A look inside the N.C. Railroad board room:

Stockholders of the new North Carolina Railroad Company (NCRR) met in Salisbury in Rowan County on July 11, 1850, for the purpose of electing a board of directors.

Among those chosen to serve as directors were former North Carolina governors John Motley Morehead (shown above) of Greensboro in Guilford County and William Alexander Graham (shown below), who was born at Vesuvius Furnace near Lincolnton in Lincoln County.

 

Two of the newly elected directors were prominent local business leaders in Salisbury – John Isaac Shaver and John Bradley Lord (shown below). 

Also elected was Francis Levin Fries (shown below) of Winston-Salem in Forsyth County, an industrialist and building contractor there.

 

Two of the men who worked most closely with Morehead, touring the state to raise $1 million in private stock subscriptions, also became directors of the company. They were well-known politicians: Congressman John Adams Gilmer (shown above) of Greensboro and Judge Romulus Mitchell Saunders (shown below), who was born near Milton in Caswell County.

 

Eastern North Carolina was represented by directors Alonzo Thomas Jerkins of New Bern in Craven County and Dr. Armand John (A.J.) De Rosset of Wilmington in New Hanover County.

Jerkins, the son of a sea captain, began sailing commercial vessels between New Bern and the West Indies. He later turned his attention to land-based ventures and became a prosperous businessman. He was an incorporator of the Bank of Commerce in New Bern and became its president.

He also represented Craven County in the North Carolina House of Representatives.

Jerkins was instrumental in helping develop water transportation facilities. Besides having an interest in the Trent River Transportation Company, which ran a regular line of freight and passenger boats from the river’s mouth up to Trenton. He also held stock in the Neuse River Navigation Company, which owned and operated a steamship that ran between New Bern and Smithfield.

De Rosset graduated from Princeton University and completed his medical education at the University of Pennsylvania. At age 23, he opened a physician’s office in Wilmington.

 

Dr. De Rosset was a director of the Bank of Cape Fear for 37 years. He was also a major investor in both The Rockfish Manufacturing Company, a successful cotton mill established in Cumberland County, and the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad.

Rounding out the 10-member NCRR board was John Warwick Thomas, founder of Thomasville in Davidson County. (More on him later.)

The directors elected John Motley Morehead as NCRR’s first president.

The company hired Walter Gwynn (shown below) as chief engineer. A native of Jefferson County, W.Va., in the Shenandoah Valley, Gwynn graduated from the U.S. Military Academy and was assigned to help survey the route for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O).

 

After completing his military service in 1832, Gwynn worked as chief engineer in charge of the construction of the Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad. 

He specialized in conducting surveys for railroad and canal projects in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.

Gwynn’s qualifications and accomplishments enabled him to establish “an international reputation” as the premier railroad engineer of his time.

The NCRR’s authorizing legislation specified that the railroad would connect Charlotte to Salisbury in the west and also connect Goldsboro to Raleigh in the east. 

But the location of the track between Salisbury and Raleigh, a distance of some 100 miles, was flexible – giving Gwynn’s survey teams some leeway.

A direct line from Salisbury to Raleigh runs through Randolph and Chatham counties (Asheboro, Siler City and Pittsboro).

 

Transportation historian Michael Sheehan of Chapel Hill reported: “Gwynn’s engineering survey showed that the Uwharrie and Caraway mountains near Asheboro would present a technical challenge that would be expensive to overcome.”

“These remnants of ancient coastal mountains reached a not-insubstantial elevation of 1,800 feet above sea level (compared to 315 feet at Raleigh), and the topography around them undulated dramatically. It was difficult terrain for railroad tracks.”

“From an engineering standpoint, a slightly longer route located farther north was a better choice. In general, the northern route presented less undulation in the terrain, and the river valleys there, closer to their headwaters, tended to be narrower and shallower.”

Historian J. D. Lewis of Little River, S.C., said that Gwynn’s survey teams determined that best alternative was “to go through Alamance and Orange counties to avoid the difficult terrain farther to the south.”

So, the path would have “a bulge” as it swung north passing through Lexington in Davidson County and Greensboro in Guilford County before leveling off and entering Alamance and Orange, Lewis commented.

 

A rail station was established at the highest point along the North Carolina Railroad, with an elevation of 939 feet avbove sea level. 

This was also the intersection of the rail line with the “Great Plank Road” – the Fayetteville and Western Plank Road – that stretched 129 miles from Fayetteville in Cumberland County to Bethania near Salem in Forsyth County.

