A Great Day in the History of Jonesvile

Remarks by Charles Mathis

 At the Dedication of Mineral Springs Park

Jonesville, North Carolina

May 4, 2013

 This is an old… special place… a place of legacies.

I think God made it special place when He let the continents come together… in that Great Upheaval… millions and millions of years ago. These rocks… from way down under… were pushed up to pave a pretty path for our branch to reach the river.  

I believe that is how the channel… in the bedrock near the spring… was formed.

Many times… when I was a little boy… I’d come down here to the spring on a hot day, sit on the rock ledge of the channel and let the branch water cool my toes as I dangled my tough bare feet in the miniature rapids.

This was always a cool place in the summer heat.  

It was Jonesville’s very first public air-conditioned site.

For years in our early history… and up until the 1950s… the spring on a hot summer afternoon… especially on Sunday…was a good place for folks  to gather for a cool drink of delicious water, tell stories and relax in the always-fresh breeze that passed through the big beech and buckeye trees.

This is the place where my mother grew up in the Teens of the 20th century. She lived here in the big house built in 1916 by my grandfather… W. E. “Sam” Elliott… on a knoll where the flag is now. He built a new house on higher ground… after the Flood of 1914 destroyed his old one that stood just east of what is now our parking lot across River Road.

Mama and her siblings… Aunt Weeta, Aunt Bill and Uncle Bing… were able to save their mother’s favorite dress before it could be washed away by the flood. Their mother, Mary Jane Keever Elliott, my grandmother, died in 1908, and her favorite dress ...which reached all the way to the floor… was a very special item.  I still have that dress today.

My grandfather bought a car and built a garage about where this Speedway Ticket Booth Stagenis now.

He also erected a bridge… so he could drive by front of the house…and park over here across the branch.

My Aunt Weeta was old enough to drive, and she learned everything about driving… except she could never figure out how to put the gear in reverse.

 So when she went for a spin… she would always turn down Highway 21 and head for Three Oaks where she could circle around…and not have to worry about using the reverse.

 

The new Elliott house escaped the Flood of 1916.

 Grandfather Elliott died about six years later.

 

His house also survived the Flood of 1940…when Mack and Hester Lovelace lived here…with Hester’s mother … Ms. Mary Lane … and Hester’s son … James Taylor, Jr.

 Hester’s husband was the brother of Hurley Lovelace, North Carolina’s most decorated soldier in World War I… and a Jonesville barber who cut hair for 50 cents the last time I got my mine cut.

 

James Taylor, Jr. … at an early age … was a great speaker and reader… thanks to his grandmother who taught him to read and speak in public before he ever went to school. She also acted as his producer… when … in the style of Gabriel Heater … James used to get up early in the morning to give 15 minutes of news over his pretend radio station.

 James would stand about where I am now while his grandmother… sitting at edge of the front porch across the branch… kept the exact time for him and gave the signal … “You’re on the air!”

 Ms. Lane made sure she heard every word. James’ strong voice and the natural acoustics of this place guaranteed that.

 I remember the Flood of 1940 very well.

 

 It had quit raining and my father and I walked down to see the Lovelaces and Ms. Lane … to find out if they were going to flee for safety. To get there, we walked across Grady Pinnix’s pasture because the River Road was already covered with flood water and the spring area was, too.

 The Lovelaces and Ms. Lane were on the porch.

 The flood water, a good foot deep in the front yard, had almost reached the floor of the front porch.  

 Standing at the fence, Daddy asked, “Are you going to stay in that house until it washes away?”

 

Hester replied, “They’re saying the river is not going to rise any more. We’re going to sit right here and see.”

 

I was four years old… now you know how old I am…  Don’t tell anybody.

 This park is a legacy from a number of individuals:

 
 A legacy from my grandfather whose property this was.

 A legacy from my mother…  “Ms. Maud”…  who  grew up here --  and from my father … C. G. Mathis… who lived in the big house on the hill, back of The History Center, which stands on the site of the grocery store he operated there for decades.

 John Wesley and I were able to give both properties away for historical purposes … only because our parents first gave them to us.

 
This park, too, is a legacy from Hardy Jones who opened an academy that transformed the community into one of the busiest towns west of Raleigh in the mid-1800s.
 
This park is also a legacy from two other special people in my life… one lived long before I was born…, the other is very still alive today… after an almost-deadly ordeal last week.

 The long-gone special person is the circuit rider whose picture was featured on a Sunday School Lesson Card when I was a little boy.  The card told about how the circuit rider rode a horse all over 18^th century America to spread the Good News of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

 

My mother said to her class that the circuit rider might have ridden up in the yard one day just outside our Sunday School window… but that she had no way of knowing for sure.

 
The other special person is a lady I nominated to chair the Jonesville Historical Committee… when the time for celebrating Jonesville’s bicentennial in 2011 was coming up fast.
   

 It was beginning to appear that not much of a celebration would take place.

  I was aware that this lady knew how to turn a celebration into a real shindig.

