September 27, 2024 Coats Museum News
Did Malcolm Fowler have roots in our Turlington area? I do know that he once operated a store in Coats with the father of Ted, Charles and Johnny Malone and in it they sold appliances in the late 1940's. Did Malcolm Fowler have the first television in the area? Some say he did. I do know the he was an amazing historian and because of his book “They Passed This Way,” we have priceless information about Harnett County.
For example in this book he shared information about the very earliest men who challenged the wilderness of the area that was to become Harnett County in 1855. He referred to them as the “Restless Men.” He named Gilbert Patterson, Archie Buie, and Neill McNeill .Fowler stated that after the restless men left, men with more stable feet came.
Were these new settlers only Scot Irish, Scot Highlanders, and English? Where there others? Fowler wrote that the Highlanders quickly saw that they knew nothing about Naval Stores and they refused to buy land and traveled farther up the Cape Fear River; however, they did not buy land or settle near some earlier settlers who wore funny shaped hats and called themselves Quakers. Fowler also said they refused to fall for the Quakers’ story that they could grow a strange new plant called “cotton” which would be far better to make clothes than wool or flax. Didn’t COTTON become king in Harnett later? Also note that the Scots were HIGHLANDERS and they wanted rolling hills where they could be hunters and warriors.
History shares that Germans came from north to our Cumberland area. Did they come down the Great Wagon Road? From what I just wrote it seemed to say that there were Quakers that might have come up from Wilmington, a very populated area. By the way did you know at one time the two largest communities of populations on our side of the river were Averasboro and Barclaysville? Did John and Mildred Barclay come down from Pennsylvania? What happened to these two large communities destined to become towns?
Should we address the effect that the railroads had in developing towns?
Have you wondered how our early settlers acquired land when they came to Carolina? Let’s talk about that next week but for now let’s return to 1994 in the Grove Township area and read what was happening.
Grove Township had so many brave, young men cross the “Big Sea” to fight a war on merciless soils that drank their blood and robbed their families back home of husbands, children and sons. One widow who lost her young husband to WWII was Madeline M. Wiggs. His body would be returned to the states much, much later to her and her young daughter Billy Jean. Madeline’s own death notice appeared in the October 31, 1994 edition of the Daily Record. Madeline had died at the Cape Fear Valley Hospital. She was the daughter of the late Scotch N. McLeod and Emily Lee McLeod. Her daughter, Billy Jean Wiggs Harvell, and her brother, Clyde McLeod survived her.
Another local man who fought on the foreign soils at the Battle of the Bulge was Robert Strickland. However, in 1994 he was celebrating his 50th Wedding Anniversary. Rev. D.A. Hardin of Erwin had married the couple on Nov. 1, 1944. (That was during WWII.) Mrs. Strickland was the former Myrtle Johnson (Daily Record Nov. 1, 1994).
Jonathan P. McRae, 13, of Route 2, Coats, had died on Monday at Duke Medical Center. He was a student at Foundations Bible College (Daily Record Nov. 2, 1994).
When we volunteers leave the museum every Thursday, many of us think what a blessing today was. That was truly the case last Thursday when we were honored to have a visit from the Paul Green family descendants and have them share some remarkable Harnett history. Amazingly, Paul Green has his roots in the Barclaysville area. In fact my dad played baseball with Paul Green on the Coats team and I recall that Dad said Paul Green could pitch with one arm for a while and then switch and pitch with the other. I recall thinking at the time that was just a good story from my dad, but when we were researching the Coats history, two newspaper articles verified what my dad said about how great a baseball pitcher Paul was.
Lynwood Dupree, thank you for coming into our lives and introducing us to Danny Green and Jean Adams Lee Hart. Both could teach us a thing or two us about keeping our brains sharp and our bodies strong. Thank you, Lynwood, for also inviting Charles Arrington and Todd Johnson. Todd heads up the Heritage Center in Smithfield and what remarkable growth of the Heritage Center had continued under Todd’s leadership. How smart Todd was to bring on our Mark Valsame who is retired from the NC State Archives as an archivist working with the governors’ papers and was a major contributor of genealogies to our Research Library.
With the group was Joe Langley who knows firsthand what the pursuit of one‘s ancestry can disclose. His story could be one that I can write about in another column.
It takes artifacts, stories and money to make a great museum so we have to add that we truly appreciate Lynwood’s donation, Becky Adams’s memorials for Patsy Avery, Doug Johnson and Larry Denning. Mary Ellen Lauder memorialized her parents-Herbert and McClellan Johnson and Randy and Rhonda Denning Stephenson remembered Timmy Pollard and Patsy Avery. Ernestine Young dropped in to remember her friend the late Patsy Avery. The volunteers are overwhelmed by the goodness of people to the museum. If the giving continues, we can build a second exhibit building. Thank you!
