Their youngest child, Grover (1886-1941), my grandfather, went to UNC. Most of the others worked as seamstresses or tradesmen, except for Oscar Claude (1881-1949), who was longtime Superintendent of Mails for the Wilmington Post office, and also supervised the Camp Davis, Fort Fisher, and the Bluethenthal postal centers. Oscar, James, and all four of their sisters lived in various Queen Street homes until their deaths. None of the sisters married, nor did Marion.

The 1906 School of Pharmacy at UNC. Grover Hill is sitting in front of the center column, on left. (NC Collection, UNC)

Ella Scott Hill, wife of James, daughter-in-law of Owen Hill, and mother of Pearl and Jimmy - about 1899. (Hill-Taylor Collection)

Pearl and Jimmy Hill, about 1904. (Hill-Taylor Collection)

The gallery continues:

Pearl married Richard Boone:

Pearl Hill, born in 1903, at the corner of 6th and Queen streets, about 1923. (Hill-Taylor Collection)

Richard Boone at a typesetting machine in Wilmington, NC. He typeset for newspapers and book productions like "Blackie Bear." (Hill-Taylor Collection)

Pearl took painting lessons in Wilmington, from teacher Emma Lossen. Pearl exhibited her paintings at the Cottage Lane Art Show, an Azalea Festival event, and at the Sorosis Building, various art shows at St. James Episcopal Church, and other events.

Pearl's painting of a New England scene was exhibited on Cottage Lane, about 1954. (Hill-Taylor Collection)

Pearl's painting of Greenfield Lake, about 1954. (Susan Taylor Block)

A portrait of Pearl’s only child, Martha, painted by Emma Lossen.

Martha Boone McAllister, 1951. Painted by Emma Lossen. (Susan Taylor Block)

Jimmy Hill, Pearl’s unmarried brother, was a professional stand-up comedian and clown. He worked in theaters in various states, especially Ohio and North and South Carolina.

Jimmy Hill, Pearl's brother, born in 1901.

This illustrated essay ends with a rare photo of Wilmington from the Hill family albums. It dates to about 1907 and is rich in content, showing the old Cape Fear River ferry that was operated by the Joneses, an African-American family that still calls Brunswick County home. Also displayed are the many buildings that were razed before the U. S. Custom House was constructed, beginning in 1916.

Wilmington, about 1907. (Acknowledge as susantaylorblock.com)

Hill Genealogy:

Somehow, the leather binding of the 1831 Hill family Bible is still intact, even if the title page is a bit crumpled. Just in terms of hurricanes, it is quite a survivor.

Records that were saved within it follow:

Related:    http://susantaylorblock.com/2011/01/10/dry-pond/         http://susantaylorblock.com/2012/11/05/monkey-business/

The Animated Christmas Windows at Belk Beery

by Susan Taylor Block

The Belk-Beery Christmas windows, about 1958. (Photo by Martha McAllister; Hill-Taylor Collection)

I feel fortunate to have been born in 1951 – in Wilmington, North Carolina. It was a quiet time in an unselfconscious place that knew not yet its beauty. Many things that seemed normal and permanent about Wilmington to my young mind have proven to be rare and somewhat fleeting. Such is the case of downtown Christmas decorations in my dear hometown.

The old street adornments were entirely different from the strange dullness of LED lights. They were a bit big, sharply bright, and very colorful. Multicolored lights crisscrossed the streets and lighted medallions dangled on each side of the street. Predictably, the only medallions I remember are the Santa Claus faces, but I think there were at least three other images.

Just like we did on Sunday afternoon rides, my parents, brother, and grandmother traveled together to see the Christmas lights. We did this several times each December. Mother and Daddy sat in the front seat, and Nana and I sat in the back seat, with my brother, Jay, sitting between us.

Those were more formal days. My parents, brother, and I were dressed casually, as we would have labeled it then, but today it would seem a bit dressy. My beloved grandmother, as always, was clad in a nice dress, and was wearing just enough jewelry.

I clearly remember the Christmas ride we took in 1957, when Jay was just 18 months old. He was perched in a baby seat, but, in those years, that merely meant it was elevated. That was a seatbelt-less era.

Nana (Flossie Stone Hill), Jay, and Susan. (Photo by J. W. Taylor, Jr.; Hill-Taylor Collection)

We rode north on South Front Street, and when we got to the brow of the hill, the dazzlement of yuletide lights below actually took Jay’s breath away. He stared bright-eyed, gasped several times, was silent, then finally began breathing normally again. He was on my left. I can still picture it and feel the relief of that episode being over.

