A State of Yeoman Farmers A State of Yeoman Farmers
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A State of Yeoman Farmers As you read, look for:
• what life was like in North Carolina’s rural neighborhoods • the economy of rural neighborhoods • events that brought scattered neighborhoods together • vocabulary terms yeoman, subsistence farming, spinning wheel, loom, blacksmith, cooper, neighborhood, barter, clubbing, muster day, court week, justice of the peace, camp meeting
This section will help you meet the following objective:
8.3.02 Investigate the conditions that led to North Carolina’s decline and the implications for the future development of the state.
Most white North Carolinians lived on their own farms. Only one in four families owned slaves, and only the top tenth of families could be considered wealthy. Most of the state’s citizens were yeomen, farmers who worked the land they or some other family member owned. These yeoman farmers organized their lives around three things: their families, the seasons, and their neighborhoods. Marriage was the accepted starting point for making a family and a farm. Most men were in their early twenties when they married, for they often had to wait until they had the resources to acquire land and “settle down,” as it was called. Women often married in their late teens. Weddings were simple and almost always held at the home of the bride. The groom would arrive with his attendants and give the father of the bride a present. The minister then conducted the service. Family and neighbors were present; after the ceremony, they stayed to eat, dance, and party. All wore their best clothes. The bridal couple took no honeymoon and either lived with parents or immediately went to their own house.
Above: Although this painting depicts a wedding west of the Appalachians, it is faithful to the custom of North Carolina grooms riding away with their brides to the accompaniment of gunfire. North Carolinians would later tie tin cans to the backs of cars to imitate the same sound.
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Subsistence Farming
Green beans were strung on a thread and hung to dry. The beans, which turned brown when dried, were called “leather britches.”
Below: The Garner family house, built around 1800 in Southern Pines, is about the right size for the typical subsistence farming family.
252
All couples had the daunting task of making a farm work. Some had to “start from scratch,” literally using axes and hoes to chop and scrape at the forest and soil to clear land for a house, a barn, and fields. North Carolinians spent a lot of their energy planting grains—mostly corn, wheat, and oats—for they had to feed their families first before doing anything else. This was known as subsistence farming. Whenever possible, farmers planted tobacco. That crop could always be sold, at least the part that was not smoked by the family. All fields had to be fenced in, for animals ran wild over the landscape. One of the biggest expenses any family faced was erecting and maintaining a split rail fence. Many farmers spent much of the winter months splitting rails. To save on fencing, many farmers combined crops and planted squashes, pumpkins, and green beans among the corn stalks, just as the Indians had. All of these vegetables could be dried and used all winter. Although many poor families did not grow a great variety of vegetables, those with means could. One farm woman reported to a friend in 1848 that she planted “celery seed, potatoes, beets, cabbages, mustard, peas, and radishes” in her kitchen garden that year. The larger farms also had pear, peach, and apple trees. Germans like George Yoder dried apples, calling them “schnitz.” Food was seasonal for everyone. Not all of it was grown in the fields. One young North Carolinian remembered that on his family farm “hickory and walnut trees . . . favored us with fruit. . . . Those who lived on the
Chapter 8: An Agrarian Society
farm visited these trees at the proper time.” Later, “when the first frost came around the persimmons begin to get ripe.” Persimmons could be made into food and drink. Families were often large in the early 1800s. Many couples often had five or six children. Sometimes the youngest brother or sister was born after the oldest had moved away. Large families made sense at the time, since each child could work at the varied chores demanded on the farm. Farm families had many needs for tools, implements, and clothing that went beyond their own abilities and resources. A single farmer was seldom a jack-of-all-trades, since equipment could be too expensive. For example, almost every family had a spinning wheel, which was used to turn cotton, flax, or wool into yarn. Women often spun yarn all winter. Some could then knit socks or caps. Most women, however, could not afford or find space for a loom—the very complex machine that wove yarn into cloth. They would turn to some family in the neighborhood who spent their time weaving for others. A weaver could be male or female. Since everyone had horses or mules, a blacksmith was needed to make shoes for the animals and repair iron tools. Since blacksmithing tools were an expensive investment,
Above: Looking at the size of this mid-1800s loom, it’s no wonder that there was little space in a home for one. Left: A blacksmith performed the important role of placing shoes on horses and mules so their hoofs would not wear down too quickly.
