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iVolume 11.
Charlotte, N. C., Thursday, Augnst 21, 1941.
Number 34.
MOON SPARKLING
ON THE MISSISSIPI
Like the Broken Rays People and
Places Are Different But All
Have Something Alike
A MOST INTIMATE PICTURE
Richard L. Stout, who is doing a
number of articles from all about
the United States for the Christian
Science Monitor, found himself gaz
ing across the Mississippi at New
Orleans, and the rays of a sparkling
moon on the water started a string
of thought and he felt compelled to
change his picture of America. He
says:
Why is it that this always hap
pens, just as I think I know the
United States well, a new impression
or a new locality comes into view
and I must change and enlarge the
whole circle to take it in?
Whoever does get the whole pic
ture of the United States, is there
anybody living who can really com
prehend the whole ? I have made_ the
continental swing two or three times
and it is beyond me. Take this New
Orleans, for "instance, and use that as
Sl starting point to go back and re
view the w'hole.
The moon was shining across the
river from the jetty where I paused
in the darkness to look. A ship’s bell
was sounding; from far off one of the
old church bells boomed; the iron-
balconied French quarter was just be
hind me; I had dinOT at one of the
French restaurants going back to the
time when most people spoke French
here, and the streets were marked
Eue So-and-So, with the English
name underneath. Tourist atti’action,
perhaps, but it has a ring of authen
ticity, too. I stopped under a lamp
and talked with two men, an old one
and a young one, in the market sec
tion. The old man, smiling, said he
always spoke French at home; the
young one said no, he couldn’t speak
it, his parents spoke it back in his
parish and he understood everything
they said, but he had to answer in
English. Funny, wasn’t it?
A Queer Effect
I agreed that it was funny and
walked on to the Mississippi, rolling
rolind the crescent here to its mouth,
bringing down water from Wyoming
and the Dakotas and Nebraska, and
on the other side from Pennsylvania
and Ohio and Kentucky—and all the
states down between—from the moun
tain trout brooks of the Far North,
fed by drops dripping off icicles, to
the catfish bayous of the South, and
now running by me here, with the
ship’s bell tolling and the buoy, out
somewhere in the mile-wide river,
going ding-dong, and the church bell
over the way, and in front of mp the
moonlight across the water from the
old Spanish-French town.
There was a queer effect on the
moonlight—the eddies at one point
made all the reflections dance as
though they were going one way, and
right beside it they were dancing in
a cross-current the other way and yet
the moonlight path shone on steady
and mild and unperturbed in the
warm summer night much as it did,
I suppose, when the Indians owned
Louisiana, and the French owned it
and the Spanish, and then the Ametri-
eans. And behind me all the time was
the old town—so new to my . concep
tion of America; a city that my Yan
kee Puritanism, which drove over the
new Continent in the early days very
much like 'a glacier, barely reached.
Maybe it melted before it reached
this softer, laughing climate.
Traditions Remain
New Orleans has sufficient flavor
and vitality of its old traditions so
that the edge of modern commercial
ism is blunted; the Montgomery Ward
store, the Nehi soda pop, the Holly-
wooid movies and the Grand Rapids
furniture, it takes in its' stride and
keeps its original savour and mood
a century or so after Andy Jackson
conquered it and took it over. Well,
that is the way that America is. You
see the same motion pictures adver
tised in every city in the country, and
you see the same chain store fronts
and the same drugstores at the corner,
and you get the feeling at first that it
is all very much alike. And then you
discover, underneath, how different
some of these regions are, in a League
of Nations ail their own, with all
the, eddies going different ways, like
the ripples in the moon’s path, and
yet the main reflection shines clear
and steady across the waters.
I looked across the river and wish
ed that somebody could put down on
paper the savour and gusto of the
different parts of America that I have
seen, and I knew that nobody really
could. And then I began to think of
catch phrases and names, and even
queer jingles that one’s memory picks
up here and there and that identify
certain places and localities. And it
occurred to me that perhaps - that
was really the way to tell the story
of the New World in so far as it can
be told.
So first I thought of maple syrup
and Vermont valleys and the soft
transcendental light that hangs over
green and white New England towns,
and Bowdoin College, and Wiscasset,
and stone walls piled with creeper,
and the odor from under pine groves,
and kelp sucked in and out of ocean
potholes, and John Quincy Adams,
Henry Adams, and ‘Cal” Coolidge,
and the Parker House, and the Way
side Inn and an old woodchuck pas
ture that I know of, with an old oak
growing in it.
