As a youth, I often spent time with my grandparents Erie and Idell Bates Perry in their apartment in the George O. Graves house at 403 West Pine Street in Mount Airy, North Carolina. The Graves House on the corner of Marshall Street was just one block below the Mount Airy Public Library. Many days I wandered up the street to the big brick building at 339 West Pine Street that is today Bright Beginnings Pre-School. One of my favorite books from the library was a biography of a horse, believe it or not. Walter Farley’s Man O’War was a book that I read many times as a kid. It got me and Terry “Rip” Jessup a free round of golf once at the Man O’War golf course in Myrtle Beach Because I could name the only horse, Upset, who beat the big red horse. I visited Man O’War’s grave at the Kentucky Horse Park near Lexington a few times all because I read a book in the Mount Airy Public Library. The Library today is on Rockford Street across from the Andy Griffith Playhouse (Rockford Street School in my father’s day). In front is the North Carolina Historical Highway Marker that I worked with Ruth Minnick and official from the North Carolina Department of Historic Resources to put up in 1996. I visited the library the other day and found some old friends. When I divorced in 1998, I gave the library most of my historic video collection that included Ken Burn’s The Civil War, PBS Presidential Series and other films in glorious VHS format. So, I came across the videos and something else. The library had a copy Alistair Cooke’s America, a video series that I first saw at Patrick County High School in the late 1970s. I believe Tim Parker showed it to us on gigantic movie reels that we had back then when Aerosmith was a rock band and not the parents of movie stars or makers of BBQ sauce. So, it was like coming home for me recently when I visited the library, my donated videos and I wandered again through the stacks looking for a good book to read. I found many including Burke Davis To Appomattox, which he described to me once how he wrote by taping papers together to make a gigantic scroll that chronologically told the story of Robert E. Lee’s retreat from Richmond “To Appomattox.” There was a copy of Ina Von Noppen’s Stoneman’s Raid, who was a professor of my father’s at Appalachian State University in 1950s and he Erie M. Perry lived in her basement for a time. Therefore, a visit to the Mount Airy Public Library was like a journey down memory lane for me. I think I will write some more blogs about my family’s life in Mount Airy or should I say my Mayberry Days.

Mount Airy Library Website http://www.nwrl.org/mta.asp

I made the front page of the Mount Airy News on Friday. It involves snakes. No, I was not watching a national political convention or attending a supervisor’s Meeting. I was sitting with a group of children watching Fred Boyce, brother of Patrick County Supervisor Lock Boyce, talk about snakes, Snakes Alive to be exact. Judging from the photo, I enjoyed it as much as the kids did.

Here is a link to the story

The Mount Airy Museum has a new program director, Heather Coe, who is bringing some new and different ideas to the programming. The next program is right up my ally, as I am known for thinking that a “Hot Date” is to take a woman to a cemetery. Stories in Stone will be on September 11 at 7:00 p.m. at the museum annex at 144 West Oak Street between the Renfro Lofts and the museum. Here is the PR.

“Tombstones can sometimes tell a story. Other times, they simply hint at a story. Such as the case with a grave marker encountered by Ricky Allred of Asheboro, North Carolina. An afternoon walk through the old city cemetery turned into a yearlong trek through North Carolina and Virginia and brought to light the tragic story of the untimely death of a pair of young newlyweds 90+ years after it took place. Mr. Allred will relate the story that he discovered and will discuss the resources and techniques that he used to bring it together. Admission for the event is $3.00. Museum members admitted free. For more information contact Heather Coe at 336-786-4478 ext. 228 or hscoe@northcarolinamuseum.org “

