School History of North Carolina Part 47

9. The development of commerce and manufacture is the great hope of the "Old North State." The enterprise and capital of this and other communities are seeking opportunities of investment, and the day is fast coming when North Carolina will rival Pennsylvania in the variety and excellence of her manufactures.

The "Cotton Exchange" of Raleigh is aiding very largely in building up the business of the city to vast proportions. The quant.i.ty of cotton sold in Raleigh has been rapidly increasing annually since the war, and the receipts for the year 1880 amounted to over seventy-six thousand bales. In 1869 the entire product of the State was only one hundred and forty-five thousand bales.

10. In the towns and cities of North Carolina may be found a considerable number of Israelites engaged in the various branches of trade; and this cla.s.s of our citizens has added no little to the general growth and material prosperity of the State. They have synagogues at Wilmington, Charlotte, Raleigh, Goldsboro and New Bern.

11. About the year 1878 the example of the Federal government and that of certain Northern States induced the State Commissioner of Agriculture to establish a fish hatchery at a mouth of Salmon Creek in Bertie county. This establishment has hatched and liberated a very large number of shad and other varieties of fish, and valuable returns are seen in some of the rivers that have been in this manner replenished with this savory and abundant source of food. It has been satisfactorily demonstrated by Seth Green, of New York, and other naturalists, that fish which are sp.a.w.ned in fresh water and reared at sea almost invariably seek the place of their birth in the spring, when they reach maturity.

12. In addition to this artificial increase of the supply of fish, there have been large additions made to the means of their capture. The use of steam in the handling of the long seines and the great weirs known as "Dutch Nets," have opened the way to an indefinite increase of the amount taken, while the use of ice and rapid transportation make it possible to deliver the fish fresh in the markets of the Northern and Western cities.

13. This trade is also supplemented in the same region by such attention to the growth and sale of vegetables. All the requirements as to position, soil and climate are abundantly filled by the counties with alluvial soils along the seacoast. Heavy crops of Irish potatoes and garden peas are reared on the same land which, later in the year, supplies a second crop of cotton and corn.

14. In the same eastern counties the products of the farms have been increased by a large and rapidly extending area devoted to the production of peanuts and highland rice. With the exception of a limited supply of the former article, grown above Wilmington, there was seen in other communities only a few small patches for the use of the family, but with no design of sale or shipment. In many eastern counties the fields of peanuts are, of late year, almost as numerous as those of cotton. The same history belongs to the highland rice. This great staple of human diet is rapidly becoming a favorite crop, and mills for its preparation are fast making their appearance in different localities.

15. Nowhere else in the State has there been so great an increase in trade as in the city of Wilmington. Many ships from foreign ports began to visit Cape Fear River, and, from different cities in other States, regular lines of steam packets were established, which greatly facilitated the means of communication.

16. Repeated appropriations, but never in sufficient amount, were made from time to time by the United States Congress for the improvement of Cape Fear and other watercourses in North Carolina. The closing of New Inlet is believed to be entirely efficacious in the effort to deepen the approach by way of the river's mouth. A stone barrier of great length and stability shuts off the flow of water, except past Fort Caswell, and the happiest results are already realized.

17. In the city of New Bern another shipping point of importance had been largely developed in the years since the close of the war. There, too, is the terminus of prosperous freight lines, employing many large steam vessels, that yet ply regularly between Neuse River and cities beyond the borders of the State.

A great trade in lumber and garden produce is improved by cotton and other factories, that add largely to the population and means of the city.

QUESTIONS:

1. How was the State excited in 1876?

2. What was the result of this election?

3. What is said of the events of the past few years?

4. How have the agricultural pursuits of the State been benefited?

5. What are the most important employments in a State? What are some of North Carolina's commercial advantages?

6. What was the financial condition of the people at the close of the war?

7. What is said of Raleigh as a trade centre?

8. In what way did trade matters begin to improve at the capital?

9. What else is said of North Carolina's commercial prospects?

What advantage has Raleigh derived from the Cotton Exchange?

10. What is said of the Israelites?

11. What new enterprise was inaugurated in 1878? What have been the results of the hatchery? What fact has been proven concerning fish?

12. What is said of the improvement in the means of catching fish?

13. What other species of trade is found in the eastern counties?

14. What is said of the production of peanuts?

15. Can you tell something of the growth and trade of Wilmington?

16. How has the navigation of the Cape Fear River been improved?

17. What other seaport city is now mentioned? What is said of its commercial interests?

CHAPTER LXXII.

THE RAILROADS AND NEW TOWNS.

A. D. 1879.

1879.

The Raleigh & Gaston Railroad originally connected the two places that gave name to the route. It was necessary in reaching Raleigh from the Albemarle region to go to Weldon, and then, by the Petersburg Railroad, the junction in Greenville county, Virginia, gave access by a short line to Gaston. It was not until about 1853 that the Raleigh & Gaston route was extended directly down the Roanoke River to Weldon. This was a great facility to both trade and travel on this important line, yet twenty years elapsed in the progress of internal communication before this short link could be added.