Then I thought of the New York
MORE ON PAGE TWO
NERO FIDDLES WHILE ROME BURNS— i
North Carolina Has Grown Up,
Its Senator Still a Provincial
(AN EDITORIAL)
Human Interest
It is with no ill will towards
Senator Reynolds, but rather
with sorrow, that we say his re
marks on the meeting of the
President of the United States
and the Prime Minister of Eng
land, were, mentally, adolescent,
and emotionally provincial. His
remarks remind us of the report
which Bill Barber, North Wilkes-
boro lawyer, brought down to
Raleigh of the mountain Repub
lican attitude towards what they
the Leagernations. They had
heerd tell of it but didn’t know
what it was.
Several years in the United
States senate, many circumnav
igations of the globe, many al
leged studies of foreign coun
tries, and finally the engagement
to an heiress not half his age,
have unfortunately left the Sen
ator a provincial still. The pro
vincial never opens his mind to
anything. He is guided by his
primitive emotions. Beyond his
own mental circle all the world
is foreign. He may be a globe
trotter or he may not have trav
eled further than his own county
seat. Provincialism is a condi
tion of dwarfed mentality and
emotion.
Here are the leaders of two
nations, one of which is
threatened with immediate de
struction by savagery, _ and
the other by an ultimate
life and death struggle against
it. They meet, not only to
seek if possible ways to avert
this fate, but to join hands af
terwards in trying to find means
of world cooperation in estab
lishing justice, freedom and op
portunity for all men. Like the
true provincial, the Senator sees
nothing of this. He sees no more
in it than the Republican moun-
eer saw in the Leagernations.
“Whj' doesn”t Great Britain anirl
the United States start impos
ing tHve four freedoms on India
and Kiissia rig'ht away?” hie
asks.
The buffoon of all history was
fat Nei’ro fiddling while Rome
burned. He was the provincial,'
bound by", his vanity and preja-
dices so fast that he was onlly
putfy in t;he hands of the sav.a-
ges who iruled him. Bound b»y
their prejudices and their hat
reds, theses United States sen;a-
tors, who .are in fact if not m
purpose, the abetters of Hitletr,
fiddle with words, while murder
stalks throujgh the world on a
scale never before known and
the hoodlums of three great
states conspire against us, dare
us to lift a finger, and ask us to
acquiesce in: the new order of
starvation, the massacre of the
innocents, and the glorification
of a maniac. Against all that
these senators set up a barrage of
false charges, false assumptions,
false pretenses and false repo-e-
sentations of the most profouind
and import crisis the world has
ever been in and the efforts to
save from destruction the right
of free men to breathe anywhere.
Senator Reynolds ought to be
ashamed of himself. He oug;ht
to be unwilling to humiliate his
state before the world. Nojrth
Carolina has been good to him.
It elected him Senator in a mo
ment of so great abnormility that
only the Devil could have mn
ahead 6f him. He ought to.be
grateful that the Devil was not
run against him. It elected him
a second time more in a spirit of
indifference than anything else,
all the time expecting him to
eventually grow up. It is almost
an axiom that responsibility so-
MORE ON PAGE TWO
LIKE A GUARDED ISLAND
The meeting place of the President
and. tlie Prime Minister was like a
guarded island in a perilous sea. The
two gi'«at battleships that bore them
to the rendezvous, the Augusta and
the Princc of Wales, anchored close
together while the passengers ex-
chajig^ their history-making visits,
were I'inged around with walls of
steel. X)estroyers and patrol boats
moved constantly through the sur
rounding waters. Overhead hovered
the Hying Scouts of the air patrol. Mr.
Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill, it is re
ported, were relaxed and smiling. The
sea was rough, but both are sailors,
at home and happy on the sea. Both
are convinced that the naval power
they command is the decisive factor in
the war. One purpose of their meet
ing was to emphasize the supreme
importance of the Atlantic battlefield.
But :-the encounter involved great
risks-; With only a feint of secrecy,
it brought to a fixed point on an ac
tive front, where British losses have
been heaviest, the two targets the
Nazis would rather hit than a dozen
warships and scores of cities. Church
ill is worth nn ariny to the Germans,
and Roosevelt is selected as “Enemy
No. 1.”