Here is the link to the museum

http://www.northcarolinamuseum.org/

Pilot Mountain State Park recently celebrated its fortieth anniversary and it got me thinking about the history of the “Pilot” or Jomeokee as the Native Peoples called it. Whether you like it or not Mount Pilot the larger nearby town to Mayberry in the Andy Griffith Show or as I remember an insurance company of my youth that sponsored ACC basketball games, Pilot Mountain is well known. I think of it as the stop on the Blue Ridge Parkway “Pilot View” near the Doe Run Lodge that looks down on Ararat, Virginia. Before the trees grew too high, I could look down into my parent’s back yard from that spot. One thing you cannot miss is Pilot and Sauratown Mountains. Peter Jefferson, father of Thomas our third President, surveyed the state line between Virginia and North Carolina and called them the Mountains of Ararat going back to the story of Noah and the flood. While today the mountain is known by the Indian name or the English equivalent, the river still holds the name Ararat as do two communities one in Surry County, North Carolina, and the original in Patrick County, Virginia, where I grew up. That is where the name comes from and not from the “You seen ara Rat.” A newspaper article recently stated. “Pilot Mountain was initially owned by Mrs. John Beasley until the state took over ownership. Several people who work with or for the park now have ties to the park from childhood. Dean Gordon’s grandfather looked after the park and Gordon worked in it for four summers as a teenager. Mapped in 1751 by a team that included Peter Jefferson, the father of Thomas Jefferson, the mountain was first owned by Andre Mathieu, a French soldier who fought in the American Revolution. In 1915, engineer-geologist W. L. Spoon built a road to the summit and a stairway to the top of Big Pinnacle. The Pilot Mountain Preservation and Park Committee formed in 1966 with the conviction that the signature landmark, which had become a private commercial attraction, should instead be a state park. The group raised money to match federal funds, and 2,143 acres including the mountain’s two pinnacles was purchased from the family of J. W. Beasley. When the park was formally dedicated in 1968, the superintendent of state parks noted the event by canceling the $1 admission fee. The park now encompasses 3,651 acres reaching to the Yadkin River and recorded 404,360 visitors in 2007.”

http://www.ncparks.gov/Visit/parks/pimo/main.php

On August 5, 1854, Lieutenant James Ewell Brown Stuart camped on Pilot Mountain in Surry County, North Carolina. Just graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, Stuart woke during a thunderstorm and wrote a poem, The Dream of Youth, which concludes, “Such dreams have often tantalized my soul. And borne me oft to my ambition’s goal.” Stuart’s ambition was glory on the battlefield. He served seven years in the mounted arm of the U. S. Army mainly in the First U. S. Cavalry. In 1861, he resigned and joined Virginia and the Confederate States of American in the Civil War. He rose to the rank of Major General commanding the cavalry of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Many tarheels served in the cavalry under Stuart. The First, Second, Fourth and Fifth North Carolina Cavalry Regiments followed Stuart’s plume into battle. He thought highly of these men saying in the last letter to his wife before his death on May 11, 1864, after receiving a wound at the Battle of Yellow Tavern that, “North Carolina has done nobly in this army. Never allow her troops to be abused in your presence.” James Ewell Brown Stuart was born at his parent’s home, Laurel Hill, on February 6, 1833, the eighth of eleven children. His father, Archibald Stuart, served in many legal and political positions including Commonwealth Attorney for Patrick County and one term as U. S. Congressman. Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart comes down as a strict, religious woman with a love of nature. She inherited Laurel Hill from her great-grandfather, William Letcher, who lost his life to Tories during the American Revolution. Letcher lies today at Laurel Hill in the oldest marked grave in Patrick County, Virginia. Among Stuart’s boyhood friends was Surry County native Jonathan Hanby Carter. Stuart mentioned him in a letter while at West Point writing, “A few days ago I had a visit from an old friend and neighbor Jonathan Carter now a Lieutenant in the Navy on the eve of starting out in Ringgold’s expedition to Behrings Straits.” Carter began a career in the U. S. Navy in 1840, graduated in the fist class of the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. He joined the Confederacy in 1861 building and commanding ironclads on the Mississippi and Red Rivers. The Stuart family went to Mount Airy, North Carolina, five miles away to attend church during their time at Laurel Hill (1825-1859) and to pick up the mail. One lady of Mount Airy, Elizabeth Gilmer, described Mrs. Stuart this way, “How rare do we meet with one whose mind belongs to that high idea with which hers may be justly classed.” Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart sold Laurel Hill to two men from Mount Airy, her physician Dr. Joseph Hollingsworth and Robert Galloway, in 1859.

I spent many Friday evenings in the broadcast booth with Ronald Johnson at Wallace Shelton Stadium in Mount Airy watching football as my father and Johnson broadcast the games. They did this for over thirty years getting both of them in the Mount Airy Sports Hall of Fame. Ronald died this week. Above is a photo of Ronald with my father at the Hall of Fame marker. Read the story in the Mount Airy News by clicking here.

http://www.mtairynews.com/articles/2008/08/05/news/local_news/local01.txt

The Surry County North Carolina Historical Society has a webpage with the ability to search their photo collection. There is a story in the Surry Messenger newspaper about the new website.

http://www.surrymessenger.com/Archives/06-23-08.pdf 

Here is a link to the website

http://surrycounty.pastperfect-online.com/index.htm

Hester Jackson passed away on Saturday in Surry County North Carolina. She was the author of Surry County Soldiers In The Civil War. I received the Hester B. Jackson award from the now defunct Surry County Civil War Round Table. Hester got it first. It hangs in my parent’s home in Ararat in a place of honor. Her book on Surry County gave me the idea for The Free State Of Patrick: Patrick County Virginia In The Civil War.

