Edgecombe County:: Volume II

By Monika S. Fleming

Edgecombe County is a unique combination of beautiful pastoral scenery and strong, interesting

people. Communities like Pinetops, Whitakers, Speed, Leggett, and Conetoe provide an excellent insight into the struggles and triumphs of traditional

American small towns. In this highly anticipated

second volume, you will explore the social identity of Edgecombe County by taking visual tours of several

historic neighborhoods, schools, and churches. As with any successful region, Edgecombe County's greatest resource is its people, for the area has provided a wealth of talented citizens to the political arena, military battlefronts, the playing fields of professional sports, and the artistic community. This collection of images also honors the countless men and women who persevered through the county's periods of war, depression, and natural disaster and continued to support one another in times of need and adversity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781439623039

Monika S. Fleming

Monika S. Fleming, historian and acclaimed author of Echoes of Edgecombe County and Edgecombe County Volume II, has assembled a fascinating array of over 200 images that bring to life not only the town's distant past but its more recent history as well. Rocky Mount and Nash County, which contains a number of photographs from family albums and local historical archives that have never before been published, takes readers on a visual tour of this vital and interesting region. Combined with a wealth of well researched information, these rare images provide both an educational and entertaining experience of history that will be treasured by residents and visitors alike for years to come.

Book preview

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INTRODUCTION

Two aspects of Southern culture which shaped Edgecombe County are family and community. Although the communities vary in size, one finds in all of them families that have been around since the communities began.

The southern area of Edgecombe County was first settled in the 1730s. Founding families established homes along the Tar River and its tributaries in the communities of Sparta, Crisp, and St. Lewis. These areas prospered as river ports. In 1900 these communities had active governments, but as the century draws to a close, they have become just shadows of the towns they once were. The newer communities of Pinetops and Macclesfield developed along the East Carolina Railway, replacing river traffic with railroad spurs.

Sparta produced North Carolina governor, Elias Carr; his ancestral home, Bracebridge Hall, still stands in the small town, which dates back to the 1830s when a post office was established there. The community, renamed Old Sparta in 1903, had a population in the hundreds at one time in its history. Today, all that remains of the once busy river port are a country store and two churches: the Old Sparta Primitive Baptist, dating to 1856; and the Old Sparta Advent Church (formerly St. Ignatius, a mission church), built in 1918. Another agricultural center, St. Lewis was named for its first postmaster, James I. Lewis, in the late 1850s. At the beginning of this century, St. Lewis had several stores, a post office, a jail, two barrooms, a dentist’s office, a casket factory, and served as a cotton-buying station. Like Old Sparta, St. Lewis began to decline as Macclesfield and Pinetops grew.

Crisp, also in the southern part of the county, is named for Crisp Creek and was settled in the 1800s by the Eagles and Crisp families. Originally known as Eagles for the store established there in the 1830s, the community boasted Eagles Baptist Church and several schools, including Eagles Academy.

Conetoe (pronounced Ka-nee-ta) is located in southeastern Edgecombe along Conetoe Creek, for which it was named. Early history refers to it as Warren Station. In 1903, the area had a population of 132, including a mayor, a chief of police, a postmaster, and a doctor; Conetoe also had a Methodist church, four stores, and two saloons.

Northern Edgecombe County includes the communities of Speed, Lawrence, Draughon, Leggett, Whitakers, Battleboro, Rocky Mount, and West Edgecombe. Like the areas in the southern part of the county, these were once thriving areas. Today, most of these communities are crossroads or small towns of a few hundred people, with the exception of Rocky Mount.

Speed, a farming community, was named for E.T. Speed, an area doctor, in 1901. Originally known as Knight’s Station, the area had a school, which is no longer active, but still has a post office, fire department, depot, and an Episcopal mission church, St. Mary’s. Speed also had a lumber plant in the first quarter of this century.

Nearby Lawrence, known as Killquick in the early 1830s, changed its name several times before settling on Lawrence in 1901. The community has country stores and the Grace Episcopal Church, founded in 1894 by Sam Nash and members of Calvary Parish. Draughon, another community north of Lawrence, was named after the Wells Draughon family that settled the area in the late 1700s.

Leggett, to the west of Draughon and Lawrence, is located at the intersection of Highways 97 and 33 (formerly Hwy 44). At one time known as Leggettville, it may have been named after the Leggett family, who settled the area. Sgt. Henry Leggett, who served in the Civil War, is buried in a small cemetery there. William Hart established the William and Mary Hart Presbyterian Church. Speight’s Chapel and Williams Primitive Baptist Church also served the area along with Bethany and Red Hills Baptist churches, founded in the 1870s.

In western Edgecombe County, the towns of Whitakers, Battleboro, Sharpsburg, and Rocky Mount found themselves astride a county line, with the railroad track serving as the dividing line as political forces changed the boundary.

Battleboro was named for James Smith Battle, who helped fund construction of the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad. The railroad was completed in 1840 and led to the development of Whitakers, named for Richard and Henry Whitakers, landowners in the area who supplied the wood for the tracks. St. John’s Church in Battleboro is one of the town’s oldest structures. Damaged by fire in the 1990s, the church was restored and is still active. Incorporated in 1873, Battleboro had a population of 229 in 1900. It never grew much larger, and in 1996 it was annexed by Rocky Mount.

Although settled in 1840, Whitakers was not incorporated until 1872. In 1900 it had a population of about 350 and had three churches, a casket company, two cotton gins, two saw mills, and more than a dozen stores. The original town hall is now the library. Nearby is Getheseme Church, founded in the 1880s. In the 1990s the population is around eight hundred people.

Rocky Mount, with a current population topping 50,000, is now only partially in Edgecombe County. Settled in the 1750s by the Battle family, the town grew around a mill built in 1818, expanding as the railroad arrived in 1840. The town was incorporated in 1867, but remained small until the late 1890s when the Atlantic Coastline Railroad selected the area to house the railroad shops. The population jumped from 650 in 1890 to over 10,000 by 1910. In that time span, the community gained a fire department in 1896, electricity in 1902, a police department in 1905, and also a railroad hospital. The town prospered as a railroad community until after World War II, when other industrial concerns began to replace the railroad as the major employer.

In the 1960s a concerted effort developed among concerned citizens to preserve historic structures of the county and to create a museum to remember its heritage. Mrs. Pembroke (Jacqueline Drane) Nash, William A. Clark (HUD representative), George M. Britt, Mrs. Brent (Sylvia) Nash, Town Manager David Taylor, and Mrs. Sarah Manning Brinson discuss the movement and restoration of the Everett House (c. 1810) in the background. Originally located near Conetoe, the house was moved to Blount Square in the heart of Tarboro with a generous bequest from Miss Katherine Pender; the renamed Pender Museum was opened in 1969 to serve as the county museum of material culture. (BBH.)

One

1900–1919

From 1900 to 1919, Edgecombe County witnessed a tremendous growth in population, industry, and economics due to the success of the railroads. Citizens learned new skills to work in the factories. Schools quadrupled,