Sabotage ot Army Morale
Begins Right Lv in Congress
COUNTERFEIT MONEY
Secret service men detained and ex
amined seven Charlotte negroes Mon
day night to find out what they knew
about counterfiet money. It was stE't-
ed that a huge ring of counterfeiters
are operating on the Atlantic sea
board and that perhaps $750,000 in
counterfiet money has been put in
circulation. The secret service men
are trying to find the head and front
of the counterfeiters. Around $350 of
the counterfiet money was found in
the possession of the negroes arrest
ed. The parties were brought before
U. S'. Commissioner Gilreath.
WILL FREE 28-YEAR OLDS
The lowering by Congress of the
draft age to 28 and the expected,dis
missal from the service of many per
sons above that age likely will cause
a step-up in the demand for draftees
for the next few months, Mecklenburg
draft board officials have indicated.
The army now has approximately
128,000 men in uniform who were 28
or above before they were inducted
and the new act signed Monday by
President Roosevelt calls for the re
lease of these men from active ser
vice “as soon as practicable.”.
Major L. B. Crayton, chief clerk of
Mecklenburg Board No. 4, pointed out
that, assuming that 50 per cent of the
older men are discharged in the near
future, it would mean a sizeable num-
b^ of replacements to be filled and
undoubtedly would be reflected in the
local quotas for the next two or three
months.
During the last three months,
Mecklenburg county has averaged
sending 130 men to the army each
month.
weeks ago and 100 or so drivers were
certified as eligible under state school
commission regulations, to operate
school buses, but Mr. Lockhart ex
plained that he wishes to have plenty
of drivers available, and that for this
reason he has arranged for the one
day school August 29.
SPECIAL ATTORNEY
At the request of District Attorney
Lamar Caudle, the department of jus
tice has sent James E- Ruffin, trial
lawyer, here to assist in the prosecu
tion of the post office cases. The cases
will be presented to the federal grand
jury in Asheville next Monday, and
presumably the trial will take place
at once.
Lieut.-Colonel Younts, now serving
with the U. S. army at Fort Jackson,
along with the three others, is charg
ed with violation of the corrupt prac
tices act as a result of an investiga
tion of alleged political activity in
the Charlotte post office. The others
named in the indictment which will be
presented to the grand jury are Sid
ney Croft, former assistant building'
custodian, and Thomas J. Talbert, Jr.,
and W. C. Aldred, both former post
office clerks. '
THE RATTLESNAKE MAN
J. D. Hudson of the Ceidar
Mountain section of Transylvania
county killed 32 years worth of
rattlesnakes within the past
week, and yet when he came
down into Brevard to tell about
,it he was as nonchalant as if the
whole business had been the mere
flicking of a pesky fly ofl; his coat
sleeve. This is the way he treat
ed t)he subject: “Seen any snakes
this summer, Mr. Hudson?”
“Well, a few; I killed five rat
tlers last week.” “Any big ones in
the lot?” “One pretty fair sized
one; he had 14 rattles.” Mr. Hud
son said he didn’t hunt snakes,
but if he happened to see one he
didn’t like for it to go on about
its business. The other four had
12, 3, 2,. and 1 rattles respective
ly.
Some of the misguided youth
who have been drafted into the
service of their country are said
to be deserting, going home to
mama. Others are said to be
greatly dissatisfied with their of
ficers, with 4^heir food, with the
increase of the term of service,
with the pay that they are .get
ting compared with the wages
exacted by the labor unions.
“Director La Guardia,” says a
Washington newspaper item,
“heading the office of Civilian
Defense, is prepared to tell Pres
ident Roosevelt that civilian mo
rale will never reach its proper
peak until that of the army is
raised above its present level.”
This is like the man who com
plains that he can’t make money
until he has already made enough
to ■ start on. It is the old habit
of putting the cart before the
horse. Civilian morale does not
come from army morale. Army
morale comes from civilian mo
rale.
If army morale is failing it is
because it is being undermined
by civilian attitude and most of
all from the demoralization of
congress. What can you expect
from inexperienced youth, in
many cases homesick and weary,
when they are told by United
States senators that they are in
the army under false pretenses,
that there is no need of their be
ing there, that the Commander-
in-Chief is plotting to betray
them into war without cause,
that this country is in no danger
and that it is no business of ours
whether the world crashes or
not?
