You might want to put Seagrove, N.C., on your bucket list

Keep your eye on Seagrove in Randolph County, N.C. It’s a little town in the middle of the state with a “rural quality of life” that’s out the wazoo. 

Seagrove is peaceful, pretty and quiet…yet quirky. Its residents include a slew of creative artists who make and sell decorative pottery. Seagrove claims to be the “home of America’s largest community of working potters.”

 

The official population of Seagrove hovers around 240, but the place rocks during the peak of “arts and crafts tourism season” – mainly October-December.

 

Ben Owen III

Seagrove might be suggestive of an ocean view, but Randolph County is a good hike from the coast – about 230 miles west of Morehead City. 

The town was meant to be named after Edwin G. Seagroves, a civil engineer who was employed by railroad investor Allison Francis Page. Seagroves was tasked to oversee construction of 56 miles of railway between Aberdeen and Asheboro in 1896. 

A train depot was planned to be built near Henry Yow’s general store, and it needed a name. Page was so enamored by Edwin Seagroves’ work that he chose to make this depot his namesake. 

However, the sign painter failed to “plan ahead” and ran out of space – dropping the ‘s’ from the end of the name. The error was never corrected. The depot as well as the town have been “Seagrove” ever since. 

The early Seagrove potters capitalized on Randolph County’s thriving moonshining industry during the Prohibition era. Somebody had to make all those liquor jugs for the moonshine still owners. 

The late Dr. George W. Troxler, an Elon University history professor, credits Jacques and Juliana Busbee of Raleigh with “saving the pottery industry in Randolph and Moore counties from extinction” in 1921 when they opened Jugtown Pottery near Seagrove. 

“Jacques Busbee had studied art and design in New York City,” Dr. Troxler said. “His wife, Juliana, a photographer and illustrator, had actively promoted folk crafts as chair of the art department of the Federation of Women’s Clubs of North Carolina.” 

For several years, the Busbees collected work from local potters and shipped those items to New York, selling the pottery at a tearoom in Greenwich Village operated by Juliana. 

“They hired and trained young potters to preserve the traditional shapes and glazes. Several Jugtown potters later started their own pottery studios,” Dr. Troxler said. 

Two of Seagrove’s best master potters spent time at Jugtown – Charlie Teague and Ben Owen. 

Jugtown is now owned by Vernon Owens and his wife, Pam Owens. Their children, Travis and Bayle (from the fifth generation of family potters), are carrying on the legacy.

 

Travis Owens

Today, the North Carolina Pottery Center in Seagrove is basically a state “welcome center” devoted solely to pottery. 

The center will celebrate its 25-year anniversary in 2023, with a goal of reinforcing its stature as the “gateway through which visitors enhance their appreciation of North Carolina’s world-class clay culture.”

Crystal King

 

Visitors are encouraged to tour North Carolina’s “Pottery Road Scenic Byway” (N.C. Route 705) that connects about 100 ceramic shops, pottery studios and galleries in the area. 

American pottery guru Jack Troy says North Carolina rules. “No other state has such a highly developed pottery-consciousness,” he remarked. 

A “suburb” of Seagrove is Why Not. This settlement dates back to 1860. Residents got together to try to select a name. Lots of names were suggested. Why not name it this and why not name it that? 

Alfred Yow finally spoke up: “Let’s name us ‘Why Not’ and let’s go home.” They did…and they did.

North Carolina Zoo was home to famous ‘Astrochimp’

One of the most famous residents of the North Carolina Zoo in rural Randolph County was Ham, the first chimpanzee launched into space by NASA on Jan. 31, 1961.

The famous “Astrochimp” spent his golden years at the North Carolina Zoo. He moved in on Sept. 25, 1980, making Ham one of the first chimpanzees to occupy the facility, which opened in 1979. 

