Hillsborough Project 

    The TPA received a grant from the Hillsborough Tourism Board to produce a study of landscape artifacts visible along the route of the proposed "Riverwalk."  We've done some work on the project already and will be mapping sites for the next month or so.  It will give us a chance to use the canoe donated by Amanda Smith as, this past weekend, we found at least two or three pools too deep to wade.  If anybody has a submergable viewing box, let us know as it would be handy to have along in the pools.  We are seeing wooden dam remnants and other artifact clusters in the bottom of the stream bed that warrant closer viewing possible only with snorkel. 

As the GIS map to the left shows, we have already mapped considerable material in the area.  We need to push the mapping upstream to the railroad trestle, and there are some some remnants of original, surface level, ungraded railroad bed still visible just north and east of the trestle that need mapping..

Eventually the Riverwalk will parallel the river on the north bank from where we'll park for the September First Sunday Hike upstream, under the bridges, and up the slope to the area of the Gateway center (Weaver St. Mkt).  Then it will cross Exchange Club Bridge, turn west on Faribault Rd, and make its way to the south bank of the river near the creek confluence.  Then the path will move upstream to the trestle where a pedestrian bridge will carry traffic over to Gold Park.

Our challenge will be to map as many artifacts as possible to give them some degree of protection from licensed vandals with a permit to bulldoze.  The original alignment of the Riverwalk had it going through the middle of the N-K Mill site with a fifty foot right of way for path construction.  Jean Sauthier drew the N-K Mill into his 1771 map of Hillsborough and every detail he showed is still visible at the mill site.  Most of it would have been mere obstacles to a well engineered path.

We'll get to see much of this material, at least the stuff on the north bank during the September FSH. [Click the map for a larger image]

Recent Project Follow-ups

King's Highway Park Clean-up (Tentative Date)
    We've tentatively scheduled a trail cleaning day for the 6th of September.  Adventure Scouts and Boy Scouts will begin gathering at the park at 9 AM.  The trails are, in places overgrown and need blazing.  There are a couple logs that will provide excellent training in the art of two person cross-cut sawing, and trash bags will be excellent adjunct equipment.  King's Highway Park is a Hillsborough Town Park west of town in the great bend of the Eno where Old Ten crosses that River.  To get there take Dimmock Mill Rd west, alongside the river until you run out of Dimmock Mill Rd and come to Lake Ben Johnson and the pumping station.  If the date changes we will send out an announcement.  If you don't hear from us to the contrary the event is "on."

Davidson County Again Takes the Cake

You will recall that Davidson Vision, an economic development organization in Lexington, NC published our report about the original roads and trails of Davidson County.  Weill, a few weeks ago, at a press conference Davidson released that publication.  A roomful of folks gathered for a slide show, some words from Board Member Dr. Max Walser (Davidson County Commissioner) and then Tom signed books for a half hour or so.  By the end of the day the original press run was pretty well gone.  Davidson Vision may do a second printing but they'll probably have to charge for the next books as they're not budgeted to give any more away.  A few days later Tom returned and led a group of twenty or thirty folks for a hike down to Boone's Ford.  That was a heck of a turnout for a Saturday in July.

Wiki: TPA starts a few wiki for history

We try not to be too trendy but starting a wiki just seemed to be a good idea.  Wiki are internet sites where you can post a paper or a document for public viewing and others can add to or comment on the paper or the document.  They come in two forms, open access and limited access.  In the past few days the TPA has set up three wiki.  There is one open access wiki and two restricted access wiki.  The public access is called nclocalhistory and in it we organizes data in county folders.  To view it or to upload documents to it, you will have to sign up for a pbwiki login.  Once you have your login and password, you can visit any time, help friends with their writing project or just share your work.  We invite local historians to upload histories, maps, land grants, genealogy and all the other stuff local historians love to see. 

Just today, in a flurry of emails, some very fruitful collaborative history happened (and is still happening).  As part of our 'how the heck do we use this thing called a wiki' program we mounted images associated with the collaboration in the Orange County folder of the nclocalhistory wiki.  Take a look.  The case in hand was that of a lynching victim named Cyrus Guy.  Document transcriber, Steward Dunaway found a non-nondescript coroner's report and an associated court order dealing with a hanging from 1869 misfiled in a road order folder.  Of interest was the fact that the site of the death was at the intersection of Lebanon Road and High Rock Road.  He shared the documents with friends.  David Southern, a grant mapper, odologist  and documentarian recognized the victim's surname and suggested the victim was a person of color.   And Ernest Dollar, Executive Director of the Chapel Hill Preservation Society and historian extraordinaire recalled a slave narrative transcribed by the WPA in the 20th century mentioning somebody of that name and Dollar provided a link to the on-line transcript in which the former slave identified the lynched man and the circumstances of that lynching among others.  We have posted the links and a growing pile of related documents and maps in the Orange County folder at www.nclocalhistory.pbwiki.com.

The two restricted access wiki are restricted simply to protect the innocent on the one hand and to guard against "thieves of time" on the other.  The former is called firstfrontierhistoryedits and its purpose is to provide a safe place for writers to post their writing for volunteer editors to proof read and recommend changes.  Writers can even specify who will be allowed to edit their work.

The latter wiki is called grantmapperpages and its purpose is to provide a meeting place for grant mappers.  Their work is with very fundamental documents and the plats that often accompany land grants and deeds reveal things like graveyards, and house sites and other places targeted by low-life, unscrupulous, grave-robbing thieves of time.  Further, grant mapping is an inherently solitary task.  Most the folks involved don't particularly want to be distracted by the curious, but they can all benefit from one another's experience.  So, the grant wiki is an experiment in collaboration between folks unaccustomed to society.  It ought to be interesting.

If you are a grant mapper and want access to the grant mapping wiki, communicate your desire to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it   The same holds true if you are an author slaving away alone, with nary a proof-reader in sight.  Just write and ask for admission and it shall be granted.  We are just, as noted above, trying to avoid the uglier aspects of wiki editing on the one hand and the accidental release of sensitive information on the other.

Historic City Maps

Recently the mails brought to us a catalog from an organization called Historic Urban Plans, Inc.  They offer for sale relatively inexpensive maps of various historic cities.  Included were a number of 18th century maps of our favorite southern cities.  Most were priced around thirty to thirty-five dollars.  Neat eye-wash for somebody in New Bern or Eden, Richmond or Williamsburg, Raleigh, Columbia, Savannah.....etc.

Upcoming Events

September 7th, 2PM, At the end of Cameron Street in Hillsborough, NC: First First Sunday Hike of the new season.  See the website "Events" for directions

This is a date change: Thursday, September 25th, 7PM, Commissioners Room, Louisburg, NC, Tom will be part of a panel discussing studies needed and how to engage county institutions in the historic studies. at the initial meeting of the Benjamin Franklin Society of Franklin County.

Sunday, October 5th, 2PM until 4PM, First Sunday Hike, location TBA

Tuesday, October 7th, 9 AM, Blowing Rock Conference Center, Blowing Rock, NC, Tom will speak about NC history to Duke's Continuing Education Students from the OLLIE program.

Saturday October 18th, Carolina Country Club, Pinehurst, Tom will speak to the local DAR Chapter

Suggest A Hike

If you have an idea about a place to hike or an interesting spot you'd like us to visit, let us know.  We are more or less on hiatus in July and August, and we may resume First Sunday Hikes in September.  Meanwhile if you have a place we can hike without bugs and other varmints bothering us, please  let us know about it.

 
trm