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First Sunday Hike, October 5th

Honest, there was joy on our hike; it wasn't nearly as serious as the hikers in the photo to the left imply.  The day of the hike was beautiful, and thanks to the Triangle Land Conservancy, we had a chance to see parts of Johnston Mill Nature Preserve seldom seen.  We walked an old roadbed, and we saw two dams sites, a stream crossing of some sort, and a number of great examples of "signs" of prior use.  For example, There were three "rubble fields" in two different streams, a mill foundation embedded in a hill side, a ford distinctly visible downstream from one dam, and stacked stone stuck up under a stream bank, a vestige of a long abandoned bridge or culvert.   The two dams probably provided the most amusement of the day.  Johnston's Mill dam on New Hope Creek was close to Turkey Farm Road, and another, unnamed dam was seen about 4/10 of a mile upstream from Johnston's Mill.  The larger image to the right is of the dam at the Johnston's Mill seat.

We would never have known about the second mill site were it not for Mark Chilton, Mayor of Carrboro.  Mark's hobby is locating and studying old mills int he Haw River Watershed, and the one he took  us to was a delight.  Though the hydrology remains a bit baffling, there was very clearly seen a ford downstream from the dam site, and the dam's rubble field was a classic of that type.  That is Mark to the left, pointing out and explaining the foundations of the old mill seat.  To the right is an image of dam remnants at this unnamed site.  And the rubble field  shown in the photo immediately to the left is scattered down New Hope Creek below the mill seat.  Note the marked change in stream bottom rubble on the left half of the photo.  the stones below the rubble are much smaller and are, in fact, graveling in the bottom of the old ford that crossed the stream below the mill dam.
 
The original roadbed for what became Turkey Farm Road is what most recently drew our attention to the Johnston Mill site.  It is an interesting artifact, apparently, unnoticed previously by Triangle Land Conservancy stewards.  "Apparently" only because a TLC hiking path intersects and overlays a portion of the old road and fresh flagging indicates an intent to put another trail through the old road.  As with all old roads, the land either side of the road should be examined for signs of prior use. 

We are obliged to Bob Smith and Diane Magnuson for the photos of this outing.

Other artifacts seen along the way 

Another great example of a subtle telltale sign we saw on this hike (and shown in the photo to the right) was a remnant of some sort of stream crossing on a no-name creek paralleling Turkey Farm Road, feeding into Old Field Creek from the south. The old roadbed we walked on was associated with this stream crossing. All that remained of a bridge or culvert (most likely the former) that once crossed the little creek were free stacked stones in up under the creek bank. The photo to the far right is of these stones.These can be very hard to see but they are dead giveaways of human use of the land. Nature just doesn't normally make linear stacked stone features that intrude on otherwise stone-free soils.

November First Sunday Hike at Bethabara, Moravians' First Settlement in the Wachau District, November 2nd, 2-4 PM

This will be a very special hike.  Come early and plan on staying late.  Bethabara, an long-term archaeological project, is an absolute "must see."  Our hike will depart from the visitor center at about 2 and well walk down to the seat of the original town mill built by the earliest Moravian settlers in North Carolina.  Rod Meyer will interpret what we see.  He is a first rate historian of the area, a well known expert on the Great Wagon Road, and you'll find his observations stimulating.  If possible arrive early as, even as just reconnaissance, there is a great deal to be seen around the visitor center which also contains all those amenities so needed before a two hour walk.  Rod will give us a map talk at the visitor center before we depart.

This hike will be on prepared surfaces for the most part.  Click on the following links for more information on the park, a map of the park and how to find the park

Moravian Settlements and the Great Wagon Road

Moravians, a central European sect of Christians noted for good works, humble living, remarkable persistence, and good business sense came to North America and settled first in Pennsylvania creating Bethlehem, PA in 1741.  One of their missions in the new world was to offer Christian support to Native Americans.  Of all Protestant attempts at this goal, theirs was probably the most successful.  By the 1750s they were looking for new opportunities for business growth and evangelism, and cheap land in North Carolina drew their interest.  A party of Moravians led by the American leader of the movement, Bishop Spangenburg, first entered North Carolina by way of Edenton in 1752.  They sought a large tract of land in the Granville District, and went west to investigate a McCulloch tract located north of the Yadkin River and south of the Saura Mountains.  The group marched west and marched right past their destination, got lost in the mountains, and finally found their land after great hardship.  They staked their claim, returned to Pennsylvania and the following year sent an advanced party traveled down the primitive roads of the backcountry to create a settlement.  That settlement was Bethabara.  Much of their travel south was along what had been the Warriors Path and was already in 1753 a well known wagon route south through the valley of the Shenandoah, and from the moment of its creation Bethabara became a well known stop along the Great Wagon Road.  The Yadkin River, flowing from west to east South of Bethabara, until the advent of ferrying on that river, presented a major obstacle to travel north and south along the base of the mountains.  From Bethabara settlers coming into Carolina by way of the Great Wagon Road could access all the upper fords over the Yadkin River.

Books: Archibald Henderson, Patrick Griffin and John Anthony Caruso on the Over The Mountain Folk

For those of you with time enough to read and an inclination to learn a bit more about the wild west of the 17th and 18th centuries there are quite a few books of interest recently shelved at the TPA office the most recent of which is Patrick Griffin's American Leviathan: Empire, Nation, and Revolutionary Frontier (NY: Hill and Wang, 2007, paperback ISBN-10-:8090-9515-7).  Griffin offers a powerful revision of the moment when fear-bred racism licensed genocide against all native peoples.  The book opens with a description of a monument to Tom Quick, a frontiersman known for his ruthless hatred of all Native Americans, and it ends with a description of a monument to George Rogers Clark, 'the conqueror of the Northwest Territory.'  The novelty and drama of much of Griffin's book should probably be set against its historiographic background.  To do that you may want to read The Appalachian Frontier: Americas First Surge Westward by John Anthony Caruso.  First published in 1959 it is an excellent work of the celebratory type, the type extolling the virtues of American frontier hardiness..  A recent reprint of Caruso has a wonderful introduction by one of our leading scholars of that period and place, John C. Inscoe.  The introduction is a great excuse to by the book (The Appalachian Frontier:....., Knoxville: The University f Tennessee  Press, 2003, paper ISBN-1-57233-215-8).  The book is a wonderful description of America's second frontier in its best light.  Both books are enhanced by reading Archibald Henderson's The Conquest of the Old Southwest: The Romantic Story of the Early Pioneers into Virginia, The Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky 1740-1790 which is available for free, on-line thanks to Project Gutenburg.

December First Sunday Hike Location Open

We still haven't resolved on a December hike site.  It is a great month for looking at river bottom land.  We're open to suggestions for about two more weeks.

Upcoming Public Events

Thursday, October 30th, Ben Franklin Society meeting, Franklin County, NC. The 2nd Organizational Meeting of the Ben Franklin Society of Franklin County will be held 7:00pm Thursday, October 30th at the Youngsville Community House, 115 E. Main Street, Youngsville, NC. All are welcome who wish to perform “independent and collaborative research on matters of importance to Franklin County”.   Visit www.BenFranklinSocietyNC.org for Information, Directions and a Meeting Agenda, or contact Bob Radcliffe at 252-433-0272 or Email This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .  The Ben Franklin Society, we hope, will take on the task of mapping Franklin County's remaining historic landscape features; roads, mills, and so forth, and the TPA intends to support their effort in every possible way.

Saturday November 8th, Town Hall, Main Street, Denton, NC, Tom will speak on premodern transportation with some focus on the earliest transportation channels in the Denton area.

 
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