2. A great trunk line, extending east and west through the whole length of the State, has long been a favorite scheme of many statesmen in the effort to build up a seaport at Beaufort. But in the progress of the late war it became all-important to the Confederate government to tap the North Carolina Road at Greensboro, in order that troops and military freights might be speedily conveyed to Petersburg and Richmond by way of Danville.

3. The completion of the lines leading from Charlotte to Wilmington, from Charlotte to Statesville, from Raleigh to Hamlet, the Cape Fear & Yadkin Valley from Fayetteville to Greensboro; and the Western North Carolina Road from Salisbury to Asheville, and the Paint Rock branch, have enormously increased the facilities for travel in the State. In addition to these lines, new routes from Jamesville to Washington, from Rocky Mount to Tarboro, from Norfolk to Elizabeth City and Edenton, from Durham to Chapel Hill, from Henderson to Oxford, from Goldsboro to Smithfield, have also been recently added to the railway system.

4. The road from Winston to Greensboro has resulted in the creation of a city alongside of ancient Salem which is, in every respect the compeer of Durham in the swiftness of its growth and the amount of its trade and manufactures. Winston, Durham and Reidsville have arisen almost like magic, and are expanding into such importance that Charlotte, Salisbury and Greensboro have all felt the consequences of their growth in trade and population.

5. The city of Charlotte has greatly prospered and has become important for its large trade and railway interests. Perhaps, nowhere else in the State have the citizens of a city shown greater enterprise. Its merchants, lawyers and editors have all won the respect and admiration of other communities, and have raised their city to such prosperity that it is now rapidly becoming a rival of Wilmington and Raleigh, and taking place in the front rank among North Carolina's emporiums.

6. One of the most remarkable scenes ever witnessed in North Carolina was the famous centennial anniversary of the signing of the Mecklenburg Declaration. It filled Charlotte with thousands of visitors, among whom were the Governors of several States and many other distinguished American citizens. Ex-Governor W. A.

Graham, Judge John Kerr, Governor Brogden and others delivered orations, and the citizen-soldiers of the State were gathered to do honor to an event "that had made Charlotte forever sacred to history and song." This occurrence was, of course, on May 20th, 1875, and just one hundred years later than the concourse ordered by Colonel Thomas Polk.

7. Fayetteville, Asheville and Statesville have also afforded remarkable instances of thrift and expansion in the busy latter years of our State's history. Now, besides being a favorite resort as a watering place, supplements its summer festivities with large numbers of visitors avoiding the rigors of winter months elsewhere. It is becoming a railway centre and is fast developing a large and lucrative trade.

8. The tendency toward the erection of manufactories and the recent influx of foreign immigrants are happy auguries for the continued prosperity and growth of towns in the State. The wondrous diversity of products of the soil, the extent of the forests and the richness of the mines, all combine to demonstrate the ease with which the success of other American states can be rivalled in our own.

9. Already the mountains have been pierced by the railway from Salisbury. Other lines from Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee are being constructed, so that every portion even of the mountainous region will soon be within easy reach of the markets of the world. The Cranberry iron ores, the matchless Mica quarries and the Corundum deposits are all being made available to commerce, and will realize valuable returns for the capital employed upon them.

10. Not the least remarkable among the new industries of the western counties is the collection and shipment of Ginseng and other valuable medicinal roots and herbs. A firm in Statesville have been, for years past, employing large capital in this business, which seems capable of indefinite extension. The preparation of dried fruits is another lucrative addition to the resources of the same region.

11. Years ago, attention was called to the fact that at certain elevations in the mountains there was no frost to be seen at any period of the year; and this immunity has been turned to valuable account by the fruit growers, and now great orchards are found in many parts of the westerns counties, and shipments of very fine apples show the cultivation given to them.

12. North Carolina is not only the original habitation of the Scuppernong grape, but also of the luscious Catawba. This latter fine fruit, which has proven so valuable to the nurseries of Cincinnati, is at home in this lat.i.tude.

13. Yadkin county was, before 1860, famous for the production of a stronger beverage, derived from rye and corn. Since the war many distilleries have been carried on in the State, in spite of the government regulations that carry so many men as culprits to the Federal prisons. The offenders, known as "Moonshiners," are those who make and sell whisky without paying the United States for a license in the trade. These transgressors of the law have for years been hunted like Italian bandits or ferocious wild beasts, and not unfrequently blood has been shed in defence of the hidden distilleries and quite as often in attacking them and their owners.

14. In February of this year the Secretary of State, Joseph A.

Engelhard, died, after a brief illness. In the death of Major Engelhard, the State sustained a great loss. As a soldier he was faithful, capable and brave. At once made a conspicuous leader in the fierce struggles that followed the war by his control of a prominent journal, he proved ever courageous, far-seeing and of rare judgment. And to him, for the happy termination of those terrible struggles, the State owes a deep debt of grat.i.tude that now, unhappily, she can repay only in honorable remembrance.

QUESTIONS.