p. 43 - But the Scotch-Irish were probably the most numerous and the leading people of the settlement. The old records of the Court here show names of many of these old families, some of then now extinct . . .
But along with these Scotch-Irish immigrants, and settling side by side with them there came settlers of another nationaliy to whom Rowan is no less indebted for her material wealth and prosperity. These were the Germans, or as they were familiarly called the "Pennsylvania Dutch." They were of course not of Dutch or Holland extraction, but Germans from the Palatinate, and from Hesse Cassel, Hesse Homburg, Darmstadt, and the general region of the upper and middle Rhine. Prominent among these for its history and the number of emigrants is the Palatinate or "Pfalz" as it is called in the maps of Germany. This counry lies on the western banks of the Rhine, below Strasburg, and along the eastern boundaries of France. This beautiful land is watered by numerous small streams, the tributaries of the Rhine, and is divided by a range of mountains, the Haardts, running from north to south. Manheim and Speyer (Spires) are the two principal cities, situated on the Rhine, while Neustadt, Anweiler, Zweibrucken, Leiningen, are among its towns. The Province was ther theater of many bloody [p.44] and atrocious deeds during the reign of Louis XIV, of France, a ime when such great generals as the Prince of Conde, Marshal Turenne, Prince Eugene, the Duke of Marlborough, and William, Prince of Orange, won glory or infamy on the bloody field of batter. It was in the Palatinate that Turenne sullied hi glory by an act of the most savage barbarity in laying waste the country with fire and sword, reducing two citities and twenty-five villages to ashes, and leaving the innocent inhabitants to perish of cold and hunger, while the unfortunate Elector looked helplessly on from the walls of his palace at Manheim. And a few years after, Louis again invaded the Palatinate, and laid the cities of Mentz, Philipsburg, Spires and forthy others, with numerous villages, in ashes. Thus this little principality, whose inhabitants by their industry and peaceable habits ahd made it the most thriving and happy state in Germany, was literally turned into a desert. Ravaged by fire and sword, and trodden down under the iron heel of despotism, the wretched inhabitants were forced at last to leave their beautiful country and seek a home among strangers. Their first place of refuge was the Netherlands, where a liberal and Protestant government afforded them a safe asylum.
From the Netherlands many of them found their way into England, where Queen Anne gave them a safe refuge from their enemies. Bu England was itself a populous country, and the English government determined to induce as many of the Palatines as posible to cross the Atlantic and become settlers in the American Colonies. . . . [New Bern, NC, New York state, Charleston, SC] . . . Many others from this general section of Germany settled in Lehigh, Northampton, Berks and Lancaster Counties in Pennsylvania. Finding this country thicklysettled and good land to be secured only at high prices, in a few years they turned their attentioni southward. Here Earl Granville's lands - lately set off to him - were offered at a cheap rate, and the climate was much more mild than in the homes they had chosen in Pennsylvania. The first arrial of Germans in Western North Carolina, in the bounds of Old Rowan, is believed to have [p.45] taken place about 1745, though it was five years later that the great body of them came. The stream thus started continued to flow on for years, many of them arriving after the Revolutionary war. They traveled with their household goods and the women and children in wagons, the men and boys walking and driving their cattle and hogs before them. They came side by side with their Scotch-Irish neighbors, sometimes settling in the same community with them, and at other times occupying alternate belts or sections of country. Thus we can trace a German stream through Guilford, Davidson, Rowan and Cabarrus Counties, and just by its side a stream of Scotch-Irish. . . . Dr. [G.D.] Berhheim, in his interesting work on German settlements in North and South Carolina, has given a list of names, found in common use in Pennsylvania and in North Carolina, such as Propst, Bostian, Kline (Cline), Trexler, Schlough, Seitz (Sides), Rheinhardt, Biber (Beaver), Kohlman (Coleman), Derr (Dry), Berger (Barrier), Behringer (Barringer). To this list may be added other names familiar in Rowan County, such as Bernhardt, Heilg, Meisenheimer, Beard, Mull, Rintelman (Rendleman), Layrle (Lyerly), Kuhn (Coon), Friese, Eisenhauser, Yost, Overcash, Roger, Suther, Winecoff, Cress, Walcher, Harkey, Savitz, Henkel, Moser, Braun (Brown) and many others familiar to all our people. The German settlers have generally been remarkable for industry, economy, and the habit of living within teir means and not getting into debt.
