Newspapers / The State’s Voice (Dunn, … / June 15, 1933, edition 1 / Page 1
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A PAPER FOR THINKING PEOPLE 1 1 • " ■" 1 " » I ' ■ 'v ' ' ■ ■ ■ . '■ ' *'■' IP"—' ■ ■ • ' ■—■ill if: I* i .^1 II- .. r ... i * 11 DUNN, N. C,, JUNE 15, 1R33, : . : : *:?' NUMBER 11 The last issue I tola of a trip through upper Kooe son anl Hoke county, Scotch territory. Last week my tour covered a large section of Columbys and lower Robeson, lying below'and to the eastward of the area in which the Scotch used to predominate. There used to be an immense difference in the cultural advancement of the two sections. The Scotch, after the battle of Culloden. in 1745, came to the Cape Fear section by communities. Pastor, teacher, and the old and young migrated together. When they reached America they settled, in many cases, in a community almost Identical with that they had broken up in old Scotland. The school house was. erected, the kirk was "built; thfe congre gations assembled! as in the old country; the chil dren continued their education. Th« Contrast It happened that the settlement of lower Robe son’ was very much in contrast with that of upper Robe-son, Cumberland,. Moore, Scotland. Hoke and Richmond. Into lower Robeson came French Hu guenots, Wfelsfi colonists, and others, besides the English. In contrast to the migrating community of the Scotch, each man here was probably a per fect stranger to his neighbor. Moreover, they fre quently did not speak the same language. It took a century or more for them to coalesce and to be come inspired with a determination to educate their children. In the meantime, the Scotch had even what was termed a college, and were giving their sons and daughters the best opportune ties the tiroes and the pectipn . could afford, .Ac cordl«feiSg ly to the Scoter HJdtW to the cireythstahees of settl in racial stock. .1 • . The Jersey ve the Scrub.. ■ < Probably that feeling of superiority had never been more pronounced than in the beginning of this century. The big Scotchman is still living who ex pressed emphatically and tersely to*, the writer that feeling of superiority. '‘There is as much dif j:i enoe between us Scotchmen;',. said he, j "and the leather-breeches folk as there is between a Jersey cow and a scrub.” Such sentiments on the part of the Scotch did not make them the most popular folk in the world with the “leather-breeches", as the Scotch formerly' charactrized their less fortunate neighbors on the southeast. But the difference had actually^existed. As the Jersey coat had been evolved from just or dinary cows through selection, the Scotch themselv es had become, in the original highland^ home, a physically strong people through the principle of the survival of the fittest operating in their har^h. climate and in their constant clan clashes and En glish forays. Then had come^Jphn KnoX, apostle of both kirk and school, though.. Knox was lowlan der, and no Gael, as are the Highland Scotch. very ement for a superiority consequently, the* 'Scotch did come with more cul ture, a finer physique, than was possessed by theli non-descript neighbor®, just as the Jerseys imported intfo America were actually superior to the average ™n of native cows. But the etyolutflon of the non-descripts^was in progress when the writer so journed on the borderland of the factions of Robe son and the last thirty years has seen it make great Progress. ' A Pioneer Educator The man who did • probably more than any bne e-se to start a wave of culture among the people of lower Robeson was Rev. Stinceon Ivey, father, by the way, of Mr. T. Ivey who recently died at Cary and who for many years was somewhat prominent in the Farmers' Alliance and politics associated wjth the Alliance movement. Rev. Stinceon Ivey conducted a school at Ashpole, now the fair little city of Fairmont, one of the big tobacco markets of the state. Among, Mr. Ivey's students was Mar shall Shepherd who continued his education at Wiake Forest. After graduation, he went to his home community at Or rum and erected a commodious wooden school building, that is, commodious for the early yeard of this century. There for a score Of years he drew, numerous students from Robeson and CJjlumbuis. The Shepherd school, wihich he called Stinceon Institute, in hondr of Rev. Stince on Ivey, has been replaced with a fine brick build” ing under state and county auspices. Asked why he did not call it the Ivey institute, he gave the wri-* ter to understand that the general run of Iveys haa . not got far enough-^out of the woods” to give th^ school that distinction. The woods were full o. ordinary citizens of that name from whom no doubt "the minister-teacher had been, evolved out of sea ,son. Rev. I. P. Hedgepeth.. • But of probably more abounding and continuous influence in Brittg township has been Rev. I. P. Hedgpeth;, y£Jo returning'. from, Wake Forest Col lege nearly fifty years agio, became pastor of his' . old -home church and. is still going strong. Hedgpeth is an institution in lower Robeson and -Bladen. For many years he served the Bladertboro dhubch.^ He is no more pretentious than' an old brbgan shoe, a home-made one at that, but, he is solid through and through. I knew him at college and lived as a neighbor to-him in Lumberton for five years. -I know what I am-talking about, as you may bet I do in most cases. A country preacher all his life, he and his good wife have * maintained a comfortable home, given three children fine college educations and seen them take important rank among the younger generation. . One of the daughters Is director of the music de partment-right over there at Campbell Collegec iTie xietrgpetn Uiemse.:vtr» vi. ~—T Scotchmgp’s “ekrubtf’.