Here’s his story:

Ham was born in 1957 in Cameroon, a nation in central Africa that borders the Gulf of Guinea. As a youngster and an orphan, he was captured by trappers and sold to a dealer in Miami, Fla., who specialized in supplying exotic animals to zoos. 

Ham was destined to enter military service, however. He was acquired in July 1959 by the U.S. Air Force for $457 and reported to Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, N.M., for his basic training. 

The Air Force had assembled 40 chimpanzee flight candidates at Holloman, part of Project Mercury, in advance of sending human astronauts into space. 

Ham was one of the youngest participants…and the brightest. He advanced to the head of the class of astrochimps. The group underwent 18 months of training at Holloman Aerospace Medical Center. So, his name was a bit of an acronym. 

What’s more, Ham was trained chiefly by Lt. Col. Hamilton “Ham” Blackshear. Journalist Jeff Cunningham said that Blackshear “had a warm father-son relationship with the chimp and taught him everything he knew about space.” 

The Holloman airmen had nicknamed Ham as “Chop Chop Chang,” but he was officially listed in the flight program as “No. 65,” supposedly to shield Ham’s identity…if the space flight mission were to fail. 

Ham, at age 3-and-a-half, blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 11:55 a.m. on Jan. 31, 1961. 

The flight did not go 100% as NASA had planned. The mission was supposed to reach an altitude of 115 miles above Earth and experience a top speed of 4,400 miles per hour. 

Glitches with the booster acceleration switch caused the spacecraft carrying Ham to soar to a height of 157 miles while traveling up to 5,000 miles per hour. 

Ham experienced weightlessness for about 6 and a half minutes during the flight that spanned 16 minutes and 39 seconds. 

Ham’s descent was more rapid than anticipated, and he plunked down into the Atlantic Ocean about 122 miles off target. His only physical injury was a bump on the nose. Ham was awarded an apple and half an orange for his effort.

 

While in space, Ham performed all his NASA flight tasks correctly. His courage and heroism paved the way for Alan Shepard’s journey into space a few months later on May 5, 1961.

 

Ham was officially discharged from his Air Force duty in 1963 and spent the next 17 years of his life at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. His relocation to the North Carolina Zoo in 1980 presented some socialization challenges. But he quickly mastered the skills required to live in a chimpanzee society. 

Ham suffered from chronic heart and liver disease and died in January 1983 at age 26, His remains were buried at the International Space Hall of Fame in Alamogordo. A small plaque at the grave site reads, “Ham proved that mankind could live and work in space.” 

The late Dr. Carole Noon, a renowned American anthropologist and primatologist, once said that the Air Force chimpanzees used in the early days of space research “bravely served their country. They are heroes and veterans.” 

(Below are photos of chimpanzees that curretly reside at the North Carolina Zoo.)

N.C. Zoo observes milestone anniversary on June 7

June 7, 2023 is the 50-year anniversary of the arrival of the first animals at the North Carolina Zoological Park in rural Randolph County. They were two female Galápagos Giant Tortoises that were named Tort and Retort.

 

North Carolina’s Lt. Gov. Jim Hunt was there to greet the endangered reptiles in 1973.

 

The pair of 400-pound tortoises had hatched from eggs that belonged to Evelia Burr of Concord. (The species is native to the Galápagos Islands, which straddle the equator in the South Pacific Ocean, roughly 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador.) 

The zoo held a “Name the Tortoises” contest. More than 2,000 entries were received. 

In the zoological arena, animals sometimes are moved around to other facilities. This was the case with Tort and Retort. Tort died in 2016 at age 60 at the St. Augustine (Fla.) Alligator Farm Zoological Park. (Retort’s whereabouts remains a mystery.) 

Much more is known about the zoo’s first gorilla. He was Ramar, and he came with a celebrity’s resume. He had appeared on “The Merv Griffin Show” television program.

 

Ramar also starred in TV commercials for American Tourister luggage in 1970. The film crew gave Ramar a red suitcase to “play with.” 

