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Page Two LENOIR NEWS-TOPIC, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1919. Wmr JOHN PERKINS Some Account of the Life and Times of "Gentleman" John Perkins, of Lincoln; and of His Contemporaries, Successors and Descendants; Together With a Glance at the History of the Manners, Customs and Development of What Is Now Caldwell County and of the Adjacent Country, During the Latter Part of the Eighteenth and the Beginning of the Nineteenth Centuries. By W. W. SCOTT (Continued from Last Week) It has been suggested that John Perkins owed the favorable standing he was in with Earl Granville's land office to the friendly intervention of Bishop Spangenburg. Whether this is true or not, there is no doubt about bis having been treated with the greatest favor by Earl Granville's agents, who necessarily exercised a powerful influence over the Governor and other servants of the Crown. As the troubles that culminated during the fate ful days of 1775 and 1776 began to accumulate into a dark cloud rising over the country, we may be sure that they were the days that "tried men's souls." It was the same trial that a majority at least a great many of the men of the South went through when it came to the point of secession in 1861. It was not at all a one-sided question, proclaiming our independ xcnce of England. Of course we see it from an elevated point of view now and know that Mecklenburg and Philadelphia spoke the words of truth and soberness and that patriotism pointed away from the mother country; but there were then thousands of good, honest men who did not see it that way at all and felt that the world was turning upside down; that vested rights were to be done away with, and that radicalism, revolution and atheism " "Were running rampant. It is a fancy that, until after the fight became hot the word "revolution" was used as a term of reproach. It is another fancy of mine that John Perkins, for on, took little stock in th InanmvtinnArv liolttffs' 111 Alamance and could not understand why there should have been such high-talking, seditious meetings in Mecklen burg. He must have been of a like mind with thousands of other respect able North Carolinians, who just could not understand it all. What was all the bother about? The thinro complained of seemed trivial enough and they had no cause of complaint against the government that had been extremely good to them. Loyalty was a habit with them, a part of their religion, and they were rather dazed by the commotion. And it never oc curred to them at all that there was any possibility of anything but trouble coming to mar.;- of the r joed frit.ids who had gone crazy and were crying out against the K'n;?. Th:y I'.or . at the proper time, to be able to inter cede and tc lessen the blows that were sure to be aimed at many a hot-head. Perhaps John Perkins aid i.ot tnink this way at all, but, recognizing that the saip of state was pasii; through rough waters, thought it the part of wisdom end r-!"------' tj :it tight, without rocking he boat, and tactfully to keep a cool herd vHb ro many other people were losing theirs by becoming wild partisans for or against the King. A question of whether he was favorable to the cause of the colonies was raised in the committee of safety held at Salisbury at one meeting, and a committee was appointed to visit John Perkins for the purpose of securing from him a declaration of his principles touching the matters in controversy between said colonies and Great Britain. At a subsequent meeting of the committee of safety held at Salisbury the special committee reported that its members had called upon John Perkins in regard to the matters referred to them at a previous meeting and that the replies of John Perkins to the questions of the committee had been satisfactory. The two paragraphs, above referred to, in the proceedings of the com mittee of safety, as published in Wheeler's History, always, whenever I have read them, inspired me with increased respect for John Perkins and are proof to me that he was a long-headed, broad-minded old colonial. He had no personal kick against the government; it had never occurred to him that there was any serious chance of the colonies becoming independ ent; but these people around Salisbury and Charlotte-town appeared to be in earnest and talked of self-government; he had no objection to majority rule and, as far as he could see into it, he was in sympathy with and would try to be further in sympathy with the people who were his neighbors; they said the masses were oppressed and, while he saw many abuses, he had not thought there were enough of them or such serious ones as to make it necessary to go to war about them; but, if the majority decided to go to war, he for one would not go to war against his neighbors. In other words, he could not stir himself into a paayon over the course of the col onies, but he could assure his friends of tmr sub-committee that they might assure the committee of safety at Salisbury that he was not and never would be a Tory. And that is about the size of the answer the com mittee took back to Salisbury from this wise old pioneer. In 1883 the late Judge M. L. McCorkle of Catawba