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20 years later and was quite puzzled when he saw that the portrait of King George III displayed in the village inn had been replaced by the face of a fellow named George Washington.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