He stomped on it, hurled it across his cage and banged it against the bars, walls and cement floor. Ramar utterly tried to destroy the prop. But the piece of luggage always won. 

Writing for Our State magazine, Michael Graff reported: “Ramar was funny. People liked Ramar. He showed personality. His face had expressions. He blinked. He walked upright. He grabbed things with opposable thumbs. He was different in that he was like us. People came from miles around to see him. He was the first star of the North Carolina Zoo.” 

“The zoo brought in several females to breed with Ramar. They did their best to woo him. But as personable as he was on television, he was standoffish about his first mate. He never showed interest in any of them,” Graff said.  

Ramar was “transferred” in 1998 to Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, where he eventually achieved romantic success. He sired several baby gorillas there before he died in 2018 at age 50. 

C’sar, a floppy-eared juvenile African elephant, arrived at the North Carolina Zoo in July 1978. “He grew up to become the zoo’s premier rock star,” reported the Winston-Salem Journal.

 

C’sar is scheduled to celebrate his 49th birthday this July. He is the oldest African elephant in all of North America, zoo officials say. C’sar stays fit by regularly practicing yoga with his trainers. 

Angus Mercer of Charlotte was seeking to build awareness for his construction equipment business in 1978, and his public relations consulting firm recommended that he sponsor an animal at the new North Carolina Zoo. It was a $12,000 investment. 

“I suggested a giraffe,” Mercer told the Journal reporter, “because I had my neck stuck so far out financing all the equipment to get the business going.” 

The PR firm responded: Go with an elephant. “The elephant has charisma. It has charm. It has all those wrinkles and those big ears and giant feet. And that trunk, deft enough to pick up a dime and strong enough to rip down a tree limb. People are mesmerized by elephants.”

 

Mercer agreed, and the elephant was to be named C’Sar (pronounced say-zahr), sort of an acronym for Mercer’s business – Contractors Service and Rentals. 

“We’ve always loved telling people we have an elephant in the family,” said Kathy Everidge, one of Mercer’s four daughters.

Here’s the scoop on how the N.C. Zoo came to be

One of the Old North State’s great success stories is the public/private partnership that created the North Carolina Zoo in Randolph County, south of Asheboro. The idea began to percolate nearly 60 years ago.

Mary Esther Baker of Visit NC Concierge in Raleigh recently shared a bit of zoo history. Her friend Bob Leak Sr. of Winston-Salem was working for the state as an economic development specialist in 1964, when Dan K. Moore, an attorney from Asheville, was elected as North Carolina’s governor.

 

Mary Esther Baker

Bob Leak was asked to “strategize about ideas for creating something for which Gov. Moore would be remembered,” Baker said. “Bob thought about it for a minute and suggested that North Carolina establish a zoo. He thought that would be a fitting legacy for Gov. Moore.”

 

Gov. Moore

“Whenever Bob traveled across the country recruiting business and industry, the people he spoke with were always impressed with the fact that North Carolina supported a state symphony, a state art museum and a state history museum. Why not a state-supported zoo, he thought?” 

“Gov. Moore liked Bob’s idea and authorized him to do additional research,” Baker said. “Bob called the American Association of Zoological Parks and Aquariums, seeking guidance on how to proceed. They were elated. They told him there were no state zoos in the country.” 

“First of all, a study needed to be done to determine location. The cost of that study was $50,000. When Bob reported back, Gov. Moore told him regretfully there were no monies available for the study, and the idea would have to be shelved,” Baker reported. 

“Within about a month of that ‘shelving,’ Norwood Pope of Raleigh, president of the North Carolina Jaycees and confidant of Gov. Moore, shared with the governor that the Raleigh Jaycees chapter was hosting the first NFL exhibition game in North Carolina and would be donating the proceeds to a ‘worthy cause.’” 

The Jaycees wanted a state zoo, too, so the “worthy cause” was no secret.