wrote a long con tribution for the Newton Enterprise, covering the front page of four issues of that paper, which ostensibly was a description of the marriage of Ephraim Perkins, son of John Perkins, and Betsy Abernethy, daughter of David Abernethy, in 1800; the thread of the story was kept well, from atart to finish, but the Judge ingeniously filled it in with the rich fund of information he possessed concerning all the best people of Lincoln and the neighboring counties. It is an extremely interesting collection of anec dotes, history, personal characteristics, and touching the Forneys, Brevards, Grahams, Abernethys, Hokes, Shipps, Millers, Lowrances, Lockes, McBees, Couldters, Shuford3, Perkinses, Reinhardts, as a well as a delineation of manners and customs prevailing more than 100 years ago, and it deserves to be preserved more permanently than it is possible, to be preserved for popular use in the files of an out-of-date newspaper. One of his most exciting stories is the account of the. "inf are" at John Perkins' house when his son Ephraim brought his bride home. After all the feasting and par taking of various other entertainments, the party closed with a horse-race and the company adjourned to the race course and witnessed a four-mile heat by four thoroughbred colts belonging to the master of the place. It is probable that if John Perkins ever returned to his old home in Virginia after he came to North Carolina he must have done so subsequent to the Revolutionary war, for during the first years of his residence in this State he was busily engaged in building up his fortunes, and, by the time his estate and condition in life were such as to permit him to go upon his travels, the unsettled and distracted state of the country which continued up to and through the war, was not favorable for long journeys from home. It is presumable that, during the last twenty years of his life there was mutual visiting between him and his Virginia relatives, but at this day no letters or other documents are at hand to indicate it. Entries on the fly-leaves of an old copy of Shaw's "Justice" give the dates of the birth of his elder brother, Elisha, and of the latter's daughter, Elizabeth. Besides, for thirteen or fourteen years John Perkins lived in South Caro lina; for the old manuscript, after the record of the births of the first six of his children, adds: "The above children were born in South Carolina and Burwell is buried there." The eldest son, Elisha, was born on Oct. 18, 1760, and Burwell died Jan. 20, 1773. Alexander was born Dec. 6, 1773, near Island Ford, so that the return from South Carolina was be tween Jan. 20 and Dec. 6, 1773. The late Judge A. C. Avery of Morganton wrote of John Perkins on pages 83 to 86, inclusive, in "Western North Carolina; Historical and Biograph ical; 1890, A. D. Smith & Co., Charlotte, N. C." Judge Avery says in part on pages 85 and 86: "John Perkins, when he accompanied the Bishop, had an entry surveyed in his own name, including the Michaux place on John's river" this sur vey covered practically all the land on John's river from the mouth of Wilson's creek, where it flows into John's river, a distance of perhaps ten or twelve miles, almost to the mouth of John's river as it enters the Ca tawba "and afterwards, during the French war, in the year 1758, he took out a grant for it, being the oldest title to land in the county of Burke, as orierinallv constituted. It is to be regretted that this patent was de stroyed when the house of Mrs. Michaux was turned a few years since, j and that the registry of it was also removed from the office and lost when Ot-nneM ai'lM tUv.ttlrvk tkl,. 1 .. 1 Q C C t- uvuiiciiiau s aiic-i3 yaajvM yuivufcn una sciwuu ;u aoou. i ertcins went over to South Carolina from h!s nome at Island Ford probably in the early part of the French-Indian war, about 1754, and remained there for nineteen years. It appears from a copy of his family record, in possession of Capt Alexander Perkins, that all of his children were born in South Carolina, except Alexander" and Sarah, Eli and Ann "who was born near Island Ford, after his father's return in 1773, in a tent erected, we suppose, on the site of his cabin burnt by the Indians. John Perkins died three miles above Catawba Station. He had never lived on John's river, as most per sons suppose, but evidently returned when the war was over to look after the land surveyed by the Bishop, and, finding that others had anticipated him as to that near the mouth of the river, he made entries in his own name from the Erwin place, then occupied by Sherrill, to the old Alexander Perkins place" mouth of Wilson's Creek. "These entries include the mag nificent farms occupied by his descendants, his sons Elisha, Joseph, John and Alexander having made their homes on them at an early day, while one of his daughters (Mary) married old "Parson Miller," who was the first Episcopal minister that sought a home in this country, and of whose Christian graces tradition has drawn a companion picture in simple prose to that of Goldsmith's village preacher." The land given his daughter Mary was on Lower creek in what is now Caldwell county, and Parson Miller established himself there and named the place "Mary's Grove." "He was the progenitor of the Miller family, most of whom now reside in Caldwell. The Perkins land on John river, except the Michaux place" the share of John Perkins 2nd, who left one heir, a daughter, Susan, who married Richard Venable Michaux of Prince Edward county, Virginia "like the tract near it" 20 miles away in Lincoln "on the Catawba, was entered in Granville's office, surveyed by Griffith Rutherford, and again entered later in Burke county after it was established in 1777, surveyed again by Beekman and taken out of the office in 1780." The unsettled conditions in the colonies, especially in the Southern colo nies, during the French-Indian war, extending almost up to the Revolution, varied by temporary truces, treaties, etc., is matter of history and is graph ically described on pages 155-160 of "Indians in North Carolina," Senate Document No. 677, 53rd Congress, 2nd session. In spite of truces, treaties, and a shameful, cowardly convention that Governor Dobbs appears to have entered into with some of the tribes, there was no real peace and there never could have been as long as the two races were keyed up to the high est tension by race antipathy and conflict of communal interests that gripped and held both sides eternally on the watch. And it was all perfectly nat ural from the human standpoint. The Indians did not hate the white man except for what they considered the most real reasons. For genera tions they had heard about and some of them then living, upon occasional excursions down the Nickajock trail for hunting and trading, had seen with their own eyes, the whites firmly established in Albemarle and rapidly spreading out and growing westward towards the foothills. Now they saw them invading their own forests and hunting grounds, building cabins, appropriating their clearings, and making them larger by cutting down the trees. It was intolerable for an Indian to contemplate such a high handed outrage. (Incidentally, it is interesting to note in this pamphlet, "Indians in North Carolina," the wonderful amount of booty the whites captured when they looted an Indian village thousands of bushels of corn and thousands of pounds of pork and bacon; also to note the great number of slaves prisoners taken in war both whites and Indians possessed, all of Indian blood.) Ethically perhaps the whites had not so much logic for their position. But it was a condition and not a theory that confronted them; here they were, to settle and civilize a rich commonwealth, and all that stood in their way was a congeries of wild savage tribes obstructing them, like a dog in a-manger, intent upon keeping the wilderness a wilder ness and a desert for ever. And it is probable that the notion that no Indian ever becomes a good Indian until he dies was even a firmer convic tion in the minds of the men of this age of flint and steel than it ever became in the minds of the men of the United States army during the sev enth decade of the nineteenth century. I think it highly improbable that, under such circumstances as these existing, as high-spirited and adventurous a youth of John Perkins appears to have been would have turned tail and run away into South Carolina, and for this and other reasons, I believe that Judge Avery erred in the supposition, which he did not strongly advance,, that John Perkins went to South Carolina as early as 1754, only two years after he made the trip through the mountains with Bishop Spangenburg and not a great deal more than two years after his arrival in North Caro lina. All his worldly, material interests bound him to North Carolina and it is almost certain that he never did leave Rowan county, Catawba and John's rivers until he was compelled to do so by circumstances that he could not overcome. I am satisfied he would have run the risk of danger from hostile savages. What he had to do, if he was a wise man, was to lead up from his surveys to grants from Earl Granville's land office. Work of this kind is not done in a day or a year, especially when ten or fifteen thousand acres of land are involved; it probably took him several years to perfect his titles. We Bee that, after he had gotten his grants through the Earl of Granville's office, the State took the matter up and issued grants after the war was over. This is true of the Michaux grant, so called that is, that tract that afterwards fell to the share of John Perkins' granddaugh ter, the daughter of his son John. This grant issued in 1758, and I do not doubt that grants for the other tracts were issued earlier. The fact that the Machaux grant is the only one that was known to exist in our day is no evidence that the others did not exist, for if he had waited until after 1758 to enter the land surveyed by Bishop Spangenburg it is probable he would have been too late. If John Perkins ran away in 1754 he must have come back from time to time before 1758 to make his plats and to do all the other necessary and tedious things that lead up to the issuance of a land grant He could not have ridden up to the Earl of Granville's land office and called out offhand for a grant for land, without "proving up." I think that John Perkins did get into trouble, very serious trouble, that made