What can you expect of army
officials*when their highest and
most solemn warnings and ad
vice are ignored and they are re
garded, not as the defenders of
the country, but plotters for
war ? .
When all this is multiplied
over and over by the various fifth
column organizations, by solemn
assurances of Republican and
other leaders, and is backed up
by the public attitude of joy rid
ing and money making out of
the defense program, it would be
a miracle indeed if army morale
were not undermined.
In the World War the German
army held out till civilian morale
decayed. We are depending now
upon a similar civilian decay in
Germany to end the career of the
savages now in control of the
German armies.
Civilian morale is the bottom
support of the great fight that
England is making against all
odds. Civilian decay in France ac
counts for the total flop of its
present leaders. Men will not stay
inactive in an army wiien the
folks back home constantly be-
seige them with complaints, with
indifferen^ce, with lack of earn
estness and lack of devotion to a
cause. Thousands of parents have
sent their boys to the army with
pride beqause they thought their
country needed them. Such par
ents have their faith and devotion
undermined by the same pro
cesses which undermine the in
tegrity of the men in the army.
Sabotage of army morale heads
up in the congress of the United
States, and trickles down thru
innumerable agencies to the last
man in the country who looks
upon the present crisis as only
another opportunity for joy rid
ing.
HATE SMOULDERS
ALL OVER EUROPE
SPY IS EXECUTED
A German spy who landed near
London by parachute, fully equipped
for espionage t aid carrying a two-
way radio s^Kus executed at.
dawii last wcckl-^ thti ancieuL Tower
of London. The .)spy, Josef Jakobs, of
the German Army’s meteorlogical ser
vice, was shot on the same spot where
on a May dawn of 1915 Germany’s No.
2 spy of the World War, Hans Muel
ler, died before a firing squad. The
shooting of Jakobs, a non-commis
sioned German officer, was this war’s
first execution in the Tower and the
first execution by shooting, although
six spies have been hanged. When Ja-
;kobs landed he was wearing civilian
clothes under a flying suit, and a
parachutist’s steel helm'et. He car
ried the radio, a large sum of English
money, an emergency food ration, in
cluding brandy and sausage, and a
small spade to use in burying his
parachute and flying kit. Jakobs was
arrested by the Home Guard about
twelve hours after he had dropped
from a German plane. He was tried
on April 5,
When Day of Reconing Comes
Germans Will Find Hell
Popping Everywhere
COUNTY SCHOOLS TO OPEN
The countv schools will open for
the fall session on next Wednesday.
On Friday morning of this week all
high school and elementary ' school
principals will meet with County Sup
erintendent Lockhart to discuss de
tails.
On Tuesday next the teachers will
meet at two-thirty at their respective
schools with the principals.
The statute requiring that children
must be six years old on October 1
of the year they enroll was called to
the attention of the school officials.
The law also requires that children
beginning school must enroll during
the first month of the school year.
Mr. Lockhart also announced that
a school of instruction and certifica
tion of school bus drivers had been
arranged for August 29 beginning at
7:30 in the morning at the county
school garage on Wilkinson boulevard.
The school will be held under the
auspices of the State Highway Safe
ty Division and the State Highway
Patrol.
The school is for white youths who
may wish to become eligible for jobs
as school bus drivers. A school for the
training of drivers was held several
SOIL CONSERVATION
Federal soil conservation field work
in Mecklenburg, previously handled
by one man, has been divided into two
sections and hereafter will be handled
by two men, it was announced by B.
F. Daughety, district conservationist
for the Lower Catawba Soil Conserva
tion district. This district includes
Mecklenburg, Gaston, and Lincoln
counties.
Appointed as junior soil conserva
tionist to be in charge of one of the
new divisions was ErnesfB. Dameron.
He comes here from Anson county
where he was connected with soil con
servation work at Peachland CCC
camp. He will have charge of Section
B, while J. Earl Teague, formerly in
charge of the entire county, will have
charge of Section A.
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Joe A. Sherrill, county revenue col
lector, told the county commissioners
that somebody paid a lot of taxes in
July because his office,collected $237,-
989.65 last month for the largest July
total in the history of the department.
In July, 1940, the collections were
$123,98^.63, and in July, 1939, they
were a mere $110,773.05. Mr. Sherrill
said he did not know exactly what
could have caused the better collec
tions this year.