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In modern times, coopers are in demand at wineries, where aging wine is stored in huge barrels.
only a few could make a living in each neighborhood. The same was true for coopers, skilled workers who could turn wood and iron into barrels, which were used to store everything from vinegar to flour. The most important tradesman was the miller, who ground the corn and wheat families needed each week to make cornbread and biscuits in the home. Because North Carolina had only scattered and small towns in the early 1800s, agrarian families depended upon their neighbors to provide goods and services they themselves could not provide. As a result, much of life in agrarian North Carolina revolved around neighborly activities. The neighborhood, an identifiable place where a small group of people spent most of their time, was as important as the family.
The Neighborhood Economy
Above: The Old Mill of Guilford, located near Greensboro, has been in continuous operation since 1820. Most neighborhoods had at least one mill. A county might have as many as twenty at one time.
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During the early 1800s, rural neighborhoods dominated the landscape of North Carolina. Because most North Carolinians still needed to walk most places they went, neighborhoods could be no more than five to eight miles across. This was about the distance a person could walk in a day and still get back home. One 1820s resident of the Beaver Dam neighborhood near Greenville remembered that thirty-eight houses were part of his community. Homes were scattered across the landscape, often spread a half mile apart. All neighborhoods had a central point, however, where everyone could at some time come together. The neighborhood of Bunn’s Level, in what is today Harnett County, was started in the 1820s. Joseph and Nancy Bunn were married in 1815 and through their thirty-one years of marriage had ten children. They built their house on “a flat plot of land” on the road from Raleigh to Fayetteville. As other people settled nearby, the neighborhood became focused there. The Bunns donated land for a church in 1832, then in 1846 their house was the site of the first post office. (Much later the small village of Bunnlevel grew up nearby.) Neighbors generally knew one another by sight. In some cases, they were relatives, since sons and daughters of nearby farm families often married one another. If the young people did not move west, they settled near their original homes, just increasing the size of their neighborhoods. Much of the business conducted in North Carolina during the early 1800s was done within the neighborhood. A farmer might pay for the repair of his wagon by helping the wagon maker harvest his corn. A farm wife might pay for a barrel of molasses by sending a son to chop firewood for a period of time. Such bartering (trading one item for another) was very important, because most North Carolinians lacked a lot
Chapter 8: An Agrarian Society
of cash. As the Beaver Dam resident recalled, with such a system “the people were not rich, but they were independent of want or care.” Sometimes, when a service One Methodist member could not be paid for immediately, was “suspended from one neighbor gave a “note” to anfellowship” for a year other neighbor. With these “I owe because he had picked up you’s,” the holder could expect a bolt of cloth off the road payment at a future time. Since a and kept it, instead of promise was a promise, and since returning it to its owner. neighbors knew who everyone was, the note could actually be traded around like a check. Whoever held the piece of paper at the time payment was due could collect. The person who owed the money paid in cash or started bartering all over again. This made the neighborhood work together. It was part of a whole series of obligations neighbors performed for one another. Each neighborhood could have one or two churches, most often a Baptist church on the Coastal Plain or a Methodist church in the backcountry. By the 1830s, at least half the population of the state went to church about once a month, when a minister visited. Quite often, the builders of common schools put them next to churches. This occurred at Bunnlevel in the 1840s, at the Baptist church near the Bunn residence. Churches were also part of the neighborhood obligation system. Church members were subject to church disciplinary trials if they violated the codes
Above: Third Creek Presbyterian Church in Cleveland is the oldest rural church still in use in North Carolina. It was built in 1835. Peter Stuart Ney is buried in its cemetery.