it necessary for him to get away. I think that, in the course of his work of surveying, platting and traveling over the lands he was endeavoring to have granted to him, he had an altercation with an Indian and that he was forced to kill the red man. I believe the following letter of Governor Dobbs, published in 5 Colonial Records 604, refers to John Perkins: "Newbern, July 18, 1756. ''To Messrs. Waddell, Osborne and Alexander! " .... I am sorry to find that' there hath been one of the Catawbas killed by Perkins contrary to the express orders I had given to bear with ill usage and make a regular complaint in order to have satisfaction demanded of the Nation who is the aggressor and therefore if you have made up that to the satisfaction of the Catawbas and they wont be content to have him Sed and punished by the colony laws, I would advise you to give up the inquent to them, as it is better that one should suffer who has done his utmost to bring on a National war than a whole community should suffer by his restiveness and disobedience and if he has made his escape do your utmost to apprehend him . . . ARTHUR DOBBS." The probabilities are that John Perkins left the State and went to South? Carolina subsequent to the date of this letter. He was just 23 years old . when this Indian was killed, and, if he killed him, I am sure he did it in self-defense. Now, that the Governor was guilty of the cruelty of trying to deliver him over (without giving him the rights inherent in every English man) to be totured and burned at the. stake, he realized that he was up against it and that it was the part of prudence to go away from the State. John Perkins wife, Catherine Lowrance, was born Aug. 13, 1742, andT when their first child, Elisha, was born, on Oct. 18, 1760, she was just a little more than 18 years old. Judge McCorkle speaks of her as the daugh ter of Isaac Lowrance of Bunker Hill, in Lincoln county, and that statement does not militate against the traditional statement in the family that she was born in the Union district, South Carolina, for it is plausible to conclude that, when John Perkins found it safe to return to Rowan county, his. father-in-law decided to move at the same time to the new and rich coun try, where his son-in-law owned so much valuable property. A pretty story touching Catherine Lowrance comes to me, through Mrs. Carter B. Harrison of Lenoir, a descendant of John and Catherine Perkins, from the late Miss Laura Norwood of Lenoir. Miss Norwood was a most charming woman, intellectual, cultivated, of brilliant wit and of great artistic talent which was highly developed and trained. Many women in North Carolina have learned from her at Saint Mary's and elsewhere the delicate and beautiful art of counterfeiting nature by drawing and by commingling, with pencil or brush, in harmonious combinations, the various tints of the rainbow. Camouflage for "teaching art." Miss Norwood had a taste for historical, biographical and genealogical research, especially about Western North Crolina subjects, and, being of Huguenot ancestry herself, took espe cial interest in Huguenot derivation generally. Knowing that John Perkins son Joseph married a wife, Melissa Lavender, of Huguenot lineage, and that his granddaughter, Susan, daughter of his son John, was married to Richard Venable Michaux, a descendant of the old Huguenot emigre, Abra ham Michaux, who established himself in Prince Edward county, Virginia, about the middle of the seventeenth century, she felt that it was according to the eternal fitness of things that Catherine Lowrance, coming from South Carolina, should be a Huguenot herself. Exactly upon what facts they founded their belief I do not know, but Miss Norwood and Mrs. Harrison fully persuaded themselves that John Perkins married Catherine Laurens of South Carolina. If he did he did not know it, for he spelled her name "Low rance." It is to be admitted that John Perkins could not have qualified as an expert orthographist and that if he were living today he would probably be an advocate of the phonetic or simplified school of spelling, under the rules of which "Lowrance" might approximate the French pronunciation of "Lau rens" provided the "broad a" were used in "Lowrance." In evidence that John Perkins antedated former President Roosevelt as a patron of simplified spelling it is only necessary to produce his family record wherein he spells the name of his son Burwell "Burrell," which he might have still further simplified as "Burl." (To be Continued Next Week.) MUNICIPALITIES MAY BUY GOVERNMENT GOODS Extending the scope of the sale of surplus food and clothing now held by the army, the war department has made announcement of a program whereunder municipalities, commu nity buying associations and munic ipal selling agencies may buy goods in bulk and at a discount in any of the retail store, districts, says a spe cial from Washington to the Greens boro News. The army retail store for the dis trict of North and South Carolina is located at Charleston, S. C, so un der this war department plan pur chasing municipalities in these two States would deal with the Charles ton store. It is stated that the bulk sellintr plan is authorized at the re quest from various