December First Sunday Hike on the Road to Few's Tavern, one of the TPA's most significant finds:

James Few, Sr was a Quaker tavern operator.  His nephew, also called James Few, was hung after the Battle of Alamance during the Regulator uprising (1771).  Shortly thereafter, James, Sr. and his brother and neighbor, William Few, who operated a mill near James' tavern left the Eno valley.  For many years, for reasons obscure local historians believed that Few's Tavern was located near Ayr Mount, on the east edge of Hillsborough, North Carolina.  But our St. Mary's Project uncovered what is very likely a tavern site on the bluff above the Eno River just upstream from where Buckquarter Creek enters that river.  For our December First Sunday Hike we will visit the tavern site to view the remains and we'll approach the tavern by way of the 18th century road from what was later called "Fanny's Ford".  Those of you who attended the November FSH will note similarities between this road and the stone-wall-lined road we visited on November 1st.   The tavern site is crisscrossed with free stacked stonework that needs to be seen.  An example to the right looks remarkably like the stone walls seen at the last First Sunday Hike lining the road west of Lochill.

We will meet in the parking lot above the Swinging Bridge in the Cole Mill section of Eno River State Park off of Pleasant Green Road in Orange County, NC.  We will depart the parking lot at about 2 PM and be back by 4 PM.  The course of the hike, except around the tavern, will be on cleared but unpaved state park trails.  There will be some climbing and the trails are, at best, uneven surfaces.  The heartier hikers may choose to ford the river a time or two as we pass both Fanny's Ford and Few's Ford.  There will be signs pointing the way to the parking area at each turn from the intersection of Pleasant Green Road and Cole Mill Road.

November First Sunday Hike: On the Road to Synnott's Tavern

It never ceases to amaze us, the hardiness of our fellow travelers.  On an overcast, rainy, chilly day over thirty of them showed up at Lochill Farm to walk the road to Synnot's Tavern, visit a graveyard on that road, and take a look at what was probably a post-road connected to Fanny's Ford over the Eno.  Payback for coming out was a bright, sunny day and vistas like that to the left (as usual, click it to enlarge the picture).  Lochill is a stable run by John Daly and what a treasure it is.  Both the east and the west property lines are old roads.  We believe the one to the east is oldest and was the road to Synnott's Tavern on the Trading Path.  The western road was the more imposing of the two and showed cobbling and much free stacked stone work along the roadside.

Because of the preceding days of rain we elected not to try to count the graves in the old graveyard alongside of Synnott's road and we allowed the opportunity to ford Fincher Creek elude us, but we still had fun, learned a bit, and enjoyed the day.  The damp woodland smells were wonderful.

To the right is a group climbing up a cut along Synnot's Road about a hundred yards north of the graveyard.  To the left is a shot taken near the western property line.  In the tree line behind the hikers we found a third old road deeply incised in the hillside, indicating that there is another route to be ferreted out one day. 

It is apparent that what we've been finding around the church are the remains of a substantial community that once occupied the roadsides between St. Mary's Chapel and the Eno River.  With the church on the Trading Path and on a very early version of the Virginia Post Road, a version likely to predate Hillsborough, the founders were likely to have foreseen the crossroad as becoming the central spot that destiny and perhaps a bit of political malevolence reserved for Hillsborough.

Annual Fundraising Letter

The Chairman's Letter went into the mail this week.  This is our one and only regular fundraising device and we depend on it to keep the doors open for at least half the year.  We thank Allison Knight and Evans McKinney for producing and copying the letter, and Diane Magnuson, Allison and Evans stuffed envelops.  This years letter sponsors include four Hillsborough, NC restauranteurs, and they are all excellent as attested by food reviewers and patrons alike.  Additionally, Sports Endeavors, parent of Great Atlantic LAX gear and Eurosport Soccer gear let us use their copiers to copy both letters and inserts.  So, please, show them your appreciation by availing yourself of their services.  Drop in the restaurants for a bite and say "Thanks" to them for supporting our work.  Buy your lacrosse and soccer gear from SEI:

If you haven't received a letter and think you would like to support us, please, contact us with your snail mail information.  We only do one surface mailing per year and we never share our mailing list.  If you have received the mailing and have already renewed your membership, share the mailing with somebody who might find our work interesting and worth supporting.

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Buy a Christmas Gift from TPA:

Water Bottles and Shirts Make Good Gifts

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To initiate or renew your membership in the TPA, we now offer the following three options:

Option 1: You can renew using your credit card via the Triangle Communities Foundation at: www.trianglecf.org

Option 2: You can click the "Donate Now" button on the right side of the screen, and that will take you to PayPal, a secure transaction site.  You'll be asked a few questions to create an account so as to protect your sensitive information, and then you'll be able to donate using a credit card or other vehicle.

Option 3: The membership form can be downloaded from the website and sent in to the address below with your payment.
 
Thanks for your continued support!

So, you want to suggest a First Sunday Hike.....

Please, if you want to suggest a First Sunday Hike, there are a few points to bear in mind that will make preparing the hike a lot easier.  For example:

1. We need to know the names and contact information for all property owners that will be affected,
2. The site needs sufficient parking for a dozen or more cars,
3. The hike needs artifact content, historic merit, something to trigger the hikers' imaginations; we need a description of the site,
4. There needs to be a passable route suitable for hikers of all ages,
5. The route should be less than two miles long, depending on artifact content.  That is, the more there is to see, the shorter should be the hike.
6. The trail head needs to be accessible without heroic driving.

As  a "Road Scholar" for the NC Humanities Council, Tom will go anywhere in the state of North Carolina
to speak on transportation and migration in the colonial backcountry of the southeast.  Paid for with grants from the
Humanities Council (www.nchumanities.org), these talks must be open to the public, so we'll announce here and on
our website (under "Events") whenever we have a talk scheduled.  Kindly notify the hosting organization of your intent
to attend.