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of conduct prescribed by their faith. For example, church members were disciplined if they regularly abused alcohol or if they cheated or harmed someone else in the neighborhood. Some Baptist congregations (local worship groups) would not even hold services until any disputes among neighbors had been settled to the satisfaction of the congregation. Presbyterians could not take communion (one of the key rituals of Christianity) unless they had a token, a metal tab given them by the elders of the congregation that confirmed they were in good standing. Another way neighbors cooperated was in the marketing of crops. Since farming was mostly subsistence, families and their livestock ate or wore most of what they grew. Any surplus could be bartered to neighbors or, more profitably, sold in nearby markets to merchants. Most farm-
Above and left: The Malcolm Blue Farm is typical of the homesteads built by Scottish settlers in the early 1800s. The barns and farm buildings (top), wooden water tower (above), and home (right) are all part of this historic farm.
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ers did not grow enough to go to distant markets like Charleston or Wilmington by themselves. The horses would eat up all the profits if the wagon was half full. So, neighborhoods practiced clubbing and drovering.
Clubbing and Drovering In clubbing, a neighborhood combined their surplus crops into one large load and trusted neighbors to go to market for them. Neighbors might ship anything from flour to beeswax to goose feathers to ginseng. These trips were always in the fall, after harvest, and took weeks to complete. The clubbers made the best bargain they could and came back with needed cash and items like fine cloth, books, coffee, spices, and fruit, all things which could not be grown or easily made in the neighborhood. Rufus Barringer remembered that his neighborhood in Cabarrus County thought clubbing was so important it “would have a frolick” (a party like a harvest festival) when the market trip was over. One of the best returns on farming was the sale of livestock. They were cheap to raise, since the animals had the run of the woods to forage on acorns and sprouts like honeysuckle. In autumn, neighbors rounded up the animals, sorted them by the mark found on their ear, and then embarked on a market trip. Drovers took the livestock all the way to the coast. The Buncombe Turnpike, completed in 1828, went from eastern Tennessee to Charleston and was the most used drover’s route. It was famous for its “hog hotels.” James Alexander ran the largest one ten miles north of Asheville. The drovers penned their animals at night and slept in a dry shed. Alexander provided a store, repair shops, a post office, and an outdoor bowling alley for the drover. These service centers were very similar to the truck stops of the twenty-first century. The first bridge built across the Catawba River, in 1849, had a special rate for hogs. People had to pay more.
Life Outside the Neighborhood
Above: Most farmers had livestock of some sort, like cattle. Extra animals were driven to market in the east.
While agrarian North Carolinians spent most of their time on their own and their neighbors’ farms, they did venture out for holidays and special occasions. Clubbing, of course, meant that a few residents got to visit ports like Wilmington, New Bern, or Charleston once a year. Most members of a farm family, however, never left the neighborhood except on special occasions. Twice a year, almost every family in a section of each county came together for muster day. Since each able-bodied man was expected to be available to defend the state, they trained twice a year, once in the spring
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Above: During court week, county residents might make their way to courthouses such as these in Northampton County in Jackson (top) and Yancey County in Burnsville (above).
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just before planting and again in the fall just after harvest. These events were forerunners of the county fair of later days, since families would bring the best of their produce and wares to show and trade. Four times a year, families in each county of the state went to court week. Each county in that day was governed by justices of the peace, men who in each neighborhood did exactly what their title suggested. These judges tried petty crimes and small disputes among neighbors. In the middle of each season, selected justices came to the county seat and tried cases that needed a jury trial. The justices would also put their official seal on legal documents like deeds and wills. Outside the courthouse, people were festive and social, often having what George Yoder called “a jollification.” Farm women sold their best baked goods, often dried fruit pies or gingerbread. Men gathered to swap stories and trade livestock. Teenagers literally “courted,” that is, got together, possibly with romance in mind. Two events occurred in August each year. Throughout the state, Christian churches held camp meetings, a long weekend of religious services where people came and camped. At first, people slept in tents or in their wagons. Over time, many families erected some cabins, a forerunner of the vacation home. The largest of the campgrounds was at Rock Spring in Lincoln County, which was started in 1830. Also in August, North Carolina held election day. The federal government scheduled congressional and presidential elections for November, but North Carolinians chose their leaders in late summer. Since an eligible man could vote anywhere in the county, many chose to take a trip to the county seat. Elections, too, were festive occasions, and turnout to vote was high. Both camp meetings and election day were scheduled in August because farmers celebrated laying-by season that month. This was the short period of time when the crops were in the ground and had to be left alone until harvest. This and Christmas (when the ground was most likely to be frozen) were really the only times farmers could leave the neighborhood and not jeopardize the well-being of the family. Christmas was “kept” mostly at home, with families who could afford it enjoying an extensive meal. Some neighborhoods, particularly the Ger-
Chapter 8: An Agrarian Society
man ones, kept “double Christmas,” where, on December 26, neighborhoods got together to feast and play. Horseracing was one popular activity. These community events attracted North Carolinians of all levels of society. Even the richest residents of the state came to public occasions, often bringing their slaves. Although the richest and poorest North Carolinians lived agrarian lives just like everyone else, the extremes of their conditions meant that they had different experiences.