By contrast to the nightly show, how disappointing it was to see the same downtown sight in daylight. The medallions were drained of most of their definition and the colored bulbs were dull. It would be decades before I would understand the spiritual symbolism of the Christmas phenomenon of light.

I can’t remember when I first saw the animated storefront windows of Belk-Beery, but I remember my impressions. Even though the movements were simple and slow, what was assumed to “stay still,” moved! It was like plugging the Christmas street illuminations into a Walt Disney movie.

In those days, Belk-Beery decorator, S. O. (Jack) Guyton was responsible for the Christmas windows. As soon as the draping was removed, people would leave their cars and stand quietly in front of the glimmering displays. I think background music played, but emotional memories play tricks. Except for the dreamy, moss-draped mood under the World’s Largest Living Christmas Tree, locally, there was no other secular Christmas thrill like the Belk-Beery windows.

The old, once very familiar Belk-Beery box. (Hill-Taylor Collection)

For more on the municipal tree, see:     http://susantaylorblock.com/2009/12/26/the-worlds-largest-living-christmas-tree/

Monkey Business

by Susan Taylor Block

Martha McAllister, Chipper, and Richard Boone, about 1962. (Photo by Southern Engraving Company)

During the 1960s, the Pet Shop at North 17 Shopping Center was a destination store for animal purchasers and a sort of neat, clean zoo for browsers. Pearl Hill Boone, Richard Boone, and their daughter, Martha McAllister owned the business, with its “get to the point” name. Pearl was the bookkeeper, Dick, the manager, and Martha was the chief salesman. Their small business had grown from a tiny one the threesome operated earlier in a World War II Quonset hut on South 16th Street.

Opening Day: Martha and Claude McAllister, with her parents, Richard and Pearl Boone. (Photo by John Kelly)

At the Pet Shop, Wilmington’s only pet store at the time, shoppers had their choice of hamsters, monkeys, tropical fish, piranhas, skunks, cats, dogs, turtles, Siamese fighting fish, goldfish, parrots, parakeets, a variety of snakes, and many other creatures. In addition to the usual products such as dog clothes and flea powder, the store stocked unusual items for the time, such as parakeet diapers, fur dye, poodle mascara, and doggy toothpaste.

Dick Boone, an old newspaperman, knew how to gain "Grand Opening" publicity. (Photo by John Kelly)

Ladies observing the unladylike. (Photo by John Kelly)

Summer was their only meager season. Vacation and beach time left  people with less time to care for brand new pets, so the Boones added an unlikely product: Model rockets. Despite the disparity, they sold well in the pet store. Martha set up a little school situation in which she taught public school teachers rocketry, a program underwritten by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Martha also boosted sales through publicity. She appeared on various local programs on WWAY -TV, and on “The Jim Burns Show,” a weekday live variety program that aired on WECT-TV for years. She also engendered bonus newspaper space through her creative ideas that involved pets as gifts.

Martha McAllister, "on the set," with an unidentified local television announcer.

This Father's Day photo of a prospective young shopper appeared in the Star News, June 16, 1963. Claude McAllister, (right), worked as a school principal, but visited the Pet Shop frequently.

Year-round, a particular monkey named Chipper was the star attraction. He arrived at the store while still a baby and won the heart of Dick Boone. Soon, the feeling was mutual. If Dick was away from the store for more than a couple of days, Chipper would quit eating and drinking until he returned. Chipper hugged his master and kissed his hand when he returned, then resumed eating from his usual personal menu of hamburger, roast beef, fresh produce, peanut butter and crackers, and, on occasion, a piece of chewing gum.

The shopkeeper and his pet. (Southern Engraving Company)

Cute little Chipper outsmarted many customers by picking their pocket while they were busy admiring him. Most shoppers never felt a thing when he slipped his slender fingers inside a pocket to grab a coin, or into a lady’s handbag to snag a handkerchief. Once his thievery was discovered, he used his long tail and feet to swing through the store, delaying capture. Even when caught, Dick Boone had to pry Chipper’s strong fingers open to retrieve a customer’s property.

Near the end of each work day, Chipper would settle into his little cubby and pull his blanket this way and that, until he had it exactly like he liked it. Then, he would sleep amid diverse creatures from many parts of the globe. None, but the boa constrictor could have been fodder for nightmares. Smartly, Skipper was terrified of the boa, but he got along famously with the other animals and visited them at their cages often. When the Boone family sold the Pet Shop, they sold Chipper, too. By 1969, the new owners had taken charge, but Dick Boone visited his beloved friend almost daily.