Following a meeting of the com
missioners and the city councilmen,
the commissioners instructed Collec
tor Sherrill to place on his insolvent
list of persons owing back taxes the
names of all persons listed in the tax
office on accounts- of 1934 and the
years before that.
These accounts are to be faiTned
out to collectors to be named by jyir.
MORE ON PAGE FOUR
POLES SETTLING SCORES
■ Polish fliers operating from
England are settling some scores
with the German murderers who
so devastated their lands. Last
Friday three squadrons of Polish
planes forming the wing of fight
ers guarding English bombers
encountered a German patrol over
Fi’ance at dawn. In thirteen min
utes they had shot down thirteen
German fighters while losing only
three of their own. Of all the ndr-
tions brutally and undeservedly
attacked by Hitler’s Germany,
Poland 1 has sufl’ered most. Her
airdromes were blasted out of ex
istence before their fliers could
assemble for defense. Undefend
ed cities, fugitives streaming
along the dusty roads, peasants
in the fields and villages were
raked with bombs and machine-
gun bullets, while the half-mobil
ized Polish Army fought a losing
battle against the panzer divis
ions. Some of the Polish fliers es
caped to England. There they
trained more fugitives, and now
they are a formidable force. Ev-
evry man in it has a personal
score to even with nazism. They
are evening that score.
VETERANS HONOR SUCCESSORS
First in patriotic endeavors in many
ways, Mecklenburg becomes the first
county in the nation to unveil a me
morial board honoring the men of
Mecklenburg county now actually
serving in the armies of the United
States. The unveiling took place Tues
day at the courthouse and was un
der the aupices of the local Legion,
of which John C. Fletcher is ‘com
mander. The state commander, Roy L.
McMillan, was present and took part
in the ceremony. The board contains
the names of 2,300 men from this
county now serving in some branch
of the armed forces.
NO RATIONING HERE
It appears that there will be no
rationing of gas in this immediate
section even when Mr. lakes puts ra
tioning into effect. He has called for
a ten per cent voluntary reduction.
He seems to expect the wholesale dis
tributors to make the cut as best they
can. If rationing should come it would
have to be. done by the retailers re-
1 fusing to sell more than allowed on a
j ten per cent cut. But for the present,
’ and perhaps for a long time people
in theses parts will be able to buy
gas about as usual.
In one respect Europe today is
more united than ci’^er in history—
united in a grim and ominous union
of hatred binding the conquered and
oppressed, says a dispatch from
Stockholm to the New York Times.
It is a union that ignores boundar
ies, racial prejudices and social dif
ferences. It unites the blond men, wo
men and children of Norway to the
people of Greece. Across the much-
disputed Teschen Province, both Poles
and Czechs feel together the same
common hatred.
Never before in history has the
sentiment of hatred been shared by
such a multitude of people. All the
thoughts and all the acts of some
100,000,000 Europeans—if one ex
cludes the British and Russians—are
permeated with hatred.
Daily and sometimes many times
a day reports are received in Stock
holm about how the Norwegians show
their hatred for the Nazis in demon
strations, sabotage and in espionage
for Britain.
Nazis Do Not Understand
“We, the Germans, cannot under
stand that our friendly attitude and
our magnanimity meet with churlish
impudence and the throwing of mud
upon the uniformed German person
nel,” the chief of the German Ges
tapo in Norway, S. S.’ Gruppenfuehrer
Rediess, recently declared.
The interview appeared in a Nor
wegian newspaper exactly one week
after new and drastic decrees of the
Reich Commissar Josef Terboven, in
troducing the death sentence for all
sorts of ofl!‘enses, had been made pub
lic and on the very day when three
Norwegians were excuted by a Ger
man firing squad for espionage for
Britain.
“Refined Hatred”
In Denmark the situation is slight
ly difl!^erence. There are relatively few
open incidents, the country has not
been laid waste by German bombers,
and it is only “protected,” not con
quered. But a German officer recent
ly declared to a special correspondent
of Stockholm’s Nya Dagligt Allehan-
da:
“I would rather fight on the front
than live in this intolerable atmos
phere of refined hatred. The Danes
ignore us as they would ignore a piece
of furniture.”
Many reports of nervous break
downs among the German officers and
men reach Stockholm from Copenhag
en.
Of all tJie occupied countries, the
hatred and the German reprisals have
taken th6 most savage form in Poland.