 The circuit rider was Francis Asbury… one of the most famous men in 18^th century America. He was a friend of Hardy Jones and inspired him to open the Jonesville Academy.

 And it was the spirit of Asbury who inspired me to find out about this community’s early history… and his connection to it.

 

In my research…I discovered that Asbury visited what is now Jonesville three times…in 1785… 1793 and 1794.

 The special lady from whom this park is… and always will be a legacy … is that amazing person who knows how to get things done-- Dr. Judy Wolfe.

 Judy, this is a great day in the history of Jonesville!

 Thank you…Thank you…Thank you, Judy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the Changing South:

     A True North Carolinian Speaks Her Mind

     In the last several years, I have noticed a lot of changes in our beautiful Western area of North Carolina—and throughout the South as we have known it.

     Now there's a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina who reports that Southerners can’t exactly agree on where the South is. He says that places like Northern Virginia, Florida and Texas are no longer in the South.

     I will have to agree. Florida is not even in the true USA, not to mention the South. But that’s mainly the fault of our lack of immigration laws. You just cannot have all these people coming down from New York and New Jersey untrained and expect to tell them anything different. They don’t speak English. And Upper Virginia is so contaminated by Washington, D. C. that it will never recover. Texas has always been more of a Western state than Southern. As I see it, you can’t be Southern and wear a ten-gallon hat and boots on the Outer Banks. That would be about as bad as wading in the swamp wearing black socks and loafers.

     What’s going on? Are we losing our Southern identity? I don’t think so. I’ll tell you exactly where the South starts and stops—and it does not take a college degree to figure it out. If you can’t see the sugar in the bottom of your glass of iced tea, you are from the edge of the South. If you drink the unsweetened stuff altogether, you’ve crossed the border; and if you have to order hot tea, you have passed the point of no return. And don’t even ask for grits or country ham; they’ll stare at you like you ordered ‘possum. Don’t mention collard greens, either. When you ask for pop and the waitress has no idea what you’re talking about, you are way passed the Mason Dixon Line. And barbecue! If they bring you spiced-up beef, you have really gone too far. The same goes when you order a hot dawg and get a bun topped with sour kraut.

     But this is nothing new. Our good ole South has always generated a lot of interest and controversy.
                                --Mary Gale Price

Bill and Mary Ruth Fleming Rutledge, 1995.

Bill Rutledge, shown here with wife Mary Ruth
Fleming  Rutledge, was in his U.S. Army uniform and had just spoken at a 1995 memorial service for Russell Minish, first Jonesville soldier killed in World War II.

Mrs. Mary Ruth Rutledge Passes

Mrs. Mary Ruth Fleming Rutledge of Yadkinville died Thursday, April 26, 2012. She was the widow of William E. Rutledge, Jr., author of An Illustrated History of Yadkin County, the defining book about the county’s past first published in 1965. Bill Rutledge was the editor and publisher of The Yadkin Ripple, a weekly newspaper, owned by the Rutledge Family for three generations until it was sold in 2002. Bill Rutledge died June 27, 1995. For many years, Mrs. Rutledge was closely associated with her husband in publication of the newspaper, serving as proofreader, classified ad writer and receptionist. She grew up in Boonville and served in the United States Waves during World War II. She was a member of Yadkinville First Baptist Church. Mrs. Rutledge’s daughter, Gail, also preceded her in death. She is survived by a son and daughter-in-law, Craig and Carol Rutledge of Yadkinville. Mrs.Rutledge was buried on Saturday, April 28, next to her husband in the Yadkinville Cemetery. A memorial service, arranged by her church, Yadkinville First Baptist, was held at 2 o'clock on Sunday afternoon, June 3, 2012. The congregation sang one of Mary Ruth's favorite hymns, "When We All Get to Heaven," and did it with gusto so jubilant that she is bound to have heard it and smiled in agreement. Glenn Miller sang Tommy Dorsey's "Precious Lord, Take My Hand." Remembrances were shared by several; and the Rev. Richard Eskew, a former pastor, delivered special remarks. The Rev. Ken Boaz read the scripture, prayed and pronounced the benediction.

A Magnificent Gift

cgm photo 2011.

Mary Gale Price Price and her great grandmother's quilt.

This beautiful quilt, more than a century and half old, is a most precious gift to the Jonesville History Center from Mary Gale Price Price, who grew up in Elkin and now lives in Winston-Salem.The quilt won the blue ribbon in the first North Carolina State Fair. It was handmade by Mary Gale Price Price’s great grandmother Catherine Johnson Perkins who was born in 1820 and died in 1903. The first state fair was held in Raleigh, October 18-21,1853.