It’s Your Turn 1. What was subsistence farming? 2. Why were neighborhoods no more than 5-8 miles across? 3. What was clubbing? 4. Name two occasions for which a farm family might leave the neighborhood.
Top: Court week attracted a variety of people and their wares. Some came for legal business; some came for the opportunity to get together with other people. Still others, young people mostly, came to do some actual “courting.” Above: Quakers held their annual meeting at the New Garden Quaker Meeting House in Guilford County.
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CAROLINA PLACES
Rock Spring Camp Meeting Ground
In the years before the Civil War, North Carolina actually had, for one weekend a year, one large city. Every August, Methodists along the Catawba River gathered at Rock Spring, in Lincoln County, to worship and socialize. For four days, Rock Spring was twice as big as Fayetteville or New Bern and a little bigger than Wilmington. Most years more than 10,000 people clustered around the arbor used for worship services. It even had its own temporary mayor and police force to keep folks in line. Camp meetings had been started by Methodists soon after the War for Independence as a way to better spread their religious message. Since most churches were small, preaching outside reached more people at one time. The first outdoor meeting was held in 1795 very near the site of Rock Spring. After 1800, the idea spread to the Presbyterian and Baptist churches, but Methodists were the masters of the gathering. Camp meeting soon developed into an annual ritual. Each August, farm families “laid by” their crops, letting them alone until harvest. They then had time to get away. Families that came to camp meeting each summer built “tents” in a square around the arbor. Originally, the tents were tiny log huts;
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over time, they evolved into frame huts with dirt floors. The families also brought all the food they would need, particularly chicken and fruit pies, along with country ham and biscuits that would “keep” even in warm weather. Some even brought beds and bed frames. Worship services were held in the covered arbor three times a day: morning, afternoon, and night. The most respected preachers in the two Carolinas were invited to Below left and below: People have met at the Rock Spring Camp Meeting Ground every year for the last century, except for when there was a polio epidemic in 1944. The meeting lasts for one week.
Above: Most families spent days at the camp meeting praying, singing, and listening to sermons. They brought food and stayed in tents. Later, those tents became cabins.
preach, often two or three at a time. At the end of each sermon, worshippers were invited to come forward to announce they had made a religious decision about their lives. Most of those who came forward were teenagers, for “going to the altar” was part of the process for growing up in most rural neighborhoods of the day. Camp meeting was as much a social occasion as a religious one. Men traded horses, women told stories about their families, and young people quite often courted. Dozens of Methodist families were actually started with a courtship at camp meeting. After all, it was one of the few times all year when a person could meet “people from all over.” Rock Spring was so large and popular that some of its worshippers split off and made up their own campgrounds. The largest was Ball’s Creek, up the river in Catawba County. The slaves at Ball’s Creek set up their campgrounds at two places, McKenzie’s Chapel and Mott’s Grove. After the Civil War, the former Rock Spring slaves moved off and set up Tucker’s Grove. By the early 1900s, there were more large Methodist campgrounds concentrated along the Catawba River than anywhere else in the United States. All five of these campgrounds—located within a dozen miles of each another—have survived into the twenty-first century. Thousands still come each summer, most of them direct descendants of the original worshippers more than a century ago.
