North Carolina Newspapers

Thursday, September 24, 1931. ELABORATE ABBEY 10 IMMORTALIZE SOUTH'S LEADERS Calvary Churchyard Now In ternationally Known as "Westminster Abbey of The South." By J. B. HICKLIN. \ memorial tablet honoring the v,v of Jefferson Davis, first and •' 1,. , anient of the Southern Con- W-) jvi v, was dedicated in an elab ,,it: cti't'inony at Old Calvary Epis ;ial church, at Fletcher, N. C., on Q., u lr>-. September 13, 1931. The d»dicatci y services drew large dele , ~r ; o n: of members of the United 1 iu 0 of the Confederacy and c y r . r> from all parts of the south, t'.jrcises were under the aus , of the North Carolina Division, l\ D. C. The Ascription on the marker un cled rads as follows: -.JEFFERSON DAVIS "President of the Confederate States of America, Soldier, Planter, Author, Statesman. Bom June 3, 1808, Fairview, Kentucky. Died December 6, 1880. New Orleans, Louisiana. He was a statesman with clean hands and pure heart, who serv ed hi? people faithfully and well from budding manhood to hoary a?e." Three immortal additions were nie to the distinguished company o? southern artists last summer ten markers were unveiled to Hssiy Timrod. "Laureate of the Confederacy;" Robert Loveman. (ffiiuert poet, and Orren Randolph feith. designer of the "Stars and Sirs." Rev. Clarence Stuart McClellan is the originator and founder of the "Westminster Abbey of the South." Plans sponsored by Mr. McClel lan call for the addition of monu ments to southern leaders each year until the great concourse that play ed outstanding parts in the shap ing and making of the section have all been recognized. This will in clude leadership and outstanding achievement, in all lines poetry and literature and statesmanship, s- well as other great figures pro duced by the south. It i= a great dream that Ivlr. Mc- Ciellan has visioned, and it. is al ready coming true. The public re- i MORGAN P. BODIE ♦ COTTON BUYER } Specializing In Staple Cotton 1 Next Door to Blanton's Cafe. I FOREST CITY, N. C. The prcof of the pudding* Is always in the eating. . Biltmpre ice Cream IS PURE AND WHOLESOME No gums or starch We think it the best that can be made. Eesides the regular flavors we have two specials this week — PISTACHIO AND BLACKBERRY Try our Cottage Cheese, Creamed Buttermilk and Butter. Sold only at • Peoples Drug Store Rexall Store Phone 28. Forest City, N. C« sponded almost instantly to his sug gestion of building a great "outdoor • Westminster Abbey of the South"" j at Fletcher, in the most gloriously'• beautiful section of the land that is l called Dixie: Every state will be called upon to memorialize the names of their most beloved sons and daughters. A great many of, them have already done so. Plans call for the conversion of the great church ground at Flet- ; cher into a memorial garden—a thing of artistic beauty as well as I of historic interest. The Abbey is ! already taking shape, although the; development is still in a nebulous' shape. But the picture of it -as it; will be is very clear in the mind of ! Mr. McClellan, and he delights to! explain it to those who will take tho ! time to stop and listen. "The Westminster Abbey of thej South will have fulfilled its noble j purpose by placing before the eyes I and minds and hearts of coming j generations the great ideals of the j South; its songs, its poetry, its i books and prose and their writers,! statesmen every bit of history that is meaningful for the future." i Mr. McClellan explains. Sitting with him beneath a mag nificent white pine, one of the hun dreds that make the tract one of the beauty spots of the "Land of the Sky," one may catch a glimpse of this remarkable dream and, glancing down the vista of years, behold a shrine that will be visit ed annually by thousands from every corner of the globe. Old Calvary church nestles in a tight little valley of the pine-clad hills of western North Carolina 10 east of Asheville on the Dix ie highway between the middle west and Florid,a. Many of the thousands of tourists who pass the quaint spot behind beautiful sweeps of lawn dotted with boxwood and shaded by giant oaks and stately pines, even now pause to admire the place and examine the monu ments. Built in 1859, two years after a few devout Episcopalians of dis tinguished South Carolina families, such as the Rutledges and Blakes, had effected an organization, the original structure still stands. The stained glass windows, pride of the country-side 70 years ago, are fad ed, but the stately spire remains as of old, as straight and as firm as the day the last workman clam bered down from the tip and looked well content on the job. The church stands a monument to the work of devout hands, loves labor in the service of the Lord. Its very brick were pressed by hand in Fletcher and the congrega tion shed Christian sweat in its completion. The pioneer house of woi'ship of Episcopal faith in the region, many of the denomination's most illus trious leaders of America, and no tables of national and international