The boa takes center stage in this broadcast. (Photo by John Kelly)

Martha's daughter, Debbie, with her own pet, about 1960. The puppy's expression is notable. (Click to magnify)

Sources, in addition to personal knowledge (Pearl Hill Boone and Martha McAllister were Hill cousins) and the Boone’s family papers are: Star News, “Wild Animal Kingdom,” by Ed Newman (August 27, 1967) and The Hanover Sun, “Chipper the Clown,” by Lynne Gause (July 10, 1968).

This grand photo of Debbie and Martha, was taken about 1958. Sadly, as of this year, both are gone.

A Related post: http://susantaylorblock.com/2012/12/08/the-hills-of-queen-street/

The Shortest Second

by Susan Taylor Block

While I’m looking both ways

At a crossroads so mean,

A horn honks behind me

When the light’s barely green.

Where Two or Three Thousand were Gathered

by Susan Taylor Block

A normal day at the Cotton Exchange.

For twenty days during March and April of 1888, Robert Gamaliel Pearson, D.D., conducted a series of meetings in Wilmington, North Carolina. Amazing numbers of people gathered to hear the Presbyterian professor of English Bible from Columbia (SC) Theological Seminary. Circuses drew many hundreds during those years, but Dr. Pearson’s lectures attracted 2,000 to 3,500 people on the busiest nights.

The meetings took place at the riverfront Champion Compress warehouse, renamed “The Tabernacle” during the lecture series. Cotton merchant and Presbyterian churchman James Sprunt owned the building and gave use of the multi-roomed space for morning discussions and nightly lectures. Sprunt’s generosity to religious causes was well known, and extended to the construction of churches in Wilmington, Chapel Hill, and China.

Steamers usually loaded cotton night and day at Champion Compress. (Special Collections,Duke University)

Transforming a dusty, darkish industrial space into a house of worship took time and some money. Carpenters enlarged the cotton compress platform to the size of twenty by forty feet to accommodate seating for the ministers and choir. Churches and individuals loaned chairs of many different styles and sizes. Finally, just two days before the meetings began, electric lights were added to the building.[1]

The Champion Compress platform without Tabernacle extensions. (Cape Fear Museum)

Organizers scheduled additional men of the cloth to participate, usually by leading a prayer. The group included: The Rev. Dr. Alexander Sprunt, later minister of First (Scots) Presbyterian Church in Charleston; The Rev. Dr. John L. Pritchard of First Baptist Church; the Rev. Mr. Peyton H. Hoge of First Presbyterian Church; the Rev. Mr. J. W. Primrose of Second Presbyterian Church; the Rev. Mr. W. S. Creasy of Grace Methodist Church; the Rev. Mr. D. H. Tuttle of Fifth Street Methodist Church; the Rev. Mr. T. Page Ricaud of Bladen Street Methodist Church, the Rev. Mr. G. M. Tolson of Brooklyn Baptist Church; and the Rev. Mr. Kelly of the Seaman’s Bethel.[2]

The meetings began on March 18 and ran through April 11. Assemblies took place daily, except on Saturdays. Sizable crowds attended even during inclement weather, but on at least one evening, torrential rain on the tin roof drowned out the sound of Dr. Pearson’s voice.[3]

Robert Gamaliel Pearson

Though there was no discord, a special police force was required just to manage the crowds that arrived on foot, or by carriage, ox cart, boat, or train.  Another group of men served as ushers who began the seating process thirty minutes before each evening meeting. Those who had questions or comments were encouraged to attend the daily discussion group meetings.

Usual schedules went missing during the lecture series. Even Wilmington’s popular City Market kept business hours to a minimum “to enable butchers and others to attend the services.” Among other record-breakers,  the “vast throng” that gathered for the children’s service, on April 6, was said to be the largest gathering of local youngsters ever assembled in Wilmington.[4]

Contributions were encouraged for the Young Men’s Christian Association, an organization that had a heavier spiritual accent then than it does today . Classical scholar Theodore B. Kingsbury, editor of the Star News, covered the story himself. “The city was stirred to its depths,” he wrote of the Pearson meetings, but Kingsbury also noted skepticism of the plain-looking, plain-spoken man who seemed to take on mysterious power when speaking.[5]

