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.

Reenactment of Yankee Troops Entering Rockford

In 1865, late in the Civil War, Yankee soldiers of General Stoneman moved on to Rockford after raising havoc in Jonesville where they plundered the town and ransacked the then-famous Jonesville Academy.

The original Yankees didn't have the luxury of crossing the Yadkin River over a low-water bridge.

Craig Rutledge captured this scene in 1997.

The low-water bridge has since been removed and replaced with a modern structure high above the water.

Dr. Stacy Weaver--Principal and Farmer

Dr. L. Stacy Weaver, who in later years became the first president of Methodist College at Fayetteville, NC, was principal of Jonesville Elementary and High School in the 1930s. He lived on (and supervised) a 200-acre farm just 200 yards from the school campus. This picture appeared in the "Personalities of the Northwest" column of the Winston-Salem Journal during his 6th year as principal.

Calvin Kerley--The Coffin Factory Man

Calvin Kerley, a native of Alexander County, was born in 1872, the year the Covered Bridge opened across the Yadkin River between Jonesville and Elkin. He survived the bridge by 49 years, dying in 1962 at age 90. He is buried in the historic Jonesville Cemetery beside his wife,
Sarah Elizabeth Amanda Watts Price Kerley, also an Alexander native.

In the 1890s, there were three recessions back-to-back, and the Kerleys sold their property in Taylorsville and moved to Jonesville.

Mr. Kerley was Sarah’s second husband.

Sarah’s first husband was Levi Price. There were six Price

children--Texie, Flossie, Cordelia, Jim, Mag and Kerley. When Levi passed away in the late 1880s, he left Sarah not only with the children to parent but also three farms to look after.

Sarah was able to hire a good man to operate the farms--Calvin Kerley. She fell in love with Mr. Kerley, and they were married.

In Jonesville, Calvin and Sarah moved into what became known as the Kerley House, standing adjacent to the Mathis House. It was in this home that the other Kerley children were born, Maude in 1901, and Sam about three years later. Mr.Kerley

opened a two-story shop on West Main Street and began using his talent for making cabinets, coffins and furniture to earn a living for his family. His shop had no boastful sign on it, but became known as Mr. Kerley’s Coffin Factory, and it remained in operation into the 1940s. The shop stood in the abandoned first road bed for the main Jonesville highway, parts of which lay next to the present West Main Street, but about 20 feet lower. Under the shop, in the old road bed, was a big crawl space, high enough for a man to stand under and a perfect spot for children to go exploring.

Around 1920, an auction sale was held at the Galloway House on Surry Avenue on the Big Elkin Creek. At the sale, Mr. Kerley purchased an old grand piano. About 20 years later, Miss Mary Mathis asked Mr. Kerley to design her a little drop leaf table out of the old piano, which was made of teak wood. He delivered the table to Miss Mary, who lived diagonally across the street from the coffin factory, one afternoon early in 1940. The table was cherished by Miss Mary until her death in 1979. It is now owned by her nephew, Charles Mathis.

Lois, the Kerley’s oldest child, was an eye witness to the night the Jonesville Schoolhouse fell in during a Christmas program in 1912. The school auditorium, heated by a potbellied stove, was upstairs and approximately 300 persons were present. Lois survived, but three persons died. Lois Kerley married Lester Martin and they made their home in Island Ford. Their daughter Lavene married Shorty Minton.

Maude Kerley married Carl Oliver and they later purchased and lived in the Kerley House, long after Sarah had died and Mr. Kerley had remarried. Sam Kerley moved away but sometimes visited. Maude’s daughter, Don Oliver Martin, provided four of the pictures exhibited here. Don’s husband, Thad, and Thad’s brother Leon operated Martin’s Doughnuts, which for a generation was the most famous business in Jonesville.

Sarah’s son Mag was a long-time resident of Jonesville. Price Chapel of Jonesville First Baptist Church is named for him and his wife, Lona. All of Mag and Lona’s children—except for Elizabeth Price Gwyn Kenan for whom a scholarship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is named—are deceased.

Sarah's daughter Flossie Price married Gaston Deal and they were the parents of Brack Deal, who operated an orchard between Wilkesboro and Taylorsville. During apple season, Brack Deal was a frequent vendor of apples at the Saturday curb market (in the 1930s and 40s) on East Main Street in downtown Elkin.

Sarah’s daughter Kerley Price Vestal was mother of Mozelle Vestal for whom the Mozelle Vestal Kitchen dormitory at Campbell University is named.

Sarah’s daughter Texie Price married Willie Brown, and they made their home on West Main Street near the Kerley House. Among Texie and Willie’s grandchildren is Bonnie Stewart, wife of Dr. Hal Stewart of Elkin.

This is a work in progress. If you find an error or want to volunteer additional information, contact the writer.

--CHARLES GRAY MATHIS

Sources:
Maud Elliott Mathis
Mary Mathis
Weeta Elliott
Don Oliver Martin
Charles Mathis
Ruth Underwood Martin
Bonnie Hall Stewart
Judy Wolfe
Lois Kerley Martin

JOSEPH OF NAZARETH

Play To Accent Christmas
From Different Perspective

“Joseph of Nazareth,” a one man Christmas play starring Dale Martin Swofford, will be presented in December at Jonesville First United Methodist Church.

Swofford, a professional actor before he was called into the pastoral ministry, has performed the play more than 200 times throughout the southeastern United States.

Admission will be free. An offering will be taken to enhance the Christmas celebration for less fortunate children in the Elkin-Jonesville area.

A second performance is scheduled at Ebenezer United Methodist Church. The drama, written by Frank Roughton Harvey, deals with the Nativity from the point of view of the husband of the mother of Jesus the Christ.

Leon Reece's Second 'Old Jonesville' Song

OLD JONESVILLE #II 2009



THIS IS THE STORY………………OF OLD JONESVILLE
FANTASTIC PLACE TO LIVE AND GROW
FROM LILA SWAIM………………TO CHARLIE MATHIS
THEIR ENTERPRISE HELPED MAKE IT SO

HOW WE LOVED……………TO SHOP AT FLETCHER’S
AND CLINT HOLCOMB’S GROCERY STORE
AS A STUDENT………………..FOR YOR MONEY
THEY WOULD ALWAYS GIVE YOU MORE

THERE WAS THAT HOTEL…………….ON THE CORNER
JUST ACROSS FROM CITY HALL
THROUGH THE YEARS…………THE TRAVELERS CAME THERE
WE GAVE WARM WELCOME…………TO THEM ALL

IN CITY HALL……………………….THERE WAS A COURTROOM
WHERE CHARLIE WOLFE WOULD JUDGE THE MEAN
HE WAS FAIR……………………….….IN ALL HIS JUDGEMENTS
OUR COURTS, TODAY.…………………COULD ONLY DREAM

WE HAD SUCH FUN ……………....AT JONESVILLE SPEEDWAY
OH HOW FAST THOSE BOYS WOULD RUN
SOME CLIMBED A TREE…………………TO SEE THE ACTION
ALL BECAUSE THEY HAD NO MON

OH HOW WE LOVED IT…………………...IN OLD JONESVILLE
BUT OUR TOWN HAS COME OF AGE
THANKS TO THE DREAM……………….OF E. GWYN McNEILL
THE FIVE-LANE HELPED……………….US TURN THE PAGE

Copyright Leon Reece 2009

Leon Reece, radio personality, lyricist and singer, Jonesville native and member of the Jonesville Historical Committee, introduced his "Old Jonesville #II 2009" at the 7th annual Old Jonesville Day on May 2, 2009, with his two sons joining in, to the tune of Vince Gill's, "Go Rest High On That Mountain."