- But, as ^intimated In a.for* mer article^ j[. paid tfw^gctptch' -coin rin that f ahflStRT '.'Fly '-fn . . , , 7 r r actually believe they are about' cured of that do - ■ periority complex-. ' ■ y ' " r ■ The Emergence of the Britt Family Let us illustrate what has taaken place among our Scotch friend’s “scrubfT by a brief notice of the emergence of the Britt family. There Is a whole township, called Britts, and it was full of the family for whom it was. named. One branch, however, be* came settled above Lumberton and that was the first to begin to rise above the level of the general run of the folk of Britts’ township. First a son, the bright young minister, Rev. D. C. Britt, who died before he reached his prime, graduated at Wake Forest. Two son.4 followed and became lawyers, another a dentist. But out of Britts’ township earner jE. J. Britt, among Lumberton'* leading attorneys, a former legislator, and prominent in church work. Others followed;- But it was our recent visit that igja.ve me the most striking illustration of what a quarter of a century can do for a family. I had a good friend living out from Lumberton a feiw miles Victor Britt. He was an energetic little fellow but no saint. I spent! a night in the home of his widow at McDonald’s last week, having Been sent there by her son, D. H., a prominent- citizen, •merchant .and farmer of McDonaalds. as the place where I might find a room for the night. I found Mrs. Britt still active and a woman of fine sense and personality. It was pleasant to learn -from her and from D. H. how the family is developing. Two granddaughters have recently graduated from Meredith College. D. H. has a son who has jus. gradauated from, the Dumbarton high school, with sufficient' rank to secure a scholarship at Wake Forest, and is a‘ most promising youth. Younger children in the homes of the sons are to follow; in thP same way. Now contrast that state' of affair^ with a visit, of which D. H. reminded me, by himself and father to my newspaper office In Dumberton nearly thirty .years ago,, when I looked at the bright-faced boy and told his father to send him to school. I had forgotten the incident. D. H. got little school ing. despite my plea.. But What he did get he 1 puf to good use. In fact, I-dojibt if a college course Would have Allowed him tb develop Into the big • farm owner and merchant that he has become. But ■. he. is educating his children, and the results in both his case and the case of the children indicate that it was not Scotch blood but opportunity that was c needed. > vA’: v?;/*‘•'V ' ~ ' ? W The opportunity came to the Britts and to the. other “leather breeches/’ and It Is found that it Is a very short rtoute from the stage of “scrub’’ tfc» that of the Jersey. The Britts according to my old' friend Hamilton McMillan, Is a Welsh name. K\3 so the Britts are Gaels as, arg. the Scotch, and both groups have a common racial origin, being original • Britons and seeing th^jcoming and Tgoln^ of tlm ' Romans and the coming of the Angles and Saxjons. The Home of the Townsends At McDonald’s .1 was close to the ancestral home - of the prominent Townsend family. The Town*"V send’s were one of the older and well established families in England and have ranked above the average since the immigration to Am&rica. Th,e family has furnished several, ministers to tb* Methodists, a lawyer and banker combined in ,th® late C, B. Townsend of Lumberton, beside# the two names N, A. and Ben, so closely and prominently * associated with Dunn, Rev. F. I.. Townsend, merly a presiding elder, was a half-brother of Nat’#*; But the family was to get another strain in it be sides those of the half-brothers mentioned. Nat’s nJotH?r, after the death of her aged Townsend huffcs band m a r r i e d an Oliver and bore Nati^ “half-brother oil two ' of ihe Oliver# - nan^di I recall spending a night with Mr. and Mrs. Oliver right after Christmas about thirty years ago. We, were sitting chatting when'thd older Oliver lad, if^ there was more than one, spoke up and said he be'"; lieved there was a watermelon upstairs under tli® •bed, which had lain there sdnee the* summer , ^e run jap and* sure* enough, found it and brought; )t tfleiicMiaayttgBas ",.“~ J^e^mber evening, r,<■'■ «,r,. r Asd right 4her?t ftt-Me%naJd’s I found MK Fra.i$i * Townsend* sprightly at eighty. He is a brotheri ®f ,the banfcer mentioned, and Mrs. Townsend, another gracious hostess of thirty year* ago, is still buxom and apparently very little tpuched by the thirty years flown by since that night in their home, at that , time at Raynham, named, I believe, from the old English residence of the Townsends. She was one lady1 whot planned to s ubs c r 1 b; e 'ij>r the Voice at her first opportunity, and there was Mr. Spurgeon McLean, still active and running the-sam® store, \ believe, he was conducting when I had last visited McDonalds. And Mr. T. S. Greyard,’ who was a Lumtjslrton neighbor,'who, tp show how;'a stranger in a town appreciates the attention of- his neighbors, recalled how when he had moved tto Lumberton my mother, who then lived with us, w*^ the first caller upon thl® family. Verily, it is the little thing* that count. t - C., At Wjhltevilfe. '* >. I got the cart before the horse. It was a trip through “Columbus and lower Robeson", and the flrst destination polht was Whiteville. But, maybe, you wonder why these trip notes at all". Well, seme folks enjoy them. The diary of Pepys has lived several htrndreds of years, though he wrote only < what would appear trifling events with a few oh- * serrations. Oscar McIntyre publishes in hundreds of papers trifling notes about folk the readers care nothing for or know no more about than they do about Adam's off ox. Yef it has its interest. And certainly if Mcjntyre can syndicate his references^ to Beta Garbage and others ad remote any reader of the Voice should find some interest in meeting":, our own North* Garlinians. Besides, there is room; enough further on in the paper for all the more solid matter you need for one sitting. If you do> not like this kind of matter turn to Chas. IT. Har ris's article and- chew a while on that good old ham meat. But if you continue reading I almost guar antee you will flpd something in this article you.'; would hate to have missed. ■?■ ■ Well, Whiteville Is one of the unfortunate towns. Somebody foiled to die soon enough and thereby the railroad could not get a right of way near the courthouse settlement, but had to pass nearly aJ mile and a half from the courthouse. Long there were two villages—Whiteville and Vineland, the Batter at the depbt.. It is all included in Whiteville now but it is just as far from the courthouse set ..tlement $nd business section to the real busimws Cnd of the town as it was frpm Wbiteviile’,ito Vine
The State’s Voice (Dunn, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
June 15, 1933, edition 1
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