 The inaugural Jaycees Charity Classic football game was played Aug. 19, 1967, under the lights at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh. Some 33,525 fans paid $6 per ticket to watch the Washington Redskins tangle on the gridiron with the New York Giants. 

The game was hyped as a “homecoming” for Wilmington-born Christian Adolph “Sonny” Jurgensen III, who played college ball at Duke University and was the Redskins’ starting quarterback. He led his squad to a 31-13 win over the Giants, who featured Francis Asbury “Fran” Tarkenton as its quarterback.

(Jurgensen and Tarkenton were inducted into the National Football League’s Hall of Fame.)

Baker said the Jaycees cleared way more money on the game than the zoo study would cost, so Gov. Moore told Bob Leak to schedule the study. 

The General Assembly created the North Carolina Zoological Authority in 1969, during Gov. Moore’s final year in office, and the site selection process got underway. 

In 1971, the group selected a wooded parcel at Purgatory Mountain in Randolph County, almost smack-dab in the middle of the state. Immediately thereafter, a regional group of business leaders raised $435,000 to plow into the project to bring the necessary infrastructure to the site. 

The kingpin in this effort was William David Steadman of Asheboro, president of Stedman Corporation, a prominent textile and apparel manufacturing firm.

 

David Steadman

Today, the North Carolina Zoo is the world’s largest natural habitat zoo. The zoo employs 225 full-time workers and more than 400 during the peak visitor season and generates more than $184 million a year in economic activity.

 

Pack your gear to visit Purgatory Mountain

Some people travel to North Carolina’s Randolph County to hike miles of varied trails on Purgatory Mountain, which is haunted by a daunting Civil War “head hunter.”

 

Many more people go to Purgatory Mountain, though, in search of elephants like “Louie,” who lives in a dream land at the North Carolina Zoo.

 

During the Civil War, the Confederate army employed Peter Garner to round up draft dodgers and deserters. He was ruthless and was nicknamed “The Hunter.” He got “paid by the head” for the men he snagged and put into a gray uniform. 

Garner was killed by a group of young Quakers who had escaped from his custody, “The Hunter,” however, lives on in spirit to seek his revenge among those who dare tread on Purgatory Mountain. 

Dr. Betsy Roznik, an associate curator at the zoo, invites visitors to take time to “see both sides” of Purgatory Mountain.

 

“In addition to maintaining the world’s largest natural habitat zoo on a heavily wooded 2,600-acre site, we preserve more than 2,000 acres of undeveloped land near the zoo and are actively working to manage and restore these lands,” Dr. Roznik said. 

“These protected areas provide excellent habitat for many plants and animals and provide important corridors that allow animals to move safely through the landscape.” 

Dr. Roznik said: “Amphibians such as spotted salamanders, cricket frogs, spring peepers and gray treefrogs thrive on Purgatory Mountain. Trail cameras have spotted larger animals including racoons, Virginia opossums, white-tailed deer, bobcats and gray foxes.” 

“Many snakes, such as copperheads, black racers, eastern hognose snakes and rare timber rattlesnakes, can be found basking in sunny spots,” she added. 

“After experiencing the scenic beauty of the area, Purgatory Mountain will seem more like heaven,” Dr. Roznik said.

 

Louie is a 20-year-old male African elephant, who was born in 2003 at the Toledo (Ohio) Zoo. He was relocated to the North Carolina Zoo in 2021. Zookeepers are hopeful that Louie will forge a romantic relationship with one of the female elephants and produce offspring.

 

(There are private hideaways within the zoo’s 40-acre Wantani Grasslands Reserve section where the elephants roam.) 

“Louie’s one handsome guy,” remarked Nancy Kauffman, the zoo’s animal management supervisor. He also is known to have “a great personality.” Time will tell.

 

The zoo is operated by the State of North Carolina’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Centrally located just a few miles south of Asheboro, the zoo set a new attendance record in 2022, receiving more than 1 million visitors.   

