Newspapers / The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, … / Sept. 17, 1992, edition 1 / Page 15
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i inripr fhp qi iki ? H i IUO LI lv~V 11 1 I J[ ?~??. ?. fcp ?Sporfs, Poges 8- 7 2 ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????I IT BEGAN AS LONG'S WOOD Company Gave Once-Thriving Mill Town Its Name BY SUSAN USHER William Asbury "Jinx" Long was an ambitious young man. Reared in the Seaside/Calabash area, he apprenticed in the Brooks store at Seaside. Then, in 1906, he sltuck out on his own, opening a general store on BuUcr's Pea Landing Road (which N.C. 904 has replaced) at what is now the intersection of N.C. 904 and Russtown Road, near Butler's Pond. Not long after, a traveling photographer stopped by the store on his way to deliver prints to a prominent lo cal family. "Jinx" Long saw a picture of Bessie Lee Buder and announced, "Thai's the woman I'm going to marry." Whether he was joshing or deadly serious, captivat ed by her looks or by the fact that she owned consider able property and came from a prominent family, no one will ever know. The following year "Jinx" did just as he had vowed; he married Bessie at the home of her mother and stepfather, Mary Melvina Cox Butler McKeithan and isian McKeiinan. They lived with the McKeithans until their own home was finished not far from the store. Then Jinx's parents, John Melvin and Francis Jane "Fanny" Gore Long, came to share their home until their deaths in the caiiy 1920s. What Jinx couldn't have known then was that his and Bessie Builer's marriage led indirccdy to the name "Longwood" for the community located about five miles north of Grissettown on N.C. 904. Much of the land in the vicinity of what is now called Longwood belonged to the Buders before the Longs came to hold title to much of it through marriage, says David Bennett. Bennett, a resident of Hickman's Crossroads, has done extensive research on the Long and Buder families. Through his mother, Mrs. Wendell Bennett, David is a direct descendant of Daniel Lewis Butler, the first Buder to settle at what is now called Longwood. "I love the Buder family," he says. He came to know them in part through the stories told by his great-aunt, Mary Aleen Long McCumbec, who still lives in the Longwood community and tends beautiful beds of flow ers in her yard. Buder was bom in South Carolina around 1804, moving from there to Columbus County, and then, in the 1830s, to Prunswick County. He married Martha Ivey, perhaps the daughter of a Benjamin Ivey who was their next-door neighbor at the time of the 1850 U.S. Census. Ivey deeded Buder about 500 acres, which may have been Martha's dowry. Their lands extended for possibly several thousand acres, including extensive wedands along the Waccamaw River. Buder built a two-story hom? near what is now called Regan and a sawmill (and probably a gristmill as well) on what was called Buder's Pond ? the dam and refurbished pond area are still visible today on N.C. 904. The 1860 agricultural census showed that he grew rice and raised sheep on about 1 ,000 acres, 700 of which were cleared. Descendants of Butler slaves still live in this area. Daniel and Martha had children: Mary, Benjamin, John, Gencvia, Rossannah, Louisa, Francis and Myriam. Most of the girls married men from Columbus County. Two of the sons, Benjamin and John, served with Co. C, 30th Regiment, N.C. Troops, during the Civil War, Benjamin as a sergeant and John as a private. John was captured at the batde of Spottsylvania Courthouse in 1864, imprisoned first at Point Lookout, Md., and then Elmira, N.Y., where he died of typhoid and was buried. Benjamin was with Gen. Robert E. Lee at the surren der of Confederate troops at Appomattox Courthouse, Va. He returned home after the war and on Nov. 27, 1867, married Mary Melvina Cox. They began raising a family that included Daniel S., Mary Ellen, Susie, Johnny, Cornelia, Willie and Bessie Lee, who was David Bennett's great-grandmother. Buder, who was a farmer and carpenter, built his own two-story home near Regan's Crossroads, with a separate kitchen. The ruin of that kitchen can still be seen on the Bryan and Jackie Smith farm at Longwood, along with the school that Buder built for use by a tutor he hired to teach his children and those of his neighbors. Buder must have had a keen interest in education be cause "B.L. Buder of Waccamaw" appeared on a Feb. 12, 1872, list of the county school system's first "teach ers," who rcceivcd salaries from $75 to S160. On Oct. 8 of that year, he was one of the three men