The community that grew up here in Guilford County took the name High Point. 

Lewis also noted that the original survey called for a station to be built at a small village called Prattsburg, southeast of Hillsborough in Orange County. 

But, William N. Pratt, the local landowner, asked such an exorbitant price for his land that it was prudent to relocate the railroad two miles west” on land owned by Dr. Bartlett Leonidas Snipes Durham (shown below). Dr. Durham agreed to donate 4 acres of his property to NCRR.

 

“Durham’s Station became the nucleus of the later city and county seat,” Lewis said.

Local Durham historians say that Pratt owned a notorious pit stop on the Hillsborough-to-Raleigh Road at Prattsburg. It was a “disorderly house” where “evil-disposed persons” would gather for “drinking, tippling, playing at cards and other unlawful games, cursing, screaming, quarreling and otherwise misbehaving themselves.”

But Pratt was a shrewd businessman. When he had been approached by the railroad company, Pratt was fearful that the trains would frighten his customers’ horses. So, he set a high price. Too high of a price.

Prattsburg soon faded from the maps. The railroad allowed transport of tobacco, sparking Durham’s boom and contributing to the growth of the town. Durham’s Station was incorporated in 1869 as the City of Durham.

As for John Warwick Thomas, he was in the right place at the right time. His primary occupation was prospecting. He mined precious metals near Silver Hill in Davidson County.

Thomas entered local politics in 1831 and was elected to the state senate in 1842. He was instrumental in the passage of a bill in 1849 to build the North Carolina Railroad.

As the final route was determined to pass three miles north of his house, he subsequently bought property directly along the rail line. 

Thomas built a railroad depot as well as a general store and a gristmill. His son Lewis opened a hotel directly across from the depot, and Thomas put up cabins for workmen.

“Thomas’s little community became known as Thomas Depot,” reported the archivist at the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (DNCR).

“The Town of Thomasville claims 1852 as its founding date. The Thomasville post office opened in 1853, and in 1857 the town was incorporated by the General Assembly.”

“Several new businesses moved into the town, including two shoemaking firms from Bush Hill in Randolph County. Thomas purchased the charter of Glen Anna Female Seminary, renamed it Thomas Female College, and moved the academy from its position near Lexington to a three-story brick building near his home in Thomasville in 1857,” the DNCR spokesperson said.

“Thomas also lured furniture manufacturers into the area, principally the Westmoreland and Whitehall families. The individuals provided the foundation for what later became Thomasville Furniture Industries.”

 

A Thomasville landmark is “the world’s largest Duncan Phyfe chair.” Sometimes called simply the “Big Chair,” it’s a 30-foot replica of an original design by the famous American designer Duncan Phyfe. 

Born near Loch Fannich, Scotland, he immigrated with his family to Albany, N.Y. New York, in 1784 and served as a cabinetmaker’s apprentice. Duncan Phyfe opened his own shop in New York City in 1791.

The old railroad depot in Thomasville is now a visitors center.

1849 North Carolina Railroad bill ‘saved the state’

“Even the granite Capitol in Raleigh seemed to shake with joy” on Jan. 27, 1849, when North Carolina Sen. Calvin Graves cast the deciding vote to approve funding for the North Carolina Railroad (NCRR).

 

This assessment was provided by veteran legislator Rufus Clay Barringer of Concord. 

He said that he had experienced many outbreaks of public applause in the halls of state government…but “none compared to the reaction that erupted when Sen. Graves broke the tie to ‘save the state’ and pass the railroad bill.”

Dr. Christopher Crittenden, former director of the North Carolina Department of Archives and History, reflected that in 1849 the country lacked electronic, instantaneous communications capability, “but immediately, every man and woman, every boy and girl, became a sort of message carrier. News was hastened in every possible way to every nook and corner of the state.”

 

Former Gov. John Motley Morehead, who helped champion the advantages of having a major east-west rail line from Charlotte to Goldsborough, was known to have had lobbied legislators on this issue, including Sen. Graves, but there was no evidence of any “political skullduggery.”

Sen. Graves, as senate speaker, cast the vote that broke a tie. He was loudly criticized by his constituents in Caswell County for abandoning an alternate plan to build a rail line through his home district, connecting Charlotte to Danville, Va.

 

Calvin Graves’ vote on the North Carolina Railroad bill cost him his job in the General Assembly.