Click here for a story about Hester from the Mount Airy News

Here is the link to purchase her book on the Civil War

Surry County North Carolina lost a soldier in Iraq this week. Today take a few moments to remember his family in your prayers and the families of all those who gave their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Author Randle Brim (right) presents copies of “Tragedy to Triumph” and a print to John Shelton, Surry EMS director, and to Doug Jones, county fire marshal.  

     

 

February 22 marked the 51st anniversary of Surry County’s worst disaster, and North Carolina’s worst school tragedy since records started being kept in 1900. A student and teacher would be the first to die from a North Carolina’s public school disaster. Friday morning, Feb. 22, 1957, parents sent their children to the Flat Rock Elementary School as they had done on the previous days. All the students were excited that morning, for they would be excused from their normal morning class assignments to attend Cora Beasley’s third grade play in the general auditorium. Celebrating George Washington’s birthday that morning, all the attending students would sing along, “Clap your hands, this is someone’s birthday. Soon the students ate their lunches, many in the basement lunchroom, some going home for lunch and then returning. Within minutes of returning to their classrooms from lunch, a recessed foot light on the stage platform exploded and ignited the western edge of the stage curtain. Smoke came first, and then flames quickly shot up the curtain. When the fire was first noticed, the curtains were fully ablaze and the fire raced across the stage ceiling as if it were feeding on gasoline.  A pitch black smoke quickly filled the auditorium, with intensive heat from the flames so unbearable, that it was melting the skin of the students. All the classrooms, grades one through six, housing approximately 430 students, had only one normal exit. That one door exited into an open hallway, being the same as the auditorium. There were two rear exits and two front exits.  Each class of the 12 classrooms had a designated exit. With suffocating smoke and intense heat, students were running, stumbling, and falling down in the pitch black hallways and down the steps. Chaos and the impending fire quickly cut off all the exit points. Many students found their way back to their classrooms. More than half of the 400 plus students had to either be thrown, pushed or shoved from the windows, either by other students or by teachers, onto the ground below, from almost a second story level. By about 1:30 to 1:40 p.m., the fire had destroyed the building. It would be early Saturday morning before the extent of the destruction and devastation could be determined. Larry Adams, 9, died in the blazing inferno. Cora Beasley, the third grade teacher, who tried to rescue Larry, would hold on for five days of suffering and pain before dying. More than 50 students were severely injured, six clinging to life for months before miraculously recovering. On Feb. 22, 2004, the Flat Rock Six, the six most critically injured students, Marsha Semones Lowe, Frank Hensley Jr., Tamela Hiatt Midkiff, Johnny Haynes, Bobby Burkhart and Benny Goodman sponsored A Time of Remembrance at the Flat Rock School Gymnasium at which over 400 people attended. The purpose was to discuss openly for the first time in 47 years what happened and to share with the community a time of testimony and emotional healing. On Feb. 17, 2007, the Flat Rock Six, sponsored a 50th Memorial Reunion for a second Time of Remembrance and to present a history of the Flat Rock School Fire in a published memorial edition. Researched and authored by Randle Brim, the 376-page book chronicles the comprehensive account of the Flat Rock School Fire as told not only by the author, but also through the doctors, the nurses, the parents and the students. The book, Tragedy To Triumph is housed in all five Surry County community public libraries at Mount Airy, Dobson, Pilot Mountain, Elkin, and Lowgap. It is also in all 17 libraries of the public schools in Surry County and in all the Mount Airy City school libraries. The book has also been distributed to the 21 fire departments of Surry County, and to each of the 15 Ruritan Community Clubs. The first Ruritan Club of the county, Flat Rock, organized the county’s first volunteer fire department, Four Way, to help protect its schools, responding to the lessons of the horrible Flat Rock School Fire. In a letter last November, Dr. Ashley Hinson, superintendent of the Surry County Schools, said response to the book has been tremendous. What has amazed me most is the number of people who have either immediate family or extended family that were touched by this tragedy. The book has been more meaningful to our school community than I had anticipated. The tragedy is a part of the history of Surry County and is also directly linked to the history of our school system.