A close study of the Gex-man news
papers in occupied Poland has reveal
ed that during one year there have
been an average of ten executions
a week, including public hangings,
such as recently in Kutnek and Wloc-
zlawiek. But these do not include the
unpublished executions of hostages
whom the Germans execute, according
to their own announcements, in • the
proportion of 100 to 1 German killed.
But*despite this terror the same news
papers publish steadily increasing
number of death notices of S. S. of
ficers “murdered” by Polish “bandits.”
The Low Countries, Too
So the story goes in Belgium, the
Netherlands, and even France. In the
first two a recurrence of manifesta
tions for British airmen and against
the German arin^d forces and subse-
MORE ON PAGE FOUR
REDS RETREAT
AND STAND AGAIN
Nazis Make Gains to the
South but Nowhere Have They
Overwhelmed the Russians
The longest battlefront ever known
in history continues to sag backward
and forward between the Germans
and the Russians for two thousand
miles. Exorbitant claims by each
side continue, but one thing is known
to all the world. That is that the
Nazi armies are nowhere near Vvhere
they expected to be nine weeks ago
when they opened their monstrous
assault. No first class city of Russia
has beien taken where three were the
first objects of the Germans, Lenin
grad on the north, Moscow in the cen
ter and the Kiev in the south. Rus
sians admit that th(; renewed assault
on the south for capture of the vast
Ukraine country and Odessa, the sea
port on the Black sea, have been more
or less successful, but say that Hitler
has again been stopped.
Powerful Red Army counter-at
tacks costing the Germans at least
25,000 men on the Central and North
ern Ukranian front were reported yes
terday by the Russians while ac
knowledging the loss in the south of
their big shipbuilding port of Niko
laev and the mining center of Krivoi
Rog.
In addition the Russians declared
their troops Rad crippled at least
three other divisions which were said
to have been beaten back after losses
of 50 to 80 per cent of their normal
fighting strength of 43,500 men.
Thus the Red Army apparently Was
hitting back full strength against the
northern flank of the long wedge the
Germans were driving relentlessly
past Odessa and east toward.the hy
dro-electric power center of Dnieper-
opetrovsk at the Dnieper river bend.
A Moscow communique issued at
rnid-day reported that ^“during the
jpight of August 17 to 18 our troops
continued to fight the enemy' along
the entire front.” It named no specific
centers of fighting.
The midnight communique which
acknowledged the Russian withdraw
al from Nikolaev and Krivoi Rog said
defense forces carried out Premier
Stalin’s scorched earth order before
falling back. The vast Nikolaev dock
yards where the Bug River empties
into the Black Sea were reported
blown up.
The port, 60 miles northeast of the
grain-sjiipping center at Odessa, had
been second only to Leningrad as a
shipbuilding and repair base.
Krivoi Rog, in the heart of the
Ukraine iron ore region, is 100 miles
northeast of Nikolaev and midway
between that port and Dnieperope-
trovsk.
Save Town
Red Star, organ of the Red Army,
said the Germans lost 20,000 dead
and wounded in a fierce Russian coun
ter-attack which saved a' Ukraine
town identified only as “K,” (pos
sibly Kiev.)
Red Star said the Germans had
thrust within five miles of the town
when they were halted, shelled in
tensively and then charged by Red
troops which hurled them back six to
eight miles on battlefields strewn with
their dead. The Russian forces were
reported still advancing.
Farther north, on the central front.
Marshal ySemeon Timoshenko’s de
fenders of the road to- Moscow were
reported to have hurled other Ger
man troops back in large-scale count-
er-attacks. Near a, city identified only
as ‘M” the Germans were said to
have lost 5,000 men.
The Soviet Bureau of Information
^ MORE ON PAGE FOUR
SO GOOD AS HOME
WITH THE FAMILY
Capt, Ardrey Gives a Picture of
the Politics of 1876 When
He Was Elected
THE SAW MILL HELPS THEM
By H. E. C. (RED BUCK) BRYANT
Several years ago one of my Prov
idence township nephews came to
Washington to help me with my news-'
paper work. He spelled like George
Washington—just the way the word
sounded—for instance coteon was
“cotten.” Captain William E. Ardrey,
although he taught school now and
then used an e instead of an o.
July 1, 1874, he wrote: “Cotten
blooms, lound half a dozen in my
patch in the rear of the house.” He
also used “plough” instead of plow.
