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.