During their sojourn here, a century and a quarter, they have passed through the ordeal of changing their language. As the laws were written and expounded in English, and all public affairs conducted in that language, the Germans were incapable of taking part, in most cases, in public affairs. Hence, letting public affairs alone, and attending to their home interests, they surrounded themselves with well-tilled farms, and adorned their premises with capacious barns and threshing floors. Who has not seen the immense double barns, with wide double doors, to admit a four-horse wagon with its towering oad of hay or straw or wheat: and the threshing floor, where the horses tramped out the wheat, and the "windmill" blew the chaff into the chaffhouse? And who has forgotten the long stables where the cows were yoked to the troughs, each one knowing her place, while the calves were tied to a trough at the other wall?
p. 53 - As stated on a former page, it is not certainly known where the first Court was held. But from the records in the office of the Superior Court Clerk, in Salisbury, it appears probable that it was held in June, 1753, only a few months after the couny was established.
p. 54 - A good part of the time of the first Court was taken up in registering the marks and brands which the citizens had invented to distinguish their cattle and other livestock; an dthe changes are rung on "crops," "half-crops," "slits," and "swallow-forks," in the "off" and "near" ear, and other quaint devices for marking.
p. 57 - The following persons are named as composing the Grand and Petit Juries of the first Court, viz.: Henry Hughey, John McCulloch, James Hill, John Burnett, Samuel Bryant, John McDowell, James Lambath, Henry Dowland, Morgan Bryan, William Sherrill, William Morrison, William Linvil.
p. 130 - This Committee of Safety began its sessions, according to these Minutes, on the eighth of August, 1774, seventeen days before the assembling of the first North Carolina Provincial Congress. This committee was probably chosen at the time appointed for electing members to the General Assembly of the Province, or it may have come into existence before that time in obedience to the wishes of the people. The members of the committee were chosen from all parts of this grand old county, and numbered twenty-five. The following is a list of their names: James McCay, Andrew Neal, George Cathey, Alexander Dobbins, Francis McCorkle, Matthew Locke, Maxwell Chambers, Henry Harmon, Abraham Denton, William Davidson, Samuel Young, John Brevard, William Kennon, George Henry Barringer, Robert Bell, John Bickerstaff, John Cowden, John Lewis Beard, John Nesbit, Charles McDowell, Robert Blackburn, Christopher Beekman, William Sharpe, John Johnson and Morgan Bryan.
p. 135 - The Provincial Congress of North Carolina held its fourth meeting at Halifax, beginning on the fourth of April, 1776. . . . The North Carolina statesmen were well aware that independence could not be achieved except by a fearful struggle against the military power of Britain. In order to be ready for this emergency, the judicial districts were made into military districts, and a Brigadier-General appoinged for each. Griffith Rutherford was appointed General for the Salisbury district. In Rowan County there were two regiments and two sets of field officers. . . . Of the second regiment (up the Catawba River), Christopher Beekman was Colonel; Charles McDowell, Lieutenant-Colonel; and hugh Brevard and George Wilfong, Majors. . . . Early in July of the same year, General Rutherford led nineteen hundred men across the mountains to scourge and hold in check the Cherokees. This was more of an excursion than a war, for there was no open enemy to face, and a secret enemy waylaying their march and firing upon them from the wilderness, or from inaccessible crags along their way. But the object was accomplished, and the Cherokees were compelled to sue for peace.
p. 153 - The reader will recollect that it was a part of [Nathanael] Greene's original plan that the larger part of his army, which he had stationed at Cheraw, should hasten to join [Daniel] Morgan's division at Charlotte or Salisbury. But the rapidity of their movements effectually prevented the accomplishmen of this purpose Insead of meeting Morgan's division, General [Isaac] Huger marched up on the eastern side fo the Pee Dee, past the Grassy Islands, through Richmond, Montgomery, and Randolph Counties to meet General Greene at Martinville, or Guilford Courthouse, where he arrived on the evening of the seventh of February [1781].