The YMCA building on the northwest corner of Front and Grace streets was completed in 1891. It featured a large auditorium where revivals were held frequently. (Cape Fear Museum)

“He has none of the natural endowments that set off the great orator,” wrote Kingsbury. “His personal appearance is youthful, homely, unimposing. His voice is peculiar, and yet not without a certain fascination – penetrating and not unmusical when you get accustomed to it. He has clear articulation. His manner is deliberate, self contained. HIs mind is logical, acute, responsive, aggressive. He is not eloquent in any high sense. He is not a rhetorician. He scarcely uttered in his fifty minutes’ discourse one rhetorical sentence. He is not imaginative. His descriptions are not remarkable. Then with all this negation, what is he? What power has he as a preacher?

“We fear irreligious, worldly men will scarcely understand us,” concluded the bookish Kingsbury. “He has power of a very wonderful kind. It is the power that comes from God.”[6]

(New Hanover County Public Library)

The lecture series ended on April 11, 1888, and Dr. Pearson was remembered by many as the man who, “made clear to many minds that which they had never understood before.” The meetings caused many effects. One of the most endearing was money suddenly repaid many years after one listener had slipped onto a train without buying a ticket.[7]

“Previous to that time,” wrote another member of Pearson’s Wilmington audience – of the man she knew best, “I could see nothing in my husband’s life that was inconsistent with the life of a Christian. He was a model of honor. In fact, it seemed to me that his ideals were so high that they were strained – he put himself last, always. On one occasion I knew him to lose $1,000 because he would not break a simple promise.

“From the time of … (the Pearson meetings) until his death (12 years later), I never knew anyone to live so close to God. His life was a living prayer. Nothing, not even pressing business, was allowed in between him and his religious duties. In fact, I think his zeal in this direction helped to shorten his life.

“The change from being absolutely upright and honorable, loyal, and true to every relation in his life,” the wife continued, “to that of being a spiritually minded Christian of the highest type was so great that it was mysterious even to one who knew him so intimately as I did. Nothing but the grace of God could have wrought such a wondrous change.”[8]

The Rev. Dr. Robert G. Pearson was born in 1847 and died in 1913. His parents were Quakers who left North Carolina to live on a farm in Mississippi. They gave him the middle name of Gamaliel after the learned rabbi who taught St. Paul during his days as Saul. The studious Dr. Pearson was a graduate of the Cooper Institute, and Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tenn. He assisted Dr. A. J. Baird of the First Presbyterian Church of Nashville for several years before becoming a full-time non-denominational evangelist. His work took him to far flung states, and he held a special place in his heart for Montreat, NC, a Presbyterian stronghold near his home in Asheville.

Though Pearson was reticent to speak about his own life, others reported that he read the Bible through several times every year and spent a great deal of time in private meditation and prayer. His wife, Mary Bowen Pearson, a college instructor when they met, traveled with him and led daytime study groups for women.

Some of Dr. Pearson’s lectures survived because a stenographer recorded his words. They were published as Truth Applied or Bible Readings, and are available online. Mrs. Pearson edited the second edition of his book, published in 1890.

The old cotton compress in Wilmington used millions of pounds of pressure to squeeze a bail down to half of its original size.  Pearson’s sermons are compact, too. There is no fluff. Here are a few examples from his book:

“I have no patience with fanatics. Christ was heavenly-minded, but he could work at the carpenter’s bench; he could attend to his earthly duties, and still keep faithful to his duties to his Father.”

“I like literature, and I like to see scholarly men and women; but I have very little patience with that man who calls himself a child of God, but prides himself on his literary attainments and care nothing for God’s word.”

“I have very little patience with people who claim to be God’s children, saved by grace, and then go on and look as solemn as if they had been dead a week.”

“It is presumption to talk about us poor glow-worms ‘throwing light on his Word.’ You might as well talk about it being the business of a fire-fly to throw light on the noonday sun. Just get the texts together in their natural order, as they bear on any topic, and you will get the light…. Here is a diamond lying in the mud, sand, and dirt. What do you need to do with the diamond? Not to throw any light on the diamond, not to try and make the diamond shine, but just to take it out of the dust, and get these things away from it and out of it, and hold it up, and the diamond will do the shining and sparkling.”

Then, with the meetings over, Alexander Sprunt and Son resumed its schedule of packing 4,000 bales of cotton a day onto steamers, schooners, railroad cars, and carts. (Cape Fear Museum)