renown in the world of letters and the canvass, have occupied the gnarled pulpit. During the War Between the States the church was used by Con federate troops as barracks. In the churchyard still stands an open i Wesley an Church Revival Under Way « Revival services began in the lo cal Wesleyan Methodist church, Sun day. Rev. M. R. Harvey of Cherry ville, is assisting Rev. J. L. Bolen, KvvXy;: . jKaSy : yM REV. M. R. HARVEY the pastor. Rev. Mr. Harvey is an able minister, with about twenty years experience as pastor and evangelist and song writer It will be pleasantly remembered that Rev. Mr. Harvey was the minister who successfully aided Mary Hudler, kidnapped by Gypsies, in finding her people in Pennsylvania, recently. j afr shed built by Confederate cav , alrymen to shelter their horses. I Tales of the headless horseman, j who haunts the shed, and the fair j young maiden who meets her Con j federate lover at the old well hard ;by still cluster around the place. The churchyard proper contains j 24 acres, mostly wooded land, while ) the rectory property just across the j highway contains eight acres—thus ; providing abundant space for carry j ing to completion the Open Air | Westminster Abbey of the South, jln the little graveyard made en I chantingly attractive with shrub i bery and flowers sleep many of the j Rutledges, Blakes and other prorn i inent Carolinians. The uniqueness of the Abbey lies largely in the character of the indi vidual markers. Each is a large up right native granite erected in its original condition, even to the moss which frequently clings to it. On the front there is a bronze marker of most attractive design bearing the name of the person honored, dates of birth and death, and some significant statement about, or quo tation from him or her. There is a poet's corner, musi cians' corner, statesmen's corner, artists' corner and benefactors' corner. Approximately identical in height, the stones are all different in contours of rough surfaces, and erected in rows beneath the dense shade of beautiful white pines and widespread oaks. The whole is being separated by drives and the churchyard proper by a high laurel hedge, giving it an air of privacy almost as complete as if it were enclosed within a stone wall and underneath a roof instead of a can opy of rustling leaves, splashed with the blue of the sky. In this connection ft is signifi cant that no corner is provided for the south's military leaders. None will bo, for the originator of this idea believes that keeping war his tory and war heroes in the back ground is one of the most effective way of training future generations away from war. True there is a monument to Rob ert E. Lee, but it honors his mem ory rot as a great warrior, but as a great leader in education of the young men cf the south after the War Between the States, in which he played such an important role. "To foster prejudice and keep aflame the heat of the Civil War, to create sectionalism and to carry on some phase of history that should be entirely forgotten are ab solutely foreign to my dream for this Abbey," declared Mr. McClel lan. "I recall Lee's last words, 'Lay aside all these local animosities and train your sons to become Ameri cans." With that statement Lee passed from ;i great Confederate chieftain to a great American. "The nucleus of my idea," con tinued Mr. McClellan," is the Rob ert E Lee monument near the m?.in entrance of the grounds. This is the motif of my thought. Lee is her 3 depicted mounted on Traveler journeying into the south. It is Lee facing a new day, the day of **~al greatness as president of Washington and Lee college, later FOREST CITY (N. C.) COURi£R I to become ashington and Lee jLniversity. \\ e k ere commemorate | not Lee the fighter, But Lee the I educator. That was the true Lee. [He cometh to his own' says the j tablet. That is true, and so we want i all the noble -men and women of ; the south to come into their own. My plans call for a bronze life | sized statute of the Southern Negro Mamnry!" exclaimed Mr. McClel lan. I want to see her with her big, wide, white, well-starched apron, her turban, her calico dress and I wish to see her seated in an old-timey rocking chair as if be-j fore some great open fire-place in j a leg cabin on a windy night with j spooks prowling about in the dark, j I want to see her hands hard with ! toil and her face a spiritual! face recalling some of those ex- | quisite spirituals of her race. I j want to see all old fashioned flow- ; ers a-growing marigolds, holly— j hocks, sunflowers, black-eyed Su— l sans. Zinnias, four-o'clocks, verbe-; nas, forget-me-nots, delphinium, all the flowers the Old Mammy used to love. "A typical log cabin near this statute is to be fitted up with pic tures of the southern poetry-writ ers, musicians, statesmen commem orated in the out-of-doors Abbey, and their books and old chairs and tables and rugs and clock, cradles' and old beds to give the atmos phere of the Old South." To be memoralized in the Abbey as