He quietly exited politics…and accepted an offer from former Gov. Morehead to join the “team” being assembled to travel about the state making public appearances to raise the private capital required to match the state appropriated funds that would make the NCRR a reality.

Judge Romulus M. Saunders (shown above) and John Adams Gilmer (shown below)  were other members of Morehead’s “inner circle.”

 

Judge Saunders was a former U.S. Congressman and state superior court judge. He enjoyed enormous popularity as a “rough-and-tumble stump orator.”

Gilmer was an attorney who represented Greensboro in the state senate. He gained a reputation for “his eloquence as a public speaker.”

Transportation historian Michael Sheehan suggested that Gilmer’s influence may also have had a little something to do with the arc in the North Carolina Railroad route “so it would pass through Greensboro,” in close proximity to the Blandwood estate of former Gov. Morehead…to enable him to enjoy watching the trains go by.

This team of heavy hitters proved to be just the right combination of incredible fundraisers. Investors were eager to jump onboard.

Gov. Charles Manly (shown below) later appointed Calvin Graves as a commissioner on the N.C. Board of Internal Improvements, the body responsible for coordinating public investment in transportation projects such as roads, railroads, canals, harbors and river navigation.

 

When the formal groundbreaking for the NCRR occurred on July 11, 1851, in Greensboro, it was Calvin Graves who was given the honor of turning the first spade of soil. Thousands attended, giving Graves a hero’s ovation.

After all the speechifying and ritualistic gestures, “the assembled crowd got down to the real business of celebration – North Carolina style – by dining on barbecue,” according to Sheehan.

The construction project was finally completed in January 1856, establishing a railroad line that extended 223 miles, linking Charlotte to Goldsborough.

Dr. Crittenden interviewed Robert Lindsay Morehead of Winston-Salem, great-great grandson of form Gov. Morehead. “I think North Carolina today would be like Arkansas and Mississippi, underdeveloped, if Graves hadn’t voted as he did,” Robert Morehead said.

“The railroad really changed the whole demographics of the state and cleared the way for all that has come later,” Robert Morehead said.

Meet the legislator who made the N.C. Railroad a reality

While former Gov. John Motley Morehead was identified as the primary figure in the development of the North Carolina Railroad (NCRR) in the early 1850s, there’s another fellow who needs a turn in the limelight.

He is North Carolina Sen. Calvin Graves of Yanceyville in Caswell County, who served as the state senate speaker.

 

It was left up to Sen. Graves to cast the deciding vote on Jan. 27, 1849, to determine whether to pass the bill in favor of building the 223-mile rail line from Charlotte to Goldsborough (as it was known then).

Writing for NCPedia, the late Dr. John L. Humber (shown below) set the stage: “Plagued from its very beginning by conflicting geographic features and political boundaries, North Carolina found it difficult to reconcile the resulting economic differences…between the eastern and western sections of the state.”

 

Railroads presented an opportunity, beginning in the 1840s, to tie the state together both economically and politically, Humber reported.

North Carolina’s first railroad in 1840 connected the port city of Wilmington to Weldon in Halifax County near the Virginia border. At 161 miles, it was the longest railroad line in the world at the time, taking on the name of the Wilmington and Weldon.

 

The new railroad passed within about a mile of the community of Waynesborough in Wayne County on the Neuse River. 

Wayne County was named in memory of U.S. Army Gen. Anthony Wayne, who a daring, aggressive military leader during the American Revolutionary War. 

Nicknamed “Mad Anthony” for his fiery temper and audacity on the battlefield, he was a trusted commander under George Washington and instrumental in securing the Northwest Territory.

Essentially, a new town formed along the railroad tracks.

The settlement was named “Goldsborough’s Junction,” honoring Maj. Matthew Tilghman Goldsborough, assistant chief engineer with the railroad line. 

(The town was incorporated in 1847 as “Goldsborough” and shortened to “Goldsboro” in 1869.)

 North Carolina’s second railroad – the Raleigh and Gaston – began operation later in 1840, running about 100 miles from Raleigh to Gaston in Northampton County, also near the Virginia boundary.

 

Both of these early railroads had a north-south orientation. They connected eastern North Carolina traders with the bountiful Roanoke River Valley and with Virginia railroads that served Norfolk and northern markets.