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A State of Yeoman Farmers As you read, look for:
• what life was like in North Carolina’s rural neighborhoods • the economy of rural neighborhoods • events that brought scattered neighborhoods together • vocabulary terms yeoman, subsistence farming, spinning wheel, loom, blacksmith, cooper, neighborhood, barter, clubbing, muster day, court week, justice of the peace, camp meeting
This section will help you meet the following objective:
8.3.02 Investigate the conditions that led to North Carolina’s decline and the implications for the future development of the state.
Most white North Carolinians lived on their own farms. Only one in four families owned slaves, and only the top tenth of families could be considered wealthy. Most of the state’s citizens were yeomen, farmers who worked the land they or some other family member owned. These yeoman farmers organized their lives around three things: their families, the seasons, and their neighborhoods. Marriage was the accepted starting point for making a family and a farm. Most men were in their early twenties when they married, for they often had to wait until they had the resources to acquire land and “settle down,” as it was called. Women often married in their late teens. Weddings were simple and almost always held at the home of the bride. The groom would arrive with his attendants and give the father of the bride a present. The minister then conducted the service. Family and neighbors were present; after the ceremony, they stayed to eat, dance, and party. All wore their best clothes. The bridal couple took no honeymoon and either lived with parents or immediately went to their own house.
Above: Although this painting depicts a wedding west of the Appalachians, it is faithful to the custom of North Carolina grooms riding away with their brides to the accompaniment of gunfire. North Carolinians would later tie tin cans to the backs of cars to imitate the same sound.
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Subsistence Farming
Green beans were strung on a thread and hung to dry. The beans, which turned brown when dried, were called “leather britches.”
Below: The Garner family house, built around 1800 in Southern Pines, is about the right size for the typical subsistence farming family.
252
All couples had the daunting task of making a farm work. Some had to “start from scratch,” literally using axes and hoes to chop and scrape at the forest and soil to clear land for a house, a barn, and fields. North Carolinians spent a lot of their energy planting grains—mostly corn, wheat, and oats—for they had to feed their families first before doing anything else. This was known as subsistence farming. Whenever possible, farmers planted tobacco. That crop could always be sold, at least the part that was not smoked by the family. All fields had to be fenced in, for animals ran wild over the landscape. One of the biggest expenses any family faced was erecting and maintaining a split rail fence. Many farmers spent much of the winter months splitting rails. To save on fencing, many farmers combined crops and planted squashes, pumpkins, and green beans among the corn stalks, just as the Indians had. All of these vegetables could be dried and used all winter. Although many poor families did not grow a great variety of vegetables, those with means could. One farm woman reported to a friend in 1848 that she planted “celery seed, potatoes, beets, cabbages, mustard, peas, and radishes” in her kitchen garden that year. The larger farms also had pear, peach, and apple trees. Germans like George Yoder dried apples, calling them “schnitz.” Food was seasonal for everyone. Not all of it was grown in the fields. One young North Carolinian remembered that on his family farm “hickory and walnut trees . . . favored us with fruit. . . . Those who lived on the
Chapter 8: An Agrarian Society
farm visited these trees at the proper time.” Later, “when the first frost came around the persimmons begin to get ripe.” Persimmons could be made into food and drink. Families were often large in the early 1800s. Many couples often had five or six children. Sometimes the youngest brother or sister was born after the oldest had moved away. Large families made sense at the time, since each child could work at the varied chores demanded on the farm. Farm families had many needs for tools, implements, and clothing that went beyond their own abilities and resources. A single farmer was seldom a jack-of-all-trades, since equipment could be too expensive. For example, almost every family had a spinning wheel, which was used to turn cotton, flax, or wool into yarn. Women often spun yarn all winter. Some could then knit socks or caps. Most women, however, could not afford or find space for a loom—the very complex machine that wove yarn into cloth. They would turn to some family in the neighborhood who spent their time weaving for others. A weaver could be male or female. Since everyone had horses or mules, a blacksmith was needed to make shoes for the animals and repair iron tools. Since blacksmithing tools were an expensive investment,
Above: Looking at the size of this mid-1800s loom, it’s no wonder that there was little space in a home for one. Left: A blacksmith performed the important role of placing shoes on horses and mules so their hoofs would not wear down too quickly.
