Sandhills’ Families: Early Reminiscences of the Fort Bragg Area Cumberland, Harnett, Hoke, Moore, Richmond, and Scotland Counties, North Carolina by Lorraine V. Aragon February, 2000 Cultural Resources Program Environmental and Natural Resources Division Public Works Business Center Fort Bragg, North Carolina Cover painting by Martin Pate, Newnan, Georgia. XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, North Carolina Dedication and Acknowledgments This research project is dedicated to the kind Sandhills people who gave their time and cooperation to facilitate its accomplishment. It also is dedicated to their kin and ancestors: to all the remarkable individuals who ever lived or worked on the vast, beautiful, and difficult lands purchased by the United States Army to become Fort Bragg. The implementation of this oral history project would have never occurred without the support of Dr. Lucy A. Whalley of the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratories, and Wayne C.J. Boyko, Beverly A. Boyko, and William H. Kern of the Fort Bragg Cultural Resources Program. Excellent project assistance was provided by Beverly A. Boyko, W. Stacy Culpepper, and William H. Kern at Fort Bragg, and by Mark Cooke, Larry Clifton Skinner, and Elizabeth Eguez Grant at East Carolina University. I am further grateful to Charles L. Heath, Joseph M. Herbert, and Jeffrey D. Irwin of the Fort Bragg Cultural Resources Program for their input on logistical and historical data. Lorraine V. Aragon, Ph.D. East Carolina University i Abstract This project contributes to historical documentation of Fort Bragg lands through archival research and oral history interviews with descendants of early settlers of the area prior to its purchase by the United States Government. Approximately two hundred individuals of African, European, and Native American descent were contacted for information about their family ties to Fort Bragg lands. Of this total, twenty-four individuals were available and considered good potential sources of information about varied regions of the reservation or about families with diverse social histories. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and tape-recorded for detailed analysis. Interviewees were questioned about their genealogy, familial subsistence patterns, recollections about former building structures, aspects of social history, knowledge about cemeteries, and present ties to the Fort Bragg lands. A Transcription Summary was made of each taped interview to facilitate comparative analysis and aid future historical research. The interview Transcription Summaries and final report, which includes Brief Summaries of each interview, aim to assist future historical archaeology investigations of reservation lands as well as to contribute new data and perspectives to the general, multiethnic history of the Sandhills region. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS CAMP MACKALL & FORT BRAGG Historic Roads and Points of Interest ............. 1 INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND .......................................... 2 Introduction............................................................................................................................................2 Historic Physical Sites of Archaeological Concern................................................................................4 Native American Prehistory and Regional Group Disruptions ..............................................................5 Initial Settlement of the Fort Bragg Area by Highland Scots...............................................................10 Long Street, Sandy Grove, and Other Fort Bragg Churches ................................................................12 Pioneer Subsistence Patterns in the Sandhills ......................................................................................15 Pine Trees as Wealth: The Naval Stores Industry................................................................................17 African Americans: Enslaved and Free People of Color......................................................................19 Revolutionary War (1776-1783) in the Fort Bragg Area .....................................................................24 Antebellum Period (1783-1860) in the Fort Bragg Area......................................................................25 “War Between the States” (1861-1865) in the Fort Bragg Area ..........................................................26 Reconstruction and Subsequent Changes in the Fort Bragg Area ........................................................27 The Fort Bragg Purchase .....................................................................................................................28 RESEARCH METHODS ............................................................................................ 29 THE INTERVIEWS .................................................................................................... 31 General Overview ................................................................................................................................31 Brief Summaries of Individual Interviewees........................................................................................32 1. Mr. LeRoy HAMILTON.............................................................................................................32 2. Mr. Samuel Cameron MORRIS .................................................................................................34 3. Mrs. Margaret Cameron KEITH...............................................................................................35 4. Mr. Paul Delton GOINS..............................................................................................................35 5. Mr. Douglad McFADYEN ..........................................................................................................37 6. Mrs. Melba Cameron HICKS.....................................................................................................38 7. Mr. Julian H. BLUE ....................................................................................................................39 8. Ms. Ammie McRae JENKINS ....................................................................................................41 9. Mr. Alexander Wilbur CLARK..................................................................................................43 10. Mr. John Marshal THOMAS .....................................................................................................43 11. Mr. James Angus McLEOD........................................................................................................45 12. Mrs. Rachel McCormick BROOKS ...........................................................................................46 13. Mr. Howard L. MURCHISON...................................................................................................48 14. Mr. Marshal Levon CAMPBELL ..............................................................................................49 15. Mrs. Mary Harlan BATTEN ......................................................................................................51 16. Mr. James A. SINCLAIR............................................................................................................53 17. Mr. Charles F. HALL..................................................................................................................55 18. Mr. Leroy SNIPES.......................................................................................................................56 19. Mr. John TUCKER, Sr ...............................................................................................................57 20. Mr. Albert GOINS.......................................................................................................................58 21. Mr. Willie CARTER....................................................................................................................60 22. Mrs. Emma Louise Faulk FRYE ................................................................................................61 23. Mr. Wilson GOINS ......................................................................................................................62 24. Mrs. Vilona Whitehead BLEDSOE............................................................................................63 CONCLUSIONS.......................................................................................................... 64 Theoretical Issues.................................................................................................................................64 REFERENCES: ........................................................................................................... 70 iii CAMP MACKALL & FORT BRAGG Historic Roads and Points of Interest 1 INTRODUCTION AND with a local Indian family of the same HISTORICAL BACKGROUND name. Some records of slave ownership by local European descent settlers also Introduction exist, particularly census reports that enumerate slaves in households, and Existing historical literature privately-owned wills that bequeath concerning the Fort Bragg or “Sandhills” blacks as “property” to white family area of North Carolina focuses on early members. Additionally, this research Highland Scot settlements, battles project has found that many parcels of related to wars in U.S. history, urban land sold to the government beginning in centers such as Fayetteville (formerly 1918 can be identified through