Members of the North Carolina Aquariums might want to expand their horizons and visit the zoo this year. It’s about a 220-mile drive from Morehead City to Asheboro, so you might want to pack a bag and make it an excursion. 

By a reciprocal arrangement, Aquarium members qualify for free admission to the zoo. Just show the cashier your membership card and photo ID. Zoo hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Within the North America and Africa sections, there are 1,700 animals representing more than 250 species. 

A 10-acre Asia exhibit is now under construction. The expansion project is expected to be completed in 2026. Zoo officials say the new exhibit “will highlight species such as tigers, Komodo dragons, Visayan warty pigs, white-cheeked gibbons, Asian small-clawed otters, red-crowned cranes, wrinkled hornbills, king cobras and Chinese giant salamanders in natural habitat settings.”

 

Jennifer Ireland, the zoo’s curator of mammals, said she is most excited about the warty pigs, “critically endangered animals from the southeastern areas of Asia.”

Haunted Purgatory Mountain has Civil War connection

Purgatory Mountain in North Carolina’s Piedmont Crescent region occupies a special chapter in the Old North State’s weighty Civil War tome. 

Located within the Uwharrie Mountains in Randolph County, Purgatory Mountain is about 935 feet above sea level. The mountain is haunted by the ghost of Peter Garner, who was known simply as “The Hunter.” 

Charles Jeffery Haithcock of the NC History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation & Reconstruction said Garner’s primary role during The War Between the States was as a “Confederate conscriptionist.” 

The Confederacy required “compulsory military service” for all men old enough to fight. Those who chose not to comply or deserted from the Confederate army were targets of “The Hunter” and his detachments, Haithcock said. 

Storyteller Cassie Clark said: “‘The Hunter’ was a big, blackhearted scoundrel with black eyes and a black beard. He was paid by the head for every draft dodger and deserter he captured.”

 

North Carolina was split between pro-Unionists and pro-Confederates, and Randolph County was especially “on the fence,” stated historian William T. Auman. He wrote extensively about Randolph County’s “Inner Civil War.” 

Randolph County was “primarily a rustic yeoman and artisan society that stood in marked contrast – socially, culturally and economically – to the slave-owning, planter-dominated society of the eastern coastal plains,” Auman said. 

Fewer than 10% of Randolph County’s population was enslaved – one of the lowest in the state. At the same time, Randolph County was the heart of North Carolina’s “Quaker Belt.” Randolph County had at least 16 active Religious Society of Friends meetings, the most of any county in North Carolina.

 

Historian Doris McLean Bates said that the Quakers opposed war and violence, “and they did not want to fight to preserve slavery.” 

There are variations on the legend of “The Hunter,” but as Clark tells it: “The Quakers in prayer were easy prey.” 

On a Sunday morning, “The Hunter” kicked in the doors of the meeting house in a Quaker settlement near Asheboro, Clark said. “His men followed with rifles raised. Twenty-two young men of the congregation were captured and marched out of town at gunpoint.” 

In Wilmington, the young Quakers would be exchanged for cash. They traveled for days on end. One evening, the group made camp on a small farm…and after “The Hunter” and his men were well-oiled with whiskey…the 22 Quakers made a dramatic escape, taking the sleeping men’s rifles with them. 

“Traveling back to Randolph County, it took a month for them to reach the safety of the Uwharries,” hiding in the dense forests, mountain caves and abandoned mines, Clark said. 

They knew “The Hunter” would pursue them. He did, and in a billowing voice that echoed from the ridges to the valleys, he vowed to kill every Quaker in the county, 

“Facing an impossible choice, the young men held a meeting that evening,” Clark said. “Though it went against their core beliefs, they decided ‘The Hunter’ was too dangerous to live. Straws were drawn, and the three who drew the shortest left camp, headed down the hill with their Confederate rifles.” 