Storyteller Michael Sheehan (shown below) of Chapel Hill said: “Western interests felt left out of the railroad boom. If a new railroad were to run from Charlotte to Goldsborough and connect there with the Wilmington and Weldon, western products could be routed to the state’s principal seaport at Wilmington.”

 

Legislation to build the NCRR on the Charlotte to Goldsborough route was sponsored by Sen. William Shepperd Ashe of New Hanover County.

 

“On Jan. 18, 1849, the measure came to a vote in the N.C. House of Commons,” Sheehan said. “It passed on a vote of 60 in favor and 52 against; the bill moved over to a polarized senate.”

When the senate vote was called on Jan. 27, the tally revealed a 22-22 deadlock.

“All eyes turned to the front of the chamber, where on the dais sat Calvin Graves,” Sheehan said. The senate speaker “would cast the tie-breaking vote on a bill that…would define the state of North Carolina for decades to come.”

Sen. Graves’ Caswell County district bordered Virginia and sat just below Danville. 

His constituents wanted to the rail line to run from Charlotte to Danville, passing directly through Caswell County, bringing economic prosperity to the district. In Danville, the new railroad would connect with the Richmond and Danville Railroad. 

 

“Yet, Sen. Graves believed that the east-west North Carolina Railroad would bring prosperity and economic unity to the state” in a way a Charlotte-Danville railroad could not, Sheehan said.

“Without hesitation, Sen. Graves cast his tie-breaking vote in favor of the North Carolina Railroad bill,” Sheehan said. “He had weighed loyalty to his district and…his own political future…against what he saw as best for all of North Carolina.”

In the end, Sen. Graves chose “conviction over constituents,” one historian said.

John Motley Morehead stirred North Carolina’s ‘awakening’

Rip Van Winkle is a fictional character created by short story author Washington Irving in 1819. 

Old Rip fell into a deep sleep one day in the years preceding the American Revolution…after taking a few too many “nip sips” while hunting in the Catskill Mountains of New York.

Rip awoke 20 years later and was quite puzzled when he saw that the portrait of King George III displayed in the village inn had been replaced by the face of a fellow named George Washington. 

 

Rip had missed the entire struggle for independence. Pshaw.

NCPedia said North Carolina was given the derogatory nickname as the “Rip Van Winkle State” in the 1820s, because it “was so undeveloped, backward and indifferent to its condition that it appeared to be as comatose as old Rip Van Winkle.”

In recognition of his efforts to get North Carolina to “rise and shine,” Gov. John Motley Morehead, who served from 1841-45, came to be known as “the Father of Modern North Carolina.”

Born in 1796, Morehead grew up in Rockingham County, near the community of Leaksville. He was selected to attend David Stewart Caldwell’s famed “Log College” in Guilford County, a “theological and classical school for young men.” (David Caldwell is shown below.)

 

Morehead continued his education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was influenced greatly by Professor Joseph Caldwell (shown below), who also served as university president. 

(The Caldwells were unrelated.)

 

Prof. Caldwell had written mathematical analyses to show that “building a central railroad” for North Carolina, running across the entire state, “would have economic and accessibility advantages over a system of canals.”

After college, Morehead studied law with legendary jurist Archibald DeBow Murphey (shown below) and was admitted to the bar in 1819. 

 

Morehead began practicing law in Rockingham County. Morehead soon became involved in local politics and was elected to the House of Commons. After moving his law office to Greensboro, he represented Guilford County in the house.

In the 1830s, Morehead emerged as a leader in the North Carolina Whig party, which strongly supported internal improvements as one of its fundamental tenets.

Morehead won the governorship in 1840 and was reelected in 1842. As governor, he supported internal improvements, including state aid to railroad development, building highways and the improvement of navigation.

Morehead was a strong proponent of public-private partnerships to build infrastructure. He laid the groundwork for construction of an east-west railroad – the North Carolina Railroad (NCRR) – to run from Charlotte to Goldsboro.

In 1849, the state legislature approved a bill authorizing the state to purchase $2 million of NCRR stock, leaving $1 million of stock for purchase by private citizens. Former Gov. Morehead was selected as the first president of the railroad in 1850.

 In 1854, when construction costs exceeded expectations due to the rising cost of iron, former Gov. Morehead called upon legislators to provide increased funding. His “Tree of Life” speech resonated among the lawmakers. He said:

“Let the North Carolina Railroad, like a huge tree, strike its roots deeply into the shore of the Atlantic, and be moistened by its waters, and at last stretch its noble trunk through the center of the state, and extend its overshadow and protecting branches through the valleys and along the mountain tops of the west, until it becomes, indeed, the Tree of Life to North Carolina.”

