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The Kings Mountain Herald | www.kmherald.com
ik
Victory National Historic Trail, 2014. Photograph by Randell Jones
is America at its best
Th i
It was a bold idea, but the
time had come. It was 1975.
As America was preparing to
celebrate
its 200th
anniver-
sary of
indepen-
dence, the
country
had bi-
centen-
nial fever.
Catching
that ex-
citement and celebrating
its own centennial was the
City of Kings Mountain, the
namesake of the one battle
which Thomas Jefferson had
declared to be the “turning
of the tide” in America’s
Revolutionary War. The
city leaders decided to in-
vite President Gerald Ford
to come celebrate with them
and to greet a special group
of marchers.
In the fall of 1780, a thou-
sand patriot militiamen from
the overmountain regions of
North Carolina and Virginia
marched over the Appala-
chians to attack the advanc-
ing British forces before they
could come over the moun-
tains to “hang your leaders
Randell Jones
and lay waste your country
with fire and sword” as Brit-
ish Major Patrick Ferguson
had threatened to do. Those
| patriots were joined
in the effort by other
| backcountry militiamen in-
cluding those from Wilkes,
| Surry, Rutherford, and Lin-
coln counties and from South
| Carolina and Georgia, too.
In 1975, a group of pa-
triotic citizens wanted to do
something special to com-
memorate that heroic event
of yesteryear. They decided
to walk in the footsteps of
those backcountry patriots
for nearly 200 miles during
12 days, and they did. They
called it the Overmountain
Victory Trail and they orga-
nized a walk that has been re-
peated every fall for the last
four decades. Now, through
the continuing efforts of the
Overmountain Victory Trail
Association (OVTA), nearly
10,000 students all along the
official Overmountain Vic-
tory National Historic Trail
(OVNHT) hear “The Story”
each fall and learn something
remarkable about our coun-
try’s early founding.
A send-off crowd of 400
turned out with patriotic
pride in 1975 when the march
began at Sycamore Shoals
in Elizabethton, Tennessee.
High school marching bands,
Junior ROTC, army national
guardsmen, Veterans of For-
eign Wars, and Marine Corps
reserves all assembled to
send off a handful of people
determined to walk to Kings
Mountain. They carried with
them an old Bible, a hunting
horn, and a scroll for collect-
ing signatures. On the eastern
leg at Lenoir, the marchers
joined in a parade and feasted
on a 156-1b. cake decorated as
the Bennington flag with 13
sugary stripes and 13 frosted
stars encircling “*76” in a
blue field. In Morganton, a
crowd gathered at the Burke
County Fairgrounds, then
located on what was Quaker
Meadows, the plantation
homes of Colonel Charles
McDowell and his brother
Major Joseph McDowell.
That audience enjoyed some
rousing bluegrass music and
a square dance as they wel-
comed the marchers, among
them then 13 determined to
go the whole distance.
“Over the following
days,” recounts A Volunteer
Effort, written to celebrate
the 25th anniversary of Con-
gress designating the OVT a
national historic trail in 1980,
“the official marchers hiked,
walked, shuffled, and even-
tually stumbled their way to-
ward Kings Mountain as their
legs and bodies began to tire
from the relentless plodding
along hard pavement. The
weather was generally coop-
erative, but on the days when
the historic militiamen had
rain, so did the commemora-
tive marchers.
“To complement their
aching bodies, the marchers’
fragile psyches were beset by
a string of disappointments. .
.. And the rumors began to
circulate that President Ford’s
attendance at Kings Mountain
was in question. He had, after
all, in September suffered the
indignation of two assassina-
tion attempts. His handlers
were not letting him out of
Washington. He offered in
his stead a visit by Vice Pres-
ident Nelson A. Rockefeller.”
Despite the doubts and dis-
appointments, when the time
came; the marchers and the
Vice President made some
local history of their own.
“On October 7, 1975,
the commemorative march-
Lh an
ers walked through Kings
Mountain, North Carolina,
to the cheers of some 20-25
thousand spectators,” A
Volunteer Effort continues.
“Then they made their way
into John Gamble Stadium
where 6,000 were admitted
to witness the proceedings.
Governor Jim Holshouser
was there along with Mayor
John Henry Moss. U.S.
Representatives James T.
Broyhill and Jim Martin had
flown by helicopter with the
Vice President from Char-
lotte Douglas ‘Airport. The
presiding speaker acknowl-
edged the marchers who had
spent 12 days walking from
Sycamore Shoals and Fort
Defiance. When called
upon, the marchers in turn
presented the Bible, the
horn and the scroll to Vice
President Rockefeller. Sig-
naling the end of one part
of the march, Bob Harman
blew the hunting horn one
last time before handing
it to the Vice President.
. . Rockefeller praised the
marchers and thanked them
for the mementos saying,
“This is one of the luckiest
days of my life. Frankly,
ladies and gentlemen, this
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Members of the OVTA in period dress fire a commemorative volley with period weapons over the graves of 15 Revolutionary War soldiers buried at a cemetery along the Overmountain
is America at its best.”
It was a bold idea, and
it became a memorable
day for the City of Kings
Mountain. It was the begin-
ning of a five-year effort
to bring about the Con-
gressional designation of
the Overmountain Victory
National Historic Trail, a
unit of the National Park
Service, now celebrating
its own centennial.
Learn more my taking
the free Online Tour of the
OVNHT accessible from
www.OVTA.org. Also
accessible at www.daniel-
boonefootsteps.com.
(Randell Jones is a past
president of the OVTA and
author of A Volunteer Ef-
fort (2005) as well as the
award winning book, Be-
fore They Were Heroes at
King’s Mountain (2011).
His books are available
at Eastern National book
stores along the trail and
at www.danielboonefoot-
steps:com. He will speak
at the Old Burke County
Courthouse in Morganton
on Saturday, September 26,
at 7:00pm as part of His-
toric Burke Foundation’s
Revolutionary War Week.)
Inspections
Cleveland County Health
Department conducted in-
spections of facilities Sept.
7-11, 2015 and included the
following businesses that
serve food: Holiday Inn Ex-
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