From Trading Ford, General Greene moved on to Abbott's Creek meeting-house, still in Old Rowan, and halted for two or three days to rest his troops and await further developments. During his stay there he made his headquarters at the house of Colonel [William] Spurgen, a Tory, who of course was not at home to receive him. But his wife, Mary Spurgen, was a true a Whig as her husband was a Tory, and like Mrs. Steele in Salisbury she showed him all the kindness in her power. . . .
p.. 167 - [Lord Conrwallis] Having remained in Salisbury part of three days, he took his departure early on Tuesday morning, the sixth of Frebruary. His march was up the Wilkesboro Road, crossing Grant's Crrek, Second Creek, Third and Fourth Creeks. A march of about fifteen or eighteen miles brought them to their first encampment, on the west side of the South Fork of the Yadkin, not far from Rencher's (or Renshaw's) Ford. A little stream, called Beaver Dam, would furnish them water, and the well-to-do farmers of South River and Fourth Creek - the Johnstons, Luckys, Graham, Gillespies, and Knoxes - had capacious and well-filled barns, cribs and granaries. . . . On the seventh, the British crossed the Shallow Ford of the main Yadkin, where little John Spurgen caught sight of them, and hastened with the news to General Greene. They there passed out of Rowan County. The general histories of the State will inform the reader of Greene's retreat across the Dan, Lord Cornwallis' march to Hillsboro, the return of both armies to Guilford, where the battle of Guilford Courthouse was fought on the fifteenth of March following . . .
p. 282 - In Orange and Guilford Counties there were three Lutheran churches and one "joint" church - that is Lutheran and German Reformed - served by Philip Henkel. In Rowan, east of the Yadkin, there were three "joint," and one Lutheran churches, served by Rev. Paul Henkel, afterwards by Ludwig Markert. In the vicinity of Salisbury three strong Lutheran churches enjoyed the ministry of the Rev. C.A.G. Storch for nearly twenty years. This report represents that about twenty years previous to that time there had been a tolerably strong German congregation in Salisbury, but as the German people and their language were changed into English, the German worship soon became extinct. The three storng churches mentioned in the report, were doubtless the Pine Church - now Union, the Organ Church, and Savitz's - now Lutheran Chapel - once called the Irish Settlement. The report goes on to state that near Buffalo Creek, Cabarrus, there is one of the strongest Lutheran churches, served by the Rev. Mr. Storch. . . .
In 1805 the Synod ordained Philip Henkel to the full work of the ministry, and licensed John Michael Rueckert and Ludwig Markert. . . .
In 1813, David Henkel, J.J. Schmucker, and Daniel Moser were licensed to preach the gospel.
p. 329 - For the origin of the German Reformed Church we must look to the mountains of Switzerland, where Ulric Zwingle began to preach the gospel in its purity, about the same time that Luther raised his voice for Christ in Germany. As there were differences of opion between Zwingle and Luther upon the subject of the "real presence" in the Lord's Supper, as well as upon some of the other doctrines of grace, the adherents of the two reformers did not unite in the same body. After the death of Zwingle, his followers fell naturally in with the churches that were founded and nurtured by Calvin. In Germany, as well as in Switzerland, the Reformed Church is Calvinistic in faith and Presbyterian in church government. The Heidelberg Catechism is their symbol, and they practice the rite of confirmation, though by many this rite is regarded as little else than the ceremony of admitting candidates who give evidences of conversion to full communion.
The German Reformed Chruch in the Unied States dates its origin to about 1740, and was formed by immigrants from Germany and Switzerland, who settled in the eastern portion of Pennsylvani. About this time the tide of German immigration flowed southward, and alogn with the Lutherans who came to Rowan from 1745 and onward were many of German Reformed Church affinities.
p.354 - [Fourth Regiment Infantry, Company K (Rowan Rifle Guards) Privates] - Mauldin, James, enlisted March 9, 1862, age 18; wounded Seven Pines; died of wounds, August 10, 1863.
p. 358 - [Fifth Regiment Infantry, Company E, Privates] - Mauldin, James, enlisted June 22, 1861, age 18.
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