snippets ~ chatham history BLOG

Thank you, Chatham County Veterans!

More than 225 Chatham County Veterans are honored in the Chatham Historical Museum's Tribute to Valor Exhibit. You can see a list of included veterans on our website:

https://chathamhistory.org/.../ChathamCountyVeteransHonor...

If your family's Chatham County veterans are not yet included, here's the information you need:

Who is eligible? Veterans of any armed forces service branch (Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force and Coast Guard) who have a strong connection to Chatham County. The connection may include being born in Chatham, living here for most of one’s life, enlisting or serving while a Chatham resident.

What to submit: Digital photos of the veteran in uniform and without others in the photo are preferred, if possible. Photos should be scanned at high resolution and saved in jpg format. Please include the following information with the photo: veteran’s name, service branch, rank, your name, email address. By submitting the photo, you agree that CCHA has your permission to use the photograph in its exhibits and for other educational purposes.

How to submit: If your email program will not reduce the size of the digital photograph, you may email it as an attachment to history@chathamhistory.org. Receipt of the photo will be acknowledged. If you have any difficulty submitting the photo by email, contact us at history@chathamhistory.org for instructions on how to get the digital file to us.

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #veterans #TributetoValor #ChathamHistoricalMuseum

We posted this photo of the Jourdan Store, Moncure previously, and asked for any information about it. Thanks to Wincie Jane Hinnant, we now know a lot more!

Wincie Jane notes that some of her ancestors are in the photo. Her grandmother, Wincie Ann Bridges Johnson, had a sister named Camilla Bridges (1867-1922), who married Edmond Jourdan (1862-1942). Edmond and his family were from Combourg, France. They came to America by ship in the 1860's.

Here's the rest of Wincie Jane's account:

"Camilla and Edmond had children and the family lived in the southern part of Chatham County. One of their daughters was Mary Jourdan Cotten (1895-1973). She and my father were first cousins. Mary lived in the Deep River Community out of Moncure. I remember visiting her as a child."

"Now, the Jourdans were good at starting businesses. One of Edmond's brothers, Stanislaus Jourdan moved to Durham, NC. He owned S Jourdan Transfer Company. 'Stan' received the granite for the Chatham County Confederate statue from Mt. Airy by train. He transported the granite by horse and wagons to Pittsboro from Durham. It took several days."

"Some of the brothers had businesses in Durham and did well. Over the years, I lost contact. Most of the family no longer live in this area. I believe some even changed their last name from Jourdan to Jordan."

"I don't know which Jourdan owned the store in Moncure -- only that they were kin to my father. My father didn't leave me all the history on the Jourdans....only Edmond and his aunt Camilla."

Thanks, Wincie Jane, for filling in the history of this interesting photo! If you learn more, we hope you'll share it with us!

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #MoncureNC #JourdanStore #stores #early1900s

Harvey Newlin (1888-1970) was a Quaker, renowned barn builder, and restorer of mills. His granddaughter, Katherine Newlin Hadley, has written about her grandfather in a paper shared on the Chatham County Historical Association website. The stories Katherine shares provide a rich history of an aspect of Chatham's (and surrounding counties') past that is not covered elsewhere.

You can read it on our website:

https://chathamhistory.org/.../Resear.../Harvey%20Newlin.pdf

For more--We've previously posted David Hobson's article about Harvey and his barns:

https://chathamhistory.org/.../HarveyNewlinsBarnsDavidHob...

Click on the images to enlarge. Barn photos by Gary Simpson.

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #HarveyNewlin #barns #mills #Quaker

Hurricane Hazel made landfall near the North Carolina/South Carolina border as a Category 4 hurricane on October 15, 1954, causing widespread destruction, including a storm surge of up to 18 feet on the coast. Inland, winds over 150 mph and rainfall amounts over 10 inches caused significant damage. The storm killed 19 people in North Carolina and destroyed thousands of homes.

In Chatham, flooding and other damage was significant. Mark Ellington has contributed this photo of flood waters crossing Ellington Road at Bloodrun Creek in the aftermath of Hurricane Hazel, 1954.

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #storms #HurricaneHazel #1950s

Several photos of the remains of Farish's lock and dam on the Deep River were shared with us by Bryan Garland.

Farish's lock and dam is one of several described in The Story of the Cape Fear and Deep River Navigation Company, by Wade Hadley. According to that publication, Farish's was located on the Deep River below the mouth of Big Buffalo Creek and about seven miles above the next dam (Cleggs). The dam was nine feet high and created a pond that extended up-river about nine miles to Haughton's mill at Gulf.