municipal officials throughout the country who want to try out the army store in the fight on the high cost of living. NEGLECTING THAT GOLDJR COUGH? Why, when Dr. King's New Discovery so promptly checks it James Stucky Save "Rat Cost Me $125 for Plumbing Bill." "We couldn't tell what was clog ging up our toilet and drains. We had to tear up floor, pipes, etc.; found a rat's nest in basement. They had choked the pipes with refuse. The plumber's bill was $125. RAT-SNAP cleaned the rodent out." Three sizes, 25c, 50c, $1.00. Sold and guaranteed by Bernhardt-Seagle Co., Lenoir Hardware and Furniture Co., Bal lew's Cash Pharmacy and Hoffman & Son. r'S natural yon don't want to ba careless and let that old cold or cough drag on or that new attack develop seriously. Not when you can get such a proved successful remedy as Dr. King's New Discovery. Cold, cough, grippe, croup does not resist this standard reliever very long. Its quality 1s as high today as It al ways has been and It's been growing steadily in popularity for more than fifty years. 60c and $1.20 a bottle at all druggists. Give It a trial. Tardy Bowels, Inert Liver Tbey pst won't let you put "pep" into your work or play. Sick head ache comes from retaining Vaste mat ter anfl Impurities In the body. Feel right for anything make the liver lively, the bowels function regu larly, with Dr. King's New UfejPHla. Bmoothty' yet positively they produce resultshflf cleanse the system and' take Ine liver and bowels respond to the dHtwodsTof a strong, healthy body. BtiU 25a at all drogglota, Try tEem THIS MAN IS CERTAINLY A HUMAN JUNK HEAP Discovery of a human "junk heap" has been announced by officers of the house of correction at Deer Island, Mass. Charles W. Buzzell of Mon treal, serving a sentence of one year for forgery, complained of indiges tion. A surgical operation resulted in the recovery of tw opounds of mis celleanous articles from his stomach, which included parts of a dog chain two feet long, a safety razor blade nearly whole, a suspender buckle and 179 fragments or pieces of glass, hay wire, staples, nails and screws. Re lieved of these substances, Buzzell has almost entirely recovered, it is said. The prisoner had been accu mulating the collection with suicidal intention, according to the. doctor, since last Decemebr. He had pre viously made a similar cumulative at tepmt to end his life, but it was frus trated by an operation performed in New York. Danger Signs Fortell Sickness Nature Tells Us When It's Time to Use Sloan's Relief Tablets Nature has a few red-lantern dan ger signs which, like the snake's rattle, warn of future trouble. Foul Breath, Gas, Headache, Hot Flushes and that heavy knotty feeling in the stomach are the warning symptoms. They tell the sufferer that the bow els are not functioning properly that the many poisons which are secreted in the body are not being eliminated. At the first warning, get - a package of Sloan's Relief Tablets from your druggist Use them as directed. ; They are guaranteed not to gripe or cause pain. They are as gentle as nff turev. Keep & package on hand for any emergency.; Be sure - yon gst Sloan's they're safest . Distributed by Ths SJan Products Co., 18 Faetory Street, Derby, Coon. BRITISH SHIPPING LOSSES British merchant vessels lost through enemy action during the war totaled 7,759,000 gross Ions, it has been officially announced. Subma rine action was responsible for the loss of 6,635,059 tons of this total. The loss of 14,287 lives was in volved in these sinkings, the official report says. Mohammedans do not wear silk. As it is the product of a worm they consider it unclean. The News-Topic $1.50 the year. When IP Croup Threatens Quick jelief of baby's croup often forestalls a aerioua situation when this dreaded disease comet in the lata hours of night. FRAMES mm X. Mxbm ihortf keep t lar o Srane'e Vipcora. the Mir coarenirm. W'--n fiap threatens, tfcla delifbtfut Hire rufcbe" well iitto babr'o throat, cbert and under the irtrn, will reaV c the chokinr break conrauon, an4 tmiiMe rratfui tine. Take rVijiTV. I" ne of usukmiic drorj, r A.H .n lUiienemittlrbrpliy. a-1, nciam in comDatiM . 9 J croup, eolca. mm. raonia, etc in caiulra v wrU at ztown-ngi , JOe 60e end 1 1.20 at all dr.-1 nut) feat J repaid by Crania Dixjf Company H razors, M.L, What you pay out your good money for , , is cigarette satisfaction and, my, how is cents a package . . . . .. . - , , yuu uu gci 11 in every puii 01 cuneiSJ EXPERTLY blended choice Turkish and choice Domestic .tobaccos in Camel cigarettes elimi nate bite and free them from any unpleasant cigaretty aftertaste or unpleasant cigaretty odor. Camels win instant and permanent success with smokers because the blend brirfgs put to the limit the refreshing flavor and delightful mel- low-mildness of the tobaccos yet re taining the desirable "body. Camels are simply a revelation! You may smoke mem without tiring your taste! For your own satisfaction you must compare Camels with any cigarette in the world at any price. 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Lenoir News-Topic (Lenoir, N.C.)
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Oct. 31, 1919, edition 1
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