“Just as the dawn broke over the mountain, three shots rang out. The Hunter was shot and killed. All 22 Quakers swore to never reveal the identities of those who pulled the trigger. It was a pledge they kept to their dying day.” 

Still, on Purgatory Mountain, the ghost of a big man with black eyes and a black beard roams in the darkness. “The Hunter” is stalking through the woods, constantly looking for the young Quaker lads.

Civil War didn’t end at Appomattox Court House

When several southern states seceded from the Union in the early 1860s, the Confederacy “gained many fine naval officers, but few seaworthy warships,” wrote Mike Markowitz of the Defense Media Network. 

Stephen Russell Mallory, a former U.S. Senator from Florida, became “the Confederacy’s creative naval secretary,” Markowitz said. “He dispatched southern agents to Europe to covertly buy fast cruisers for ‘commerce raiding.’” 

Secretary Mallory

One of those ships was the Shenandoah, built at Glasgow, Scotland, in 1863 as a state-of-the-art clipper. She was 230 feet long with three masts and a coal-burning auxiliary steam engine.

 

In a remote cove in the Madeira Islands, off the northwest coast of Africa, Confederate operatives loaded weapons and crew, Markowitz reported. 

Cmdr. James Iredell Waddell of Pittsboro, N.C., was named captain of the Shenandoah, and Lt. William Conway Whittle Jr. of Norfolk, Va., was assigned as executive officer. (Lt. Whittle was the brave skipper of the Nashville, who made history on March 17, 1862, by running the Union blockade of Beaufort Harbor.)

 

Cmdr. Waddell

“The Shenandoah was not meant to fight warships and never engaged any Union Navy vessels,” Markowitz said. “Her prey was unarmed merchant marine ships, in a Confederate strategy of ‘commerce raiding.’” 

“In the course of a 58,000-mile cruise, the Shenandoah captured a total of 38 ships. Despite taking more than 1,000 prisoners, not one was killed. Prizes that were not burned were packed with prisoners and sent into neutral ports,” Markowitz said. 

Prior to April 9, 1865, when Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Va., the Shenandoah had captured 12 merchant ships.

 

So, the vessel “did its finest work,” after Lee’s surrender, capturing 26 more ships and Yankee whalers – mostly in the fertile ground of the Bering Sea between Siberia and Alaska – during the spring and summer of 1865. 

On Aug. 3, 1865, Cmdr. Waddell learned of the Civil War’s definite end when the Shenandoah encountered a ship from Liverpool that was bound for San Francisco. 

Cmdr. Waddell lowered the Confederate flag, and the Shenandoah underwent physical alteration. Her guns were dismounted and stowed below deck, and her hull was painted to look like an ordinary merchant ship. 

Lt. Whittle sadly wrote in his diary: “No country. No flag. No home.” 

Rather than risk returning to the United States and possibly being tried in court and hanged as pirates, Cmdr. Waddell opted to surrender his ship to British authorities in Liverpool, England. He sailed around Cape Horn at the bottom of South America. It was a three-month voyage. 

The Shenandoah arrived in the Irish Sea and headed up the River Mersey to dock at Liverpool on Nov. 6, 1865. The crew raised the Confederate flag. Crowds gathered on the riverbanks to witness the surrender. 

The Confederate flag was then lowered for the very last time, under the watch of a Royal Navy detachment. Cmdr. Waddell addressed a formal letter of surrender to Lord John Russell, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 

Officers and crew of the Shenandoah were “unconditionally released” but hesitant to return to the United States. 

Cmdr. Waddell returned in 1875, when he became captain of a commercial steamer, the City of San Francisco. He carried mail and some passengers between San Francisco, Hawaii, Fiji, Australia and New Zealand. Waddell died at Annapolis, Md., in 1886. He was 61. 

Lt. Whittle returned in 1876 as captain of the Old Bay Line, which provided steamboat service between cities on Chesapeake Bay. Later, Whittle helped form the Virginia Bank and Trust in Norfolk. He died in 1920 at age 79.