rapidly as the necessary funds can be raised by groups interested in preserving their names are: Frank L. Stanton, Paul Hamilton Hayne, George Denison Prentice, Philip Pendleton Cooke, Richard Henry Wilde, James Mattews La— gare, Henry Rootes Jackson, Mir abeau Bounaparte Lamar, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, Alexander Beaufort Meek, Theodore O'Hara, William Gilmore Simms, John Re"b c n Thompson, Abram Joseph (Father Ryan), Severn Teackl: Wallis, James Barron Hope, Mar garet Junkin Preston, Edgar Allen Poe, Edward Coate Pinckney, John Esten Cooke, Thomas Nelson Page and a host of others. "When the memory of these im- 1 mortals has been honored with' granite markers," explained Mr. [ McClellan, "I want to see the Ab- j bey developed further with little j paths winding in and about clumps j of ornamental trees and flower beds , and artistic benches along the • paths. As one saunters about he j can see and read the memorial tab- j lets. k "And I want this abbey dedicated by the singing old Old Negro spir ituals by trained negro singers on some moonlight night in the sum mer. Can you get the picture? Can't you feel it?" Among monuments already dedi cated are those of Daniel Decatur (Dan) Emmett, composer of "Dix ie;" James Whitcomb Riley," the poet; Stephen Collins Foster, com poser of "Swanee River"; William Sydney Porter (O'Henry), short story writer; Sidney Lanier south ern song-bird; Joel Chandler Har jris, creator of "Uncle Remus"; I Francis Orrerry Ticknor, Georgia's I great poet; Francis Scott Key, com | poser of' "The Star Spangled Ban | ner;" Edgar Wilson (Bill) Nye, hu | morist, and John Fox, Jr., novel ist. In the picturesque vestry room of Old Calvary hangs one of the rar j est portraits of Robert E. Lee in existence, for which he sat during the war. Ic presented the Ab bey by a daughter of the great gen eral as a start towards a collec tion of canvasses of the youth's great, in conjunction with the mon uments. Strange to say, it remained for an easterner to conceive the idea of honoring the south's heroes in this beautiful way, for Mr. McClel lan is himself a New Yorker, of the family of General George B. McClellan, of the War Between the States fame. He was graduated from New York University and Union Theo logical Seminary in New York City and is known as a writer on his torical subjects. Of exceedingly re tiring and modest disposition, so far as his personality is concerned, he talks little of himself. After spending considerable time in California and Texas he came to Fletcher seven years ago to be come rector of the old and fash ionable church. His whole interest now is bound up in his dreams 01 the Westminster Abbey of the South, and his enthusiasm is high ly contagious. Stag Paint. One gallon makes two Farmers Hardware Co. 1 FLORENCE MILL NEWS Florence Mills, Sept. 22.—Mr. and Mrs. Frank Toney, spent the week end at the home of his father, Mr. E. M. Toney at Sunshine. 1 Mr. Everett Toney, and mother spent the week-end at Mr. W. H. Whisnants. % Mr. and Mrs. Esper Sisk and chil dren spent Sunday in Shelby. Mr. A. C. Hudlow and sons, Claude and A. C. Jr., Mr. Horace Hardin and J. D., Mr. Charlie Greene and son Earl motored to Asheville, Sunday. The children and friends of Mrs. j Green surprised her with a birthday) dinner Sunday at the home of her I Did you know . . . We do general automobile repairs— any make of car? We do. All work guaranteed. CARS WASHED AND GREASED Quaker State and Pennzoil Oils. FOREST CITY MOTOR COMPANY W- 1 1 ■ I -- ROMINA |J=q FOREST CITY WEDNESDAY - ISc DAYS - THURSDAY She stood in her husband's way because she loved hiftn too well! "THE BARGAIN" Philip Barry's Prize Play with LEWIS STONE, DORIS KENYON CHARLES BUTTERWORTH, UNA MERKEL j Wednesday—Everybody 10c—Thursday FRIDAY and SATURDAY " Introducing the he-man of the hour! TOM KEENE New western star, young and full of pep, in "SUNDOWN TRAIL" Two-fisted, hard ridin', straight shooting Tom in the greatest action thriller that ever made you gasp. Monday and Tuesday, Sept. 28th-29th Heigh ho everybody, Here comes DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, JR. In the snappiest, breeziest, gayest romance that has ever hit the screen. N "I Like Your Nerve" They're together again. Doug. Jr., and LORETTA YOUNG The screen's most adorable love team COMING! COMING! COMING! " BOUGHT " i F FINE JOB PRINTING C 'PHONE 58 Programs Prompt Service £ ) d y o 7ume. your daughter, Mrs. Lawrence Penson. , Mr. and Mrs. Weldon Towery and j Mr. and Mrs. Hoy Raymond and chil dren spent Sunday afternoon at the home of Mr. Towery's father. | Mr. Odum Rupp and Mr. D. Taylor are on the sick list. We are glad to know Mrs. Neigh bors is improving. Mr. M. G. Godfrey of Kingsport Tenn., spent a few days last week at the home of his father. Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Phillips and children and Mrs. J. P. Richards and children motored to Charlotte, Mon day on business. For recreation and health, play golf at Dixie Golf Course 51-lt.