His hand - writing was old - timey.
July 8 he said: “Ploughing my cot
ten the second time; it is very grassy.
Sun very hot, grass dies quickly when
cut up.”
Referring to the Rones or Roans of
the Marven section, the Ardrey diary
spells them both ways.
There are many “Roans” in Wash
ington, and a few “Rones.”
August 6, 1874: “Mecklenburg coun
ty election; 4,700 votes cast, and Con
servative majority, 500.
The Grange Is Active
August 8: “Grange celebration at
Fort Mill; speakers W. Stewart, and
T. R. Kirkpatrick. S'plendid picnic and
barbecue dinner.
“August 9: Camp meeting at Pleas
ant Grove. Brothers Nelson and Brent
preached.
“August 13: Grange celebration at
Providence church, a grand success—
speeches by William Stewart, Captain
Shotwell, Captain Waring, Dr. Moore
and John G. Potts.
“September 7: The new board of
county commissioners elected me to
the chair; I dread the responsibility
of the office.”
September 9: “We commenced pick-,
ing cotton. Mr. Hugh M. Parks sold
the first new bale in Charlotte at 17 1-2
cents.”
Captain Ardrey used “stocks” for
saw logs, an old and proper use. He
made the following interesting comw|
ment: “November 14: Messrs. Ried
and Donaldson spent the night with
us. They concluded to move their
steam saw mill down here. Dr. Kell
and I to furnish the logs. '
“December 20 and 21: Hauling
stocks to the mill with Lee, Horace and
John, hard work; no easy Way to haul
stocks.
“December 29: Christmas tree for
the Sunday school at Harrison church;
quite a success. A good speech by
Rev. Samniie Rone and one by John
G. Potts. It rained very hard and we
spent the night at the Potts’.
Sums Up His Possessions
“John Massey, colored, was killed at
our place by Lee Ardrey in an alfray at
a dance at George’s.”
S'umming up, January 1, 1875, Cap
tain Ardrey had: 572 acres of land,
Valued at $12 per acre, or a total of
$6,864.00.
Two horses, $200; four mules, Sal,
Dove, Tom and Kit, $600; ,ty/o milk
cows, $40; two oxen, Ned and , Dick,
$50; five yearlings, $40; eight hogs,
$30; household furniture, five, beds
complete, $180; sideboard and ward
robe, $40; library and chair, $30; new
cooking stove, $25; new Singer sewing
machine. $70; farming tools, provis
ions on hand, twelve bales of cotton,
and money on deposit, $2,165.00, mak
ing a total of $10,334.00, including
land, livestock, furniture, tools and
crops.”
At the beginning of each year Cap
tain Ardrey listed the names of the
laborers for the farm. For 1875 he
had Adam Withers and Jock Ardrey,
croppers, George Ardrey, renter, New
ell and Jap, wage hands, and Julie,
cook.
Community Improving
January 1, 1875, surveying the com
munity, Captain Ardrey said: “Our
preacher at Harrison, Dr. Lee, very
popular—he does his duty faithfully;
at Providence Rev. Springs Robinson,
a promising young man.
“The community is marked by signs
of improvement on every side. The
removal of the Reid and Donaldson
saw mill to the neighborhood was a
great help. It is cheering to hear the
whistle blow—it gives new life to
business here.”
Later: “We spent most of the month
cutting and hauling logs to the mill.”
The Neighbors Gather
January 26: “Brother Joe E. Ardrejr
and Miss E. DeLaney (of Union coun-,
ty) were married. We gave them a
dining at our house, many relatives,
friends and neighbors were present.
We had quite a lively, nice time. The
Pottses, ‘Toad’ Ardreys, Sam Elliotts,
Robert Bells, Robinsons', Dr. Mcll-
waines, the Rones and all our close
neighbors were with us. Splendid din
ner, etc.”
February: “Building Adam and
Jock new houses—nice comfortable
frame buildings. Weather cold and
very severe. Roads very bad. On the
22nd attended couny commissioners’
meeting and superior court in Char
lotte. Lee Ardrey and Horace in jail.
Bought a mule from Mr. Wadsworth
for $135.00. Dr. Kell and I water
bound at the Potts’.”
May 4: “Set up with Dr. Kell’s
baby; very low.”
May 20: “Grand centennial celebra-
MORE ON PAOJS TWO ——.