to be named to the county's first board of education. PHOTO CONTWBUTtD THE 1X)NG FAMILY stands in front of their home that was built in 1908 on what is now Russtown Road. On the front (from left) are Aleen Long, Gladstone lu)ng and Francis (Fanny) Gore Long. At the back (from left) are 1V^4. "Jinx" I^ong, holding his son, Vinson; Bessie Butler Ijong, holding Herman iMng, and John Melvin Long. Bessie's sister, Ellen Butler Ward stands on the porch in the left background. But there was tragedy in the Butlers'lives as well as succcss. During the diphtheria epidemic of 1883, all the children except Mary Ellen and Bessie Lec contracted the disease and died, leaving no male descendants. Those five small graves lie in the Butler graveyard near Regan's Crossroads, now part of the George Ward Cemetery. Most of the wooden fence Butler built around the old cemetery still stands. Benjamin's mother, Martha, died in January 1884, followed by Benjamin Butler on Aug. 22, 1885. His fa ther, Daniel Butler, died in September 1887, "a very wealthy and prominent man for his time," says Bennett. In his will Butler divided between his granddaughters, Besne and Mary Ellen, the tract on the Waccamaw River Swamp. In 1888, Mary Melvina or "Grandma Mel" as she became known to her family, remarried, this time to Isiah or Isham McKeithan, a farm laborer and possibly overseer of the Butler farm. It was at their home that Bessie Lee Butler married William Asbury "Jinx" Long on Feb. 24, 1907. Mary Ellen, the younger of the two girls, married George Brooks Ward. Their family: Louis, Luther, Willie, George, Stella, Johnny, Hubert and Lula. As part of her inheritance, Mary Ellen had received the old Butler place, which is how the Wards came to have holdings in the Regan's Crossroads area. "Grandma Mel," had bought two large, illustrated Bibles, one for each of the girls, Bessie and Mary Ellen. In her later years, Bessie developed diabetes and came to live with Aleen McCumbee around 1954. At Aleen's request, she brought her Bible with her. That was fortunate because, not long after, the ??ouie burned. Bessie died a few months later; Jinx had died in 1951. Published in 1881, the edges of its pages tattered but the elaborate illustrations still vivid, the several-inches thick Bible is now "the family treasure," says Bennett, as is the family information contained in its records of births, deaths and marriages. Jinx and Bessie Long reared a large family: Gladstone (called Glaxton, Glaston or Glayston in vari ous records), Alccn, Vinson (David Bennett's grandfa ther), Herman, Lucille, Earl, Leamon, Bernell, William Asbury Long Jr. and Lavern. But by the late 1910s and early 1920s, times got harder for the Longs. Patrons at the store were letting their accounts run up and Long couldn't collect. The Longs were "land poor," with plenty of acreage but no cash. Unable to pay their own creditors, Jinx and Bessie began letting go of the land, one tract at a time. Among those most eager to buy: Jackson Brothers Railroad and Lumber Co., which was laying narrow-gauge railroad tracks into the swamps and forests of southeastern North Carolina and hauling out prime limber. Around 1922 Jackson Brothers took over the mill on Butler's Pond and began clearing Umber, Bennett learned in his research. It laid out a settlement nearby for its workers, building small frame cottages on streets and avenues bearing names such as "Peachtree" and "Sunset," and called the community Long's Wood ? af ter the family who had sold the land. The bustling community thrived as workers came from all around, drawn by the prospect of steady work and a good paycheck. Entrepreneurs came as well, like Rice Gwynn of Fairmont. He opened 2 store ar.d established a large farm that had numerous tenants working it Also open ing around this time were L.C. Brown's Grocery, D.S. Gore's, Ward's Grocery. Jackson Brothers stayed around 10 years, gradually pulling out in the early 1930s. (See LONGWOOD, Page 3-B) STAff PHOTO BY SUSAN USMtK DAVID BENNETT stands outside the schoolhouse built by Benjamin /.. Butler fur his and neighbors' children after the Civil War. It's now an outbuilding on the Bryan Smith farm on N.C. 904 at Ixtngwood. STAf F PHOTO BY SUSAN USHER BENJAMIN BUTLER carved the fencing around the Butler graveyard where his parents, Daniel and Martha Ivey Butler (headstones visible through gale) are buried, now part of the George Ward Cemetery.
The Brunswick Beacon (Shallotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Sept. 17, 1992, edition 1
15
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