The site took its name from Thomas Farrish, who had a fish-trap dam nearby. It is also sometimes called 'The Coal Fields Lock' because the ponds at its upper end extended past the mines at Farmville and Egypt. More details in the attached clipping and map showing the locations of dams and locks from the book.

The entire publication, The Story of the Cape Fear and Deep River Navigation Company, is available on our website:

https://chathamhistory.org/.../CapeFearDeepRiverNavigatio...

Thanks to Bryan Garland for sharing this info with us!

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #CapeFearDeepRiverNavigationCo #DeepRiver #dam #lock #Farish

The opening of Chatham Hospital in Siler City was celebrated on 11 June 1950.

The original Chatham Hospital opened in a two-story brick house in 1937 (behind the new hospital in the photo below). A new multi-story building was constructed in 1950 with a major addition and patient wing completed in 1968. The last addition was a new emergency department built in 1997. Much of the financing through the decades came from generous donations from corporations and citizens within the community, as well as more than 60 years of support by the Siler City Rotary Club. Chatham Hospital affiliated with the UNC Health Care System in 2008 and the new Chatham Hospital opened on Progress Boulevard, in the Central Carolina Business Campus in Siler City.

The 1950 hospital building was vacant from 2008 to 2018, when it was sold and demolished to make way for 52 new townhomes.

Thanks to Duane Hall for this photos from his Siler City collection.

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #ChathamHospital #SilerCityNC #hospital #medicine #1930s #1950s #2000s

This Chatham County dinosaur skeleton was the very first specimen cataloged in the American Museum of Natural History's fossil reptile collections!

So how did this humble Carolina crocodylomorph from Chatham County make its way to Central Park West before the first Tyrannosaurus or Triceratops?

Learn more:

https://indyweek.com/.../humble-chatham-county-phytosaur.../

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #dinosaur #fossil #phytosaur #EgyptMinesNC

Justice Motor Company ~ In Chatham County for the majority of the twentieth century, the name “Justice” was associated with automobile sales—specifically Justice Motor Company in Pittsboro and The Justice Motor Company and then Chatham Motors in Siler City—and with two Hickory Mountain born brothers— Frank N. Justice and Fred C. Justice.

Margaret Hamlet Bingham, the granddaughter of Fred C. Justice, has shared the history of the brothers and their automobile dealerships, and given us a walk-through of the Justice Motor Company Building in the 1950s.

See more photos and read the story here: https://chathamhistory.org/.../JusticeMotorCompanyMargare...

The Justice Motor Company Building has recently been renovated as part of a large development project and many of the original features of the building have been preserved. 

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #JusticeMotorCompany #FredJustice #FrankJustice #ChathamMotors #PittsboroNC #SilerCityNC

Devil's Tramping Ground -- a Chatham County mystery. Can science help solve it?

The Devil's Tramping Ground is a clearing in the Chatham County woods where nothing has grown for as long as anyone can remember. (And the site has been a mystery for a long time--an article appearing in 1882 describing it in much the same was as it is described today.)

The mysterious lack of plants in the area has inspired the legend that the Devil comes to that spot in the night and paces in a circle while planning "all sorts of menace and mischief," trampling all the plants in the process. Scientists have yet to determine exactly why nothing grows there.

Here's a short clip about the science behind the circle in which vegetation refuses to grow -- and a little sample of Tommy Edwards' song about the place.

https://video.pbsnc.org/video/unc-tv-science-devils-tramping-ground/

Thanks to the late Tommy Edwards for the link -- and the music! Here's a link to the whole song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIYfDWPpbTE

Please note that the Devil's Tramping Ground is on private property and visitors have abused it over the years. Please be respectful and visit only with permission. Any Devil's Tramping Ground stories out there?

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamHistory #ChathamNC #DevilsTrampingGround #TommyEdwards

Chris Kluge sent us this fantastic photo of workers in Chatham Mills, along with the following information:

Chris's Great Uncle Albert C Kluge established a woven label mill in Pittsboro in early 1930’s. This photo shows weavers at Chatham Mills (part of Artistic Weaving Co.) in Pittsboro from A.C. Kluge's scrapbook. The back of this photo reads: "These girls did the threading, reeding on first 3 looms. Foy Riddle, Lottie Council, and Katherine Herndon." Eventually, Chatham Mills hosted 180 Jacquard narrow fabrics shuttle looms, and continued operations until 1997. “Billions of Woven Labels Shipped.”

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #ChathamMills #textile #PittsboroNC