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In modern times, coopers are in demand at wineries, where aging wine is stored in huge barrels.
only a few could make a living in each neighborhood. The same was true for coopers, skilled workers who could turn wood and iron into barrels, which were used to store everything from vinegar to flour. The most important tradesman was the miller, who ground the corn and wheat families needed each week to make cornbread and biscuits in the home. Because North Carolina had only scattered and small towns in the early 1800s, agrarian families depended upon their neighbors to provide goods and services they themselves could not provide. As a result, much of life in agrarian North Carolina revolved around neighborly activities. The neighborhood, an identifiable place where a small group of people spent most of their time, was as important as the family.
The Neighborhood Economy
Above: The Old Mill of Guilford, located near Greensboro, has been in continuous operation since 1820. Most neighborhoods had at least one mill. A county might have as many as twenty at one time.
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During the early 1800s, rural neighborhoods dominated the landscape of North Carolina. Because most North Carolinians still needed to walk most places they went, neighborhoods could be no more than five to eight miles across. This was about the distance a person could walk in a day and still get back home. One 1820s resident of the Beaver Dam neighborhood near Greenville remembered that thirty-eight houses were part of his community. Homes were scattered across the landscape, often spread a half mile apart. All neighborhoods had a central point, however, where everyone could at some time come together. The neighborhood of Bunn’s Level, in what is today Harnett County, was started in the 1820s. Joseph and Nancy Bunn were married in 1815 and through their thirty-one years of marriage had ten children. They built their house on “a flat plot of land” on the road from Raleigh to Fayetteville. As other people settled nearby, the neighborhood became focused there. The Bunns donated land for a church in 1832, then in 1846 their house was the site of the first post office. (Much later the small village of Bunnlevel grew up nearby.) Neighbors generally knew one another by sight. In some cases, they were relatives, since sons and daughters of nearby farm families often married one another. If the young people did not move west, they settled near their original homes, just increasing the size of their neighborhoods. Much of the business conducted in North Carolina during the early 1800s was done within the neighborhood. A farmer might pay for the repair of his wagon by helping the wagon maker harvest his corn. A farm wife might pay for a barrel of molasses by sending a son to chop firewood for a period of time. Such bartering (trading one item for another) was very important, because most North Carolinians lacked a lot
Chapter 8: An Agrarian Society
of cash. As the Beaver Dam resident recalled, with such a system “the people were not rich, but they were independent of want or care.” Sometimes, when a service One Methodist member could not be paid for immediately, was “suspended from one neighbor gave a “note” to anfellowship” for a year other neighbor. With these “I owe because he had picked up you’s,” the holder could expect a bolt of cloth off the road payment at a future time. Since a and kept it, instead of promise was a promise, and since returning it to its owner. neighbors knew who everyone was, the note could actually be traded around like a check. Whoever held the piece of paper at the time payment was due could collect. The person who owed the money paid in cash or started bartering all over again. This made the neighborhood work together. It was part of a whole series of obligations neighbors performed for one another. Each neighborhood could have one or two churches, most often a Baptist church on the Coastal Plain or a Methodist church in the backcountry. By the 1830s, at least half the population of the state went to church about once a month, when a minister visited. Quite often, the builders of common schools put them next to churches. This occurred at Bunnlevel in the 1840s, at the Baptist church near the Bunn residence. Churches were also part of the neighborhood obligation system. Church members were subject to church disciplinary trials if they violated the codes
Above: Third Creek Presbyterian Church in Cleveland is the oldest rural church still in use in North Carolina. It was built in 1835. Peter Stuart Ney is buried in its cemetery.