The legislature responded by committing an additional $1 million to “Gov. Morehead’s railroad.”

The Raleigh Register newspaper commended the General Assembly’s action, lauding the arrival of “a great system of internal improvements” that “will shake off the incubus of lethargy and sloth for which we as a people have become proverbial.”

Morehead City’s namesake was ‘Father of Modern N.C.’

On Feb. 20, 1861, the Town of Morehead City was officially incorporated by the North Carolina General Assembly – 165 years ago.

 

Morehead City townspeople gleefully celebrated the accomplishment. It’s too bad that former Gov. John Motley Morehead, whose home was in Greensboro, was unable to attend.

He was busy working to avoid a civil war. 

Morehead was one of North Carolina’s five delegates who were sent to the “Peace Conference of 1861,” which met from Feb. 4-27, 1861, in Washington, D.C.

 

Its purpose was to try to arrive at a last-ditch solution that would keep the North and the South as one union.

Also representing North Carolina at the conference were political stalwarts of the day – Daniel Moreau Barringer of Poplar Grove in Cabarrus County, David Settle Reid of Reidsville in Rockingham County, George Davis of Porters Neck in New Hanover County and Thomas Hart Ruffin of Louisburg in Franklin County. (They are shown is descending alphabetical order.)

 

Clearly, a compromise between the “free and slave” states wasn’t in the cards. Although he had hoped war could be avoided, former Gov. Morehead “reluctantly served” in the Confederate Congress during 1861-62.

Perhaps former Gov. Morehead’s greatest contribution toward the Civil War was in helping to end it.

 He did so in 1865, when he was called upon by North Carolina’s sitting Civil War governor – Zebulon B. Vance (shown below) – to broker North Carolina’s “political surrender” on May 2, 1865.

This necessary action followed the military surrender of Confederate troops at Bennett Place near Durham, where Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston (shown above) agreed to terms with Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman (shown below) on April 26, 1865.

 

(Their agreement disbanded all active Confederate forces in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, totaling 89,270 soldiers, which was the largest military surrender during the Civil War.)

Former Gov. Morehead welcomed Gov. Vance into his Blandwood manor at his in Greensboro. 

Two Union generals were also present – Jacob Dolson Cox (shown above) and John Schofield (shown below).

 

Meeting in the main parlor of the Morehead homeplace, the parties agreed to accept Gov. Vance’s offer to surrender. The Union generals dismissed Gov. Vance; he was free to go and join his family.

This was former Gov. Morehead’s final deed of public service. He died in 1866 at age 70.

 

North Carolina Gov. James G. Martin, who served from 1985-93, said former Gov. Morehead “rightfully earned the lasting distinction as the ‘Father of Modern North Carolina.’”

“My job as governor was easier,” Martin said, “because I could stand on the shoulders of John Motley Morehead (governor from 1841-45) and his legacy in transportation, education, manufacturing, architecture and preservation.”

“Gov. Morehead was an energetic visionary, intellectual and persuasive 19th-century lawyer, statesman, legislator, farmer, pioneer manufacturer and business administrator with a talent for leadership.”

“Clearly, Morehead’s most enduring and significant contribution to the economic development of North Carolina was to charter, fund and construct the North Carolina Railroad,” former Gov. Martin stated.

“He engineered an amazing public-private partnership that established the 317-mile rail corridor from Charlotte through the Piedmont, passing directly through Greensboro within sight of his beloved home, Blandwood, eventually reaching the port city named in his honor.”

“How fitting that John Motley Morehead was born on the Fourth of July in 1796, just 20 years after we declared our independence from England.”

It counterbalances, in a way, the fact that America lost three U.S. “founding fathers” presidents on Independence Day.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826. James Monroe died on July 4, 1831.

They were in the same “great Americans” league as John Motley Morehead.

Morehead’s legacy, and place in North Carolina history, is a topic for further exploration. 

While serving as governor from 1841-45, he is largely credited with the “awakening” of North Carolina, rousting it from a “Rip Van Winkle” stupor.

A white marble bust of John Motley Morehead is on display in the rotunda of the first floor of the North Carolina State Capitol in Raleigh. 

Dedicated on Dec. 4, 1912, this sculpture was created by Frederick Wellington Ruckstull, a French-born American artist and sculptor.