A Jonesville, NC, Bicentennial Event

In Celebration of Jonesville’s 200th Birthday the Jonesville Historical Society and the Bicentennial Committee

Presented

Divided Loyalties

A Readers Theatre Production based on The Voices Trilogy of Allen Paul Speer III at Jonesville First United Methodist Church 7 p.m. Saturday, March 5, 2011

The Play

Written by Allen Paul Speer III utilizing passages from his three books on family, local and regional history--Voices From Cemetery Hill, Sisters of Providence and From Banner Elk to Boonville-- the play re-created in one act the thoughts and times of Speer’s great-great aunts and uncle, Ann, Jennie and Asbury Speer, who were students at the Jonesville Academy prior to the Civil War when Brantley York was a teacher. The academy, which stood where the church is now, enjoyed a widespread and fine reputation, attracting students from throughout the South. Allen Speer grew up in neighboring Boonville in the 1960s. He and his wife, Janet Barton Speer--both professors at Lees-McRae College- starred in the presentation and afterward led a question and answer session dealing with the time when religion was fundamental; and loyalties, north and south, among friends and between family members, were divided--and the underground railroad was the track north to freedom.

Musical Program, Exhibit & Book Signing

Beginning at 6 p.m., Ruth Crissman renderd on the church’s grand piano a medley of songs and hymns that became popular in the mid-19th century, 1840-1870. In the fellowship hall, where Dr. Speer was available to autograph his books, Academy, Civil War and Town history were on exhibit. The year 2011 not only marks the town’s bicentennial, but also the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the War Between The States. The town and academy were sacked by Yankee troops in April 1865 during the closing days of the war. The academy was never to regain its antebellum prominence.

Ringing The Silver Dollar Bell

Colonel Asbury Speer

Ann and Jennie Speer

In 1845, the Rev. Brantley York was living in Jonesville, which was incorporated in 1811 as Martinsborough. The town was renamed Jonesville in 1815 and became the home of the Jonesville Academy.

The academy attracted students from throughout the South.

By 1845, Jonesville was one of the largest towns west of Raleigh and the center of Brantley York’s 200-mile lecture and preaching circuit.

York also taught and preached at the Jonesville Academy, where Jennie Speer from Boonville became one of his students.

On December 2, 1845, Jennie recorded in her diary that she was “engaged in the delightful task” of improving her mind under the instruction of the Rev. Brantley York. A 19th century authority on English, mathematics, Latin and elocution. He was the author of several textbooks on English grammar and one on mathematics.

In an essay on the harmony in nature, Jennie concluded that “nothing short of Omnipotent Power could have projected worlds of almost inconceivable magnitude into empty space and established laws by which their motions have been uniformly regulated for thousands of years.”

On March 29, 1847, Jennie wrote in her diary: “Last night was the happiest time I ever experienced. Brother York preached an excellent sermon…. The power of the Lord came down, and four professed religion; one was my little sister.”

Jennie’s little sister was Ann Speer.

On October 8, 1846, Jennie wrote that she had the pleasure today of accompanying Rev. York to Center Methodist where one of the classes on his 200-mile circuit was put to the test. “The scholars underwent an honorable examination, and thus clearly proving the value of the systems invented and practiced by him.”

Asbury Speer, an older brother of Jennie and Ann, also attended the academy and later became superintendent of the tannery located on the branch behind the academy campus. Asbury joined the militia of Yadkin County during the Civil War and obtained the rank of colonel in the Confederate Army.

Jennie, Ann and Asbury, dead now for more than a century, “lived again” at 7 p.m. on March 5, 2011, when their great great nephew, Allen Paul Speer III and his wife, Janet Barton Speer, brought them back to life in a Readers Theatre production at Jonesville First United Methodist Church.

The drama is entitled, Divided Loyalties.

The church stands on the site of the Jonesville Academy.

The Rev. Dr. Brantley York--who before moving to Jonesville founded in Randolph County a collegiate institute that many years later was moved to Durham and re-named Duke University--was also “present.’’

In the church fellowship hall there was an exhibit on the history of the academy, the town, and the Civil War, which began 150 years ago.

The Jonesville Academy’s Silver Dollar Bell rang again.

Dr. Allen Paul Speer III, who grew up in Boonville where the Speer family has lived for 10 generations, is author of three books on his ancestors. Allen’s great aunt, Miss Mary Speer, taught mathematics at Jonesville High School in the 1950s and 1960s. His books were made possible by the papers and diaries found preserved in the Speer attic. Allen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Lees-McRae College He refers to his three books together as “The Voices Trilogy.” The books are Voices From Cemetery Hill, Sisters of Providence and From Banner Elk To Boonville. Each book is winner of the Robert Bruce Cooke Family History Book Award from the North Carolina Society of Historians. Voices From Cemetery Hill was also winner of the society’s Willie Parker Peace History Book Award.


--CHARLES GRAY MATHIS
Sources
Voices From Cemetery Hill (Allen Paul Speer)
Sisters of Providence (Allen Paul Speer with Janet Barton Speer)
From Banner Elk To Boonville (Allen Paul Speer)
The Autobiography of Brantley York (Amanuensis Two Edition)
Jonesville, North Carolina: Historical Notes (W. H. Dyar)
Civil War Trail Marker, Jonesville, N.C.