Did Malcolm Fowler have roots in our Turlington area? I do know that he once operated a store in Coats with the father of Ted, Charles and Johnny Malone and in it they sold appliances in the late 1940's. Did Malcolm Fowler have the first television in the area? Some say he did. I do know the he was an amazing historian and because of his book “They Passed This Way,” we have priceless information about Harnett County.
For example in this book he shared information about the very earliest men who challenged the wilderness of the area that was to become Harnett County in 1855. He referred to them as the “Restless Men.” He named Gilbert Patterson, Archie Buie, and Neill McNeill .Fowler stated that after the restless men left, men with more stable feet came.
Were these new settlers only Scot Irish, Scot Highlanders, and English? Where there others? Fowler wrote that the Highlanders quickly saw that they knew nothing about Naval Stores and they refused to buy land and traveled farther up the Cape Fear River; however, they did not buy land or settle near some earlier settlers who wore funny shaped hats and called themselves Quakers. Fowler also said they refused to fall for the Quakers’ story that they could grow a strange new plant called “cotton” which would be far better to make clothes than wool or flax. Didn’t COTTON become king in Harnett later? Also note that the Scots were HIGHLANDERS and they wanted rolling hills where they could be hunters and warriors.
History shares that Germans came from north to our Cumberland area. Did they come down the Great Wagon Road? From what I just wrote it seemed to say that there were Quakers that might have come up from Wilmington, a very populated area. By the way did you know at one time the two largest communities of populations on our side of the river were Averasboro and Barclaysville? Did John and Mildred Barclay come down from Pennsylvania? What happened to these two large communities destined to become towns?
Should we address the effect that the railroads had in developing towns?
Have you wondered how our early settlers acquired land when they came to Carolina? Let’s talk about that next week but for now let’s return to 1994 in the Grove Township area and read what was happening.
Grove Township had so many brave, young men cross the “Big Sea” to fight a war on merciless soils that drank their blood and robbed their families back home of husbands, children and sons. One widow who lost her young husband to WWII was Madeline M. Wiggs. His body would be returned to the states much, much later to her and her young daughter Billy Jean. Madeline’s own death notice appeared in the October 31, 1994 edition of the Daily Record. Madeline had died at the Cape Fear Valley Hospital. She was the daughter of the late Scotch N. McLeod and Emily Lee McLeod. Her daughter, Billy Jean Wiggs Harvell, and her brother, Clyde McLeod survived her.
Another local man who fought on the foreign soils at the Battle of the Bulge was Robert Strickland. However, in 1994 he was celebrating his 50th Wedding Anniversary. Rev. D.A. Hardin of Erwin had married the couple on Nov. 1, 1944. (That was during WWII.) Mrs. Strickland was the former Myrtle Johnson (Daily Record Nov. 1, 1994).
Jonathan P. McRae, 13, of Route 2, Coats, had died on Monday at Duke Medical Center. He was a student at Foundations Bible College (Daily Record Nov. 2, 1994).
When we volunteers leave the museum every Thursday, many of us think what a blessing today was. That was truly the case last Thursday when we were honored to have a visit from the Paul Green family descendants and have them share some remarkable Harnett history. Amazingly, Paul Green has his roots in the Barclaysville area. In fact my dad played baseball with Paul Green on the Coats team and I recall that Dad said Paul Green could pitch with one arm for a while and then switch and pitch with the other. I recall thinking at the time that was just a good story from my dad, but when we were researching the Coats history, two newspaper articles verified what my dad said about how great a baseball pitcher Paul was.
Lynwood Dupree, thank you for coming into our lives and introducing us to Danny Green and Jean Adams Lee Hart. Both could teach us a thing or two us about keeping our brains sharp and our bodies strong. Thank you, Lynwood, for also inviting Charles Arrington and Todd Johnson. Todd heads up the Heritage Center in Smithfield and what remarkable growth of the Heritage Center had continued under Todd’s leadership. How smart Todd was to bring on our Mark Valsame who is retired from the NC State Archives as an archivist working with the governors’ papers and was a major contributor of genealogies to our Research Library.
With the group was Joe Langley who knows firsthand what the pursuit of one‘s ancestry can disclose. His story could be one that I can write about in another column.
It takes artifacts, stories and money to make a great museum so we have to add that we truly appreciate Lynwood’s donation, Becky Adams’s memorials for Patsy Avery, Doug Johnson and Larry Denning. Mary Ellen Lauder memorialized her parents-Herbert and McClellan Johnson and Randy and Rhonda Denning Stephenson remembered Timmy Pollard and Patsy Avery. Ernestine Young dropped in to remember her friend the late Patsy Avery. The volunteers are overwhelmed by the goodness of people to the museum. If the giving continues, we can build a second exhibit building. Thank you!