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of conduct prescribed by their faith. For example, church members were disciplined if they regularly abused alcohol or if they cheated or harmed someone else in the neighborhood. Some Baptist congregations (local worship groups) would not even hold services until any disputes among neighbors had been settled to the satisfaction of the congregation. Presbyterians could not take communion (one of the key rituals of Christianity) unless they had a token, a metal tab given them by the elders of the congregation that confirmed they were in good standing. Another way neighbors cooperated was in the marketing of crops. Since farming was mostly subsistence, families and their livestock ate or wore most of what they grew. Any surplus could be bartered to neighbors or, more profitably, sold in nearby markets to merchants. Most farm-
Above and left: The Malcolm Blue Farm is typical of the homesteads built by Scottish settlers in the early 1800s. The barns and farm buildings (top), wooden water tower (above), and home (right) are all part of this historic farm.
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ers did not grow enough to go to distant markets like Charleston or Wilmington by themselves. The horses would eat up all the profits if the wagon was half full. So, neighborhoods practiced clubbing and drovering.
Clubbing and Drovering In clubbing, a neighborhood combined their surplus crops into one large load and trusted neighbors to go to market for them. Neighbors might ship anything from flour to beeswax to goose feathers to ginseng. These trips were always in the fall, after harvest, and took weeks to complete. The clubbers made the best bargain they could and came back with needed cash and items like fine cloth, books, coffee, spices, and fruit, all things which could not be grown or easily made in the neighborhood. Rufus Barringer remembered that his neighborhood in Cabarrus County thought clubbing was so important it “would have a frolick” (a party like a harvest festival) when the market trip was over. One of the best returns on farming was the sale of livestock. They were cheap to raise, since the animals had the run of the woods to forage on acorns and sprouts like honeysuckle. In autumn, neighbors rounded up the animals, sorted them by the mark found on their ear, and then embarked on a market trip. Drovers took the livestock all the way to the coast. The Buncombe Turnpike, completed in 1828, went from eastern Tennessee to Charleston and was the most used drover’s route. It was famous for its “hog hotels.” James Alexander ran the largest one ten miles north of Asheville. The drovers penned their animals at night and slept in a dry shed. Alexander provided a store, repair shops, a post office, and an outdoor bowling alley for the drover. These service centers were very similar to the truck stops of the twenty-first century. The first bridge built across the Catawba River, in 1849, had a special rate for hogs. People had to pay more.
Life Outside the Neighborhood
Above: Most farmers had livestock of some sort, like cattle. Extra animals were driven to market in the east.
While agrarian North Carolinians spent most of their time on their own and their neighbors’ farms, they did venture out for holidays and special occasions. Clubbing, of course, meant that a few residents got to visit ports like Wilmington, New Bern, or Charleston once a year. Most members of a farm family, however, never left the neighborhood except on special occasions. Twice a year, almost every family in a section of each county came together for muster day. Since each able-bodied man was expected to be available to defend the state, they trained twice a year, once in the spring
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Above: During court week, county residents might make their way to courthouses such as these in Northampton County in Jackson (top) and Yancey County in Burnsville (above).
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just before planting and again in the fall just after harvest. These events were forerunners of the county fair of later days, since families would bring the best of their produce and wares to show and trade. Four times a year, families in each county of the state went to court week. Each county in that day was governed by justices of the peace, men who in each neighborhood did exactly what their title suggested. These judges tried petty crimes and small disputes among neighbors. In the middle of each season, selected justices came to the county seat and tried cases that needed a jury trial. The justices would also put their official seal on legal documents like deeds and wills. Outside the courthouse, people were festive and social, often having what George Yoder called “a jollification.” Farm women sold their best baked goods, often dried fruit pies or gingerbread. Men gathered to swap stories and trade livestock. Teenagers literally “courted,” that is, got together, possibly with romance in mind. Two events occurred in August each year. Throughout the state, Christian churches held camp meetings, a long weekend of religious services where people came and camped. At first, people slept in tents or in their wagons. Over time, many families erected some cabins, a forerunner of the vacation home. The largest of the campgrounds was at Rock Spring in Lincoln County, which was started in 1830. Also in August, North Carolina held election day. The federal government scheduled congressional and presidential elections for November, but North Carolinians chose their leaders in late summer. Since an eligible man could vote anywhere in the county, many chose to take a trip to the county seat. Elections, too, were festive occasions, and turnout to vote was high. Both camp meetings and election day were scheduled in August because farmers celebrated laying-by season that month. This was the short period of time when the crops were in the ground and had to be left alone until harvest. This and Christmas (when the ground was most likely to be frozen) were really the only times farmers could leave the neighborhood and not jeopardize the well-being of the family. Christmas was “kept” mostly at home, with families who could afford it enjoying an extensive meal. Some neighborhoods, particularly the Ger-
Chapter 8: An Agrarian Society
man ones, kept “double Christmas,” where, on December 26, neighborhoods got together to feast and play. Horseracing was one popular activity. These community events attracted North Carolinians of all levels of society. Even the richest residents of the state came to public occasions, often bringing their slaves. Although the richest and poorest North Carolinians lived agrarian lives just like everyone else, the extremes of their conditions meant that they had different experiences.
It’s Your Turn 1. What was subsistence farming? 2. Why were neighborhoods no more than 5-8 miles across? 3. What was clubbing? 4. Name two occasions for which a farm family might leave the neighborhood.
Top: Court week attracted a variety of people and their wares. Some came for legal business; some came for the opportunity to get together with other people. Still others, young people mostly, came to do some actual “courting.” Above: Quakers held their annual meeting at the New Garden Quaker Meeting House in Guilford County.
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CAROLINA PLACES
Rock Spring Camp Meeting Ground
In the years before the Civil War, North Carolina actually had, for one weekend a year, one large city. Every August, Methodists along the Catawba River gathered at Rock Spring, in Lincoln County, to worship and socialize. For four days, Rock Spring was twice as big as Fayetteville or New Bern and a little bigger than Wilmington. Most years more than 10,000 people clustered around the arbor used for worship services. It even had its own temporary mayor and police force to keep folks in line. Camp meetings had been started by Methodists soon after the War for Independence as a way to better spread their religious message. Since most churches were small, preaching outside reached more people at one time. The first outdoor meeting was held in 1795 very near the site of Rock Spring. After 1800, the idea spread to the Presbyterian and Baptist churches, but Methodists were the masters of the gathering. Camp meeting soon developed into an annual ritual. Each August, farm families “laid by” their crops, letting them alone until harvest. They then had time to get away. Families that came to camp meeting each summer built “tents” in a square around the arbor. Originally, the tents were tiny log huts;
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over time, they evolved into frame huts with dirt floors. The families also brought all the food they would need, particularly chicken and fruit pies, along with country ham and biscuits that would “keep” even in warm weather. Some even brought beds and bed frames. Worship services were held in the covered arbor three times a day: morning, afternoon, and night. The most respected preachers in the two Carolinas were invited to Below left and below: People have met at the Rock Spring Camp Meeting Ground every year for the last century, except for when there was a polio epidemic in 1944. The meeting lasts for one week.
Above: Most families spent days at the camp meeting praying, singing, and listening to sermons. They brought food and stayed in tents. Later, those tents became cabins.
preach, often two or three at a time. At the end of each sermon, worshippers were invited to come forward to announce they had made a religious decision about their lives. Most of those who came forward were teenagers, for “going to the altar” was part of the process for growing up in most rural neighborhoods of the day. Camp meeting was as much a social occasion as a religious one. Men traded horses, women told stories about their families, and young people quite often courted. Dozens of Methodist families were actually started with a courtship at camp meeting. After all, it was one of the few times all year when a person could meet “people from all over.” Rock Spring was so large and popular that some of its worshippers split off and made up their own campgrounds. The largest was Ball’s Creek, up the river in Catawba County. The slaves at Ball’s Creek set up their campgrounds at two places, McKenzie’s Chapel and Mott’s Grove. After the Civil War, the former Rock Spring slaves moved off and set up Tucker’s Grove. By the early 1900s, there were more large Methodist campgrounds concentrated along the Catawba River than anywhere else in the United States. All five of these campgrounds—located within a dozen miles of each another—have survived into the twenty-first century. Thousands still come each summer